May Bottleship
A sudden downpour left me biking home unprepared today, a fresh case of business cards clutched to my chest for fear of ruining a perfectly good print job.
Growing up in the desert I never experienced storms quite like these—soft mornings that dawn bright only to cloud over by noon, releasing a torrent of warm rain that passes almost instantly and leaves everything steaming in the heat. I love it. I came back from Alaska a week ago and everything feels a little bigger. Every day I wake up to the caroling warble of a robin who's making sure everyone knows who owns this block. I drink my tea barefoot on the porch and do the crossword.
Two nights ago I caught a massive arc of lightning from a storm across town right after turning out the light. I think Portland is doing its best to woo me into staying put.
Good as it is, there's a lot of excitement out there in the world, so I'm packing my bags once again for the latest journey. 100 Demon Dialogues comes out in bookstores and comic shops next month, and I have a hunch that everything is about to change. The emails I've been receiving from Kickstarter backers are unlike any emails I've received before. I'm having deeper, more immediate conversations with people who purchase the book at shows and signings. We confide in one another. We skip the small talk and tuck straight into the meat.
When Baggywrinkles came out I felt like I was drowning in small talk—cut off from the people I loved behind a public persona who was always chirping about the next show, the newest podcast, the exciting opportunities on the horizon. I was that robin on the block, and from within my set repertoire there was no way to say "This is wonderful, and also sometimes feels like drowning." I lost touch with how to talk to my friends as people. Somewhere between me not knowing how to switch off and friends seeing me differently as a "successful creator," I cracked.
The talk I gave at XOXO in 2016 was born of that impasse. (If you haven't seen it, you can watch it here.) It's been a year and a half since I spoke to a theater of 800 people the way I wished I could've been talking to my friends. Many of those people were my friends. Many more of them became so after the festival.
I'm still unraveling everything that changed after I gave that talk, but I think this book is the next step. It takes all the lessons I learned about fear and vulnerability and shame and exposure and translates them into a funny, fearful, real account of what it's like on the inside, even now. Even having raised all these dollars over all these years, or sold all these books, or amassed all these followers. What do they even mean in the face of holding someone's hand as they tell you what they're afraid of?
I love this work, and I love my weird career, and now I'm going on tour to meet as many people as I can and try to mix it all together into something new.
•••••
Places You Can Find Me:
- Chris Martin interviewed me about ADVENTURE for his podcast Getting Work to Work. You can listen to the episode here.
- The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) - May 12th and 13th, Tabling on the Ground Floor in the Toronto Reference Library, Table #107 (over to the left as you enter the show floor)
- Special workshop on Drawing Boats with Rebecca Mock, Sunday @ 2:45 PM in the Marriott Yorkville Ballroom
- Forest Festival of Trees - Tents K & H with the Toronto Comic Arts Festival
- Tuesday May 15th Schedule:
- Signing in Tent K from 10am-12pm
- Sketch-off with Charice Harper in Tent H from 1pm-2pm
- Wednesday May 16th Schedule:
- "How to Start Your Own Comic" in Tent H from 10am-11am
- Signing in Tent K from 11am-12pm and 1pm-1:30pm
- Tuesday May 15th Schedule:
- 100 Demon Dialogues Book Launch (event page forthcoming) - June 4th, Ford Food + Drink, 7pm-10pm
- Signing and book sales from 7pm-8pm
- Live discussion and Q&A moderated by Derek Powazek from 8pm-9pm
- REVELRY from 9pm-10pm
- Alumni College 2018 - June 6th & 7th, Reed College Reunions, Registration Required
- June 6th: "Form + Genre: Illustrated Tales"
- Session A: 10am-11:45am
- Lunch Discussion: 12pm-1pm
- Session B: 2pm-5pm
- June 7th:
- "The Business of Writing: From Crowdfunding to Working with the Big Five (and Everything in Between)" discussion with Steven Raichlen: 9am-9:50am
- June 6th: "Form + Genre: Illustrated Tales"
- 100 Demon Dialogues Book Tour - June 8th - August 1st
- Specific dates forthcoming at the start of next month, but just know I'm making a loop around the WHOLE HECKIN' COUNTRY, so if you live...anywhere I'll probably be coming somewhere close. (Got a favorite local bookshop or a weird venue you think I could do something cool with? Lemme know.)
Things I Think Are Neat:
- Packing for Toronto rekindled my love affair with knolling, which is a term I only just learned this past year. In the process of researching its history I ended up finding Todd McLellan's incredible photographs from his book Things Come Apart. Go gawk.
- Patrica Lockwood's How Do We Write Now? captures what we're all wading through this year, pinned down with poetry and fury and wit. I'm still thinking about her feeling of "being inside the poem, which is the feeling of being honey in the hive."
- To counter my earlier thoughts about small talk, you can watch my friend Anis perform a poem about making chit chat on the River Styx (and also spy me laughing and crying in in turns in the background) from a recent performance at Mother Foucault's Bookshop. (What's that? You've never been to Mother Foucault's Bookshop? Get in there. It's at the foot of the Morrison Bridge and is like visiting the study of an eccentric author-uncle you never knew you had.)
- "The best 'networks' are really made out of only acts of deep humanity." I love this line by Tess Taylor, from her article on how indie publicists work with writers. Plus Kima Jones's take on illuminating obsessions that drive her authors' work. I'm seeing a lot of that come to the fore in my own practice right now. (I'm also working with a publicist for the first time and it's magical. Say hi to Heather!)
If you'd like to keep making all this possible, you can support me monthly on Patreon, pick up something good in my store, or forward this email to a friend.
Thank you <3 I hope you're all well.
L
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