Tag Archives: St. Martin’s Press

Invasion of the Life Swappers (NYC style)

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I happen to know, based on very good intelligence, that Jack and Wendy are even now walking the streets of New York City. I can only assume their goal is to replace me and live out my life as I live out theirs. It’s like Freaky Friday, but less Jodie Foster, Barbara Harris, Lindsay Lohan, and Jamie Lee Curtises.

Luckily, I thought ahead and laid a few traps:

– I let all the other New Yorkers know to be really gruff and short-tempered. I only heard back from the cab-drivers, police officers, and subway employees… hopefully that’ll be enough.

– I pumped a lot of hot dog stink into the air and let all my pet rats go in the subway.

– That top lock to my apartment is super sticky. You’ll never get it undone.

– I told the exterminator not to bother with his monthly visit (Hint: the floor in my apartment doesn’t usually crunch like that).

But just in case this freaky Friday (not sure when this will be posted, but I wrote it on Friday!) never ends and I live out my life in Big Stone Gap while Jack and Wendy chill on my couch in Brooklyn, I’ll be making some changes around here.

– I’m now telling people that there’s a typo in Wendy’s book: “Yeah, they made a printing error. It’s supposed to say Andrew Whalen on the cover, but they misspelled it.”

– I renamed the store. You don’t want to know what it’s called now.

– All your friends? Stole ‘em.

– My proposal to rename the town Big Stone gAndrew hasn’t gained traction yet. I’m still optimistic.

But seriously, Jack and Wendy, have a nice time. And don’t eat all the pizza! I might want some later.

Editorial note from Wendy: Andrew doesn’t know that we looked up Ali Fisher, his girlfriend, and told her a few things. We praised Andrew’s increase of our 18-25 female demographic; we rarely had college girls in the shop before he came, but there’s been a veritable stream of them since his arrival. She seemed intrigued.

We also mentioned all the maternal types in town who have been dropping off stews, soups and casseroles since Andrew arrived, and how he’d gotten used to living large in a small town, his every whim catered. We suggested she bone up on a couple of “Cooking with Campbell’s Soups” recipe books we offered to send her.

If you call her tonight, Andrew, you just might be able to repair the damage….

Yarn Techie

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You know the saying, “Use your friends wisely?” I have this friend, Chelsie…

Jack and I were proud of building a Facebook page for our bookshop. We felt social media-accomplished, slick even, when we added news about my forthcoming book on independent bookstores. But when St. Martin’s Press started saying things like “you need a Twitter presence” and “what about hits from YouTube,” a sinking feeling formed in our guts.

I’d never tweeted anyone in my life; I was raised in a respectable, Southern family.

Enter Chelsie. Twentyish with a Master’s Degree in something to do with computers, she has luminous dark eyes as big as the Earth, and a dancer’s body. Men breathe hard when Chelsie wafts into a room. Plus she’s really, really smart.

Chelsie likes fashion, and cats, and anything to do with computers.

I like cats….

Chelsie offered to help – or maybe I coerced her; it’s all a bit hazy – and soon I was tweeting away, presided over a newly revamped blog, and had an Author page on Facebook connected to Goodreads, Pinterest, Youtube, Flickr and a bunch of other stuff I’d never heard of. When I inherited an iPad, she married it to my laptop with a few flicks of her long red fingernails across the keyboard.

The coolest thing about Chelsie is that she gives instruction tailored to my needs: “OK, here’s the ‘on’ switch,” is her standard opening line.

In appreciation, we try to return favors. See, Jack and I are totally the people you want to know when the apocalypse hits; we can make shoes and furniture, plus Jack is a wonderful singer, so we’re good face-to-face company.

But in a world hurtling through techspace at the speed of human thumbs on a keypad,  our skills are old-fashioned. Our tech queen is a thoroughly modern Chelsie, capable of bringing down a developing nation’s government with her blackberry if she chose. I am VERY glad Chelsie is on our side instead of Amazon’s; she could get anything she wanted online in five seconds or less, but supports local shopping–and independent bookstores in particular.

So Jack made her Indian curry, we sent tomatoes from the garden, and finally, inspired by hot pink yarn found in my stash (how did THAT get in there?!) I made her one of those all-the-rage curly scarves.

Jack photographed it modeled by Val-kyttie, bookshop manager. Chelsie tweeted a pic of herself in the scarf, but I don’t know how to get it off Instagram. (One step at a time….)


 (This was made from eyeballing one a friend brought to the shop’s Needlework Night. Chain 150 LOOSELY with an I hook using standard weight yarn; turn, chain 4, dc in fourth ch from hook, [dc, ch 1] 4 times in same ch, then [dc, ch 1] 5 times in each chain across; turn, chain 4, [dc, ch 1] in each dc across; do not turn, sc in each stitch around for a nice finished edge.)