How many friends does it take to launch a book?
As we enter yet another lockdown (or more like the same one, slightly tweaked, to amplify its most depressing effects), it seems like a great time to ponder friends: those we miss seeing in real life; those we have walked with while awkwardly distanced over the past months; those we raise glasses to over video calls; those whose very presence out there, somewhere, even far beyond our reach, offers comfort.
This brings me to my gratitude for all those who helped me bring an optimistic book—a spirited ode to to the riches, adventures, and even trials of friendship—into the world in the fractious year of 2020, and thus, to the following important question:
How many friends (and other willing enablers) does it take to launch a book?
In the case of my recent memoir, The Last Goldfish: A True Tale of Friendship:
19, to play a game of Toss the Book (featuring at least one unicycle and one cringe-inducing head-bonk).
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4, to join in readings and hearty, heartfelt conversation at a lively, pandemic-era launch.
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1 to send flowers.
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8, to explore friendship in literature past and present (silly and serious) for this delightful video collage.
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UNTOLD numbers of readers and members of the Women’s National Book Association to select The Last Goldfish for its list of Great Group Reads 2020.
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1 magnificent friend from youth whose life-changing companionship (and loss) forms the story of this book—and who is discussed with 1 fantastic interviewer for the Ottawa Writers Radio podcast “Living with Dying, Part 1“, from the Ottawa International Writers’ Festival.
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2 creative, encouraging, intrepid litfest crews (let’s call that at least 8 people), who made the following possible:
A video reading for THINAir2020, the Winnipeg International Writers Festival, from The Last Goldfish set in the Ottawa neighbourhood in which its first drafts were (way back in 1994) composed.
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The session “Memoir’s Companions,” my online writer’s craft talk for the Wild Writers Literary Festival (a project of The New Quarterly)—complete with props and hand-drawn title cards—about why memoir-making needn’t be nearly as isolating as, say, Covid-19.
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1 clever Biblioasis publicist plus other wonderful staff, and all those—too many to count—acknowledged in the book itself for their help and support with the actual book-making.
That makes 43 friends and enablers, not counting those generous souls who watched and listened to the readings and events above, those who read the book, bought a copy for a friend, posted about it, and so on. And not least, those who talked with me about things completely, blessedly, unrelated to books last year—you all know who you are!
My abiding thanks, and my hopes for everyone’s well-being—and heaps of great reads!—in 2021.