The End of the Line?

 

Copper Dog Books
Beverly, MA

August 31, 2023

Little Ghosts Books
Toronto, ON

September 1, 2023

One Last U.S. Event and a Special Night in Canada

It's worth noting that my stop at Copper Dog Books on August 31st was supposed to be my last stop before taking an extended break (a week), before heading to the UK. 

What propelled me to add another stop (meaning another flight, another hotel, etc.) was an incident at StokerCon 2023, in Pittsburgh, a few months prior. I was hanging in the hotel lobby, minding my business, when someone said, "Hey, Nick Cutter's at the bar."

Being a huge Cutter fan (as well as a huge Craig Davidson fan - his real name, for those who don't know), I decided to skip the Stoker Awards ceremony and hang at the bar instead. Craig had been nice enough to blurb my novel, Boys in the Valley, so I felt comfortable going up and saying hello to him and Andrew Sullivan, his co-author on their novel, The Handyman Method. Obviously, Craig was super nice and we all had many drinks and shared many stories. 

During the chat, however, I mentioned my upcoming tour, and the fact I would not be doing Toronto (where he lives), as I knew I'd be burned out, emotionally / physically, and cleaned out, financially, by then. To which Craig simply said, "Well, if you come to Toronto I'll do an event with you." 

"Deal," I said, without giving money or exhaustion another thought.

Ergo, I added Toronto. More on that in a minute...

First, I had one last exciting stop in the US, an evening at Copper Dog Books with New York Times Bestselling author, Christopher Golden.

Being completely transparent, if there are proverbial straws breaking the spines of camels all over the world, this last day of travel was my straw, and I was the camel.

Driving to this event, I was a broken shell of a man. I was way past exhausted and suffering severe burnout. At this point of the tour, I'd been on the road for seven weeks straight. I'd been staying in hotels, driving rental cars, flying all over the country, and doing live event after live event with hardly a day between. I'd done 16 events in the month of August, and 4 in the last five days. If you toss in the two months I was caring for my sick father in Detroit, I hadn't been home since April. 

As AMAZING as every day of this tour was, and as GRATEFUL as I was to be able to get on the road and pimp my book and meet so many great readers and booksellers, the reality is that, by this point, I was toast. About twenty minutes prior to the event I was at a nearby bar, drinking whisky, my forehead on the countertop, wondering if I could find some energy to push through. My poor wife patting my back, saying things like "you can do it". 

(I want to mention here that I'm not complaining as much as I am explaining my state of mind. I loved doing the tour, but I didn't fully realize how hard it would be on me).

As it turned out, Christopher was just the pick-me-up I needed. He was kind and eager to chat about my book, and booksellers Meg and Jessie were so excited and high energy that it got my head where it needed to be for the event. It helped (a lot) that we had a great crowd show up, and I got to meet some amazing readers who were big fans of my work and were excited to be there.

After the discussion and signing books for attendees, it was great to relax and hang out a bit with Christopher, and to meet up with some folks from Fracassi Freaks Facebook group, not to mention I got to finally meet Hans Curtis, who is an admin for the incredible Books of Horror Facebook group and has always been a huge supporter of mine.

With Boston--and the United States--part of the tour officially in the can, I was excited and relatively refreshed and ready to hop on a plane for Toronto early the next morning for the finale, where I would not only be having an event with Craig Davidson (aka Nick Cutter), Andrew Sullivan, and Ian Rogers, but I'd also be meeting up with a bunch of my family who had driven up from Detroit to see me. 

Seeing my sister, brother-in-law, and my mom (plus my niece and her husband, who live in the area), was a huge treat for me as the last time I'd seen them was at my father's funeral in July, just a few days before I hit the road for the tour. So it was super nice to see them all under better circumstances and have some fun in Canada for a couple days.

The event that evening was a ton of fun, and it was great to share a patio with three amazing authors. Before the evening was done we'd sold out of every book of mine in the store, and I also got to sign books for a couple huge followers of mine (whaddup Sean Lynch!).

After the event I went out for pizza and many beers with Craig, Andrew, and Ian, and got to spend another entire day in Toronto just relaxing with family.

The next morning we had a nice brunch in the city, then Stephanie and I had one more flight to catch, and after months of being on the road we were so excited that in less than six hours we'd be heading back to Los Angeles...

Home!

(For five whole days...)

Next up (UK Edition):

Forbidden Planet, London

FantasyCon, Birmingham

Forbidden Planet, Bristol

Stonehenge!