BOYS IN THE VALLEY 2023 TOUR DIARY

  The Book House Millburn, NJ August 27, 2023 Gibson's Bookstore Concord, NH August 28, 2023 Barnes & Noble Hingham, MA August 29, 2023 New Jersey, New Hampshire, and a Beastly Evening with Paul Tremblay Much like New York City, Stephanie and I planned on staying in Boston for a few days, primarily because I had three events there, but also because we wanted to spend some time in the city. As it turned out, we didn't do much other than work, but before any of that, we had a date in New Jersey. Millburn, New Jersey is the home of a lovely little family-run bookstore called THE BOOK HOUSE. Ironically, I assumed this event would be smaller than my big stop in New York at The Mysterious Bookshop - but YOU NEVER KNOW.  As it turned out, I had a pretty good group, so much so that the store quickly ran out of books and I ended up signing a small stack of bookplates for folks who came out but couldn't get a copy of BOYS IN THE VALLEY on the day of the event. Afterward, we had a...

  Doylestown Bookshop Doylestown, PA August 23, 2023 The Mysterious Bookshop New York, NY August 24, 2023 Chuck Wendig, Clay McLeod Chapman, and a Trip to the Big Apple I had one more big push before finally getting a MUCH needed break: back-to-back events in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, with Chuck Wendig, and at The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City with Clay McLeod Chapman. But to be honest, at this point I was running on fumes.  I'd just done eight events in nine days. Eighteen events total in just over a month. And I was exhausted. Adding these two it would bring my total to TEN events in eleven days, plus travel and finding hotels and returning rental cars... I was beginning to think I'd made a huge mistake and wasn't going to be able to finish what I'd started (there's a reason I'm updating these entries in October!). Luckily, a part of me knew I'd be needing a break, so Stephanie worked in a few days off in New York City once we wrapped up Mysterious ...

  Barnes & Noble Libbie Place Richmond, VA August 20, 2023 Cemetery Dance Headquarters [top secret] August 21, 2023 Barnes & Noble Annapolis, MD August 22, 2023 Back-to-Back B&N + A Trip to Cemetery Dance After leaving Kentucky, Stephanie and I drove down to spend some time in North Carolina, where we explored pieces of Chapel Hill and Raleigh before heading north to our next stop in Richmond and a wonderful BARNES & NOBLE LIBBIE PLACE.  I spent a few hours there signing books and met some super nice people, including a book blogger and Jeff Prettyman and his wife, who we had local microbrews with after the signing. Sadly, our time in Virginia was short as we had big plans for the next day in Maryland. We arrived in Maryland late that night, found a sad Applebee's at midnight and got some sleep. The next day we were to drive up to a top secret location to visit the famous CEMETERY DANCE headquarters! I was pretty damn excited to see the offices and warehouses o...

Barnes & Noble Bowling Green, KY August 16, 2023 Butcher Cabin Bookstore Louisville, KY August 17, 2023 Conquest Books Ashland, KY August 18, 2023 KENTUCKYKENTUCKYKENTUCKY Man oh man, did we LOVE Kentucky. Beautiful state to drive through and explore. Being from Los Angeles (i.e. pavement and desert) it was borderline shocking to see so much green, and trees that rolled on and on and on. Just gorgeous. Our first stop was in the town of Bowling Green, a charming place that's the home of Western Kentucky University and a very cool Barnes & Noble. There's a quaint historic downtown area that we fell in love with that featured a library store built into an old theater. I found a few books to pick up and the librarian who helped us could not have been more pleasant (and excited about my upcoming event). After buying some discount books to support the local library, we headed to Barnes & Noble for my signing event with author J.H. Markert, whose most recent book is THE NI...

Parnassus Bookstore Nashville, TN August 15, 2023 Nashville After making the longest drive of the entire tour (a whopping nine hours!), we finally arrived in Nashville to prepare for the big event at Parnassus Books. I was especially excited about this one because I'd be meeting up with friends from Los Angeles who had recently relocated, as well as my buddies Greg Greene and Jeff Terry, who promoted the event tirelessly, with Jeff handling MC duties while also recording the entire event for his incredible YouTube channel, The Jeff Word . We stayed the night with our transplanted friends and their lovely kids, then experienced a little bit of downtown Nashville, cruising a stretch called "Whiskey Row" which was... uh... loud. And crowded. And loud. And not so great. But hey! Folks seemed to be drinking and having fun... at 10am. But hey! All good. I did enjoy seeing the Johnny Cash Museum - the Man in Black is a favorite of mine. After that was over we headed to Parnassus...

Whitty Books Tulsa, OK August 12, 2023 Two Friends Bookstore Bentonville, AR August 13, 2023 Tulsa & Bentonville After getting back home to Los Angeles after the Oregon adventure, Stephanie and I had less than 48 hours to kiss the cats and child, unpack, do laundry, and repack for a 3-week driving excursion across the United States. But I was EXCITED. This was the part of the 3-month tour I was really looking forward to - driving through middle America, through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky all the way up the coast through Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Boston. I was ready! We flew to Tulsa from L.A., got the car we'd essentially be living in for the next few weeks, and made our way downtown to a funky little hotel on Route 66. After checking in and seeing a few sights (like a dinosaur bookstore and a giant gold digger statue) we caught up with Mitch Hull, one of the admins and founders of the AWESOME Facebook fan group, FRACASSI FREAKS.  Mitch and his wonderfu...