I've been experiencing some writer's burnout, hence the gaps between entries in this blog. Tonight there's a small spider in my bathtub, and I interpret it as a message to write, and happily some writing energy has shown up to help me answer the message!

I spent 10 days in the Midwest for Thanksgiving, and while there I did a mini-book tour, mostly to get some practice for the larger crowds I'll be talking to starting in February. And partly to sell some books, which I did.

The first stop was at the ManKind Project Lodge in Madison, Wisconsin, an event organized by my brother, Tim Barry, and his friend Max Weber for the Saturday afternoon after Thanksgiving. I unfortunately didn't get to meet Max because he wound up flying to New Jersey to visit family. The Lodge is a really nice space on the lower level of an office building, and it's been very comfortably furnished with sofas and a lot of ritual objects -- various size drums, masks on the walls, bookshelves, etc.

I stayed at Tim's house in Mount Horeb, about half an hour southwest of Madison. He and I got to the Lodge about an hour early and set up the room, and I was so glad Tim was there because he set it up in a more cozy and intimate way than I think I would have. I knew I would want to read from the book, and when he suggested turning the lights down I was going to vote against it. But he found a way to use the various lights in the room to create a really nice atmosphere. He arranged the couches in a semi-circle around a high stool from his house for the author to sit on -- he took some photos that I'm hoping he'll send me that I can add here later. We placed the author's stool under one of the recessed cans so there was enough light for reading (though I was the only one of the three authors presenting who read).
 
I had 30 minutes, including a Q&A session, and had practiced my talk a good bit. I was nervous the previous day and into the morning, but by the time I got up to talk, I was quite calm and really enjoyed myself. I've been expecting for some time that I would enjoy public speaking about the book when the time came, and I'm very happy to find I was correct.

We had 11 people come from the community, plus 3 family members (Tim's wife Terese, and Cliff's daughter Megan and her partner Jocie).  I sold 8 books and 3 people asked if I might come back to Madison to lead a Shadow Work weekend, which I would absolutely love to do. I swapped books with the other two authors -- Steve Vedro (Digital Dharma) and Bill Klatte and his sister Kate (It's So Hard To Love You) -- and I'm looking forward to reading them.

The other two tour stops were in Glenview, Illinois, the town I grew up in. I didn't do enough publicity for my appearances here and still managed to get 11 people and sell 12 books. I'm very pleased with the ratio of books sold to people attending -- quite high, if I do say so myself!  For these 2 stops I also experienced some slight nervousness early in the day which had gone away by the time I started speaking. I really love talking about the book and am delighted to find I can keep my remarks short enough to match my audience's attention level.

 

One of the two stops was at the Church I grew up in, the New Church community in the section of Glenview that calls itself "the Park." My classmate Jacquie Chapman organized this event for me, and several old friends came, plus my cousin Kent, who afterward told me a few wonderful stories about my dad and my grandfather. We were interrupted, and it's on my list to phone him to hear more of those stories! 

The other stop was at the North Shore Healing Center, shown at left, a really lovely place with offices for massage therapists, yoga classes, and all like that. I knew nothing about the facility, which was arranged for by Sonja Ortman and Marilyn Jaffe, both active in the Chicago-area Woman Within community. I walked in, not knowing where in the building I was to speak, and told the receptionist, who looked at me as I might be nuts. I was looking over the array of business cards on her desk when I recognized Marilyn's name on one of the cards and discovered she was the Center's director!  I turned around to find Marilyn walking toward me -- what a lovely surprise. Marilyn and I did Woman Within together in February 1996, and I hadn't seen her in some years. She had arranged for me to use a gorgeous room on the lower level, with beautiful wood floors. To this event only 4 people came, and all of them were Quaker friends from Evanston Friends Meeting, which I attended for many years when I lived in the area.

All in all, a very good experience that gave me some great experience in talking in public, and more important, some confidence in my speaking skills and in my very genuine love of public speaking. Also some valuable experience in answering questions, including some questions I would never have expected!