East Coast Reading, a Statue in Florida
Below, my first US reading, a memorial in Marianna, Florida, and a look at NetGalley.
A reading in Burlington
I’m excited to announce a reading of Ghosts of the Orphanage at Phoenix Books on Wednesday, March 22nd. The bookstore is half a block from the Church Street Marketplace in Burlington, Vermont, and about a mile and a half from where it all began — at St. Joseph’s Orphanage. If you’re local, I hope to see you there. More dates to be announced.
Phoenix Books offers pre-orders: Ghosts of the Orphanage.
In memoriam
With thanks to the erstwhile Albany police detective, Mike Ruede, who flagged this: a recent story in the Tallahassee Democrat about a memorial for the former residents of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida. Reform schools of the 20th century, like Dozier, functioned much like orphanages, with some of the same children spending time in both, and with little transparency to the outside world.
In 2013, anthropologists uncovered the remains of dozens of boys in a cemetery at the Dozier site. Records indicated the existence of thirty-one graves, but investigators found the remains of more than fifty individuals. In fact, escaped boys had been telling their families and authorities for decades about abuse at the school and even about deaths they had witnessed. It took many years for the government to acknowledge what had happened.
The memorial includes a statue of three boys, two grim faced young men supporting a slumped companion between them. It starkly conveys the real history of the institution and is appropriately, completely heartbreaking.
The sculptor, Frank Castelluccio, told Capitol Reporter James Call:
I wasn’t trying to make it look pretty. I was trying to make it look realistic. We’re trying to tell a story here.
The school, which was founded in 1900, closed in 2011.
NetGalley
Every time I publish a book, the book media landscape has changed dramatically since the time before. Now it’s standard for early readers to receive copies of a book via NetGalley. “Galleys” or “ARCs,” as in Advance Reading Copies, are prepublication versions of the book. They’re not meant for sale, but to give people in the industry a sense of what’s in the book and also a sense of the book as an object.
NetGalley members may be book reviewers or podcasters, but they are often just passionate readers, who post their own reviews at Goodreads.
“It is the things that nightmares are made of.”
Goodreads review of “Ghosts of the Orphanage,” February 7, 2023
For authors, reviews can be complicated. Some refuse to read them. Others get friends to look first. I write books and I review them, so for me this is a rich topic. For now, I want to say that I’m glad NetGalley exists, on this my 3rd go around. It is really moving when someone of good faith takes the time to engage deeply with the project that has been inside your head, alone, for so long.
“You will definitely need tissues.”
Goodreads review of “Ghosts of the Orphanage,” February 7, 2023