As part of a virtual reading in conjunction with The Vault Art Gallery in Tuscola, IL, I talked about my new novel, Hezada! I Miss You, and I read from chapter one and a bit of two. Please enjoy it here:
Sunday, August 30, 2020
Sunday, August 23, 2020
Where to Find/Buy/Read Hezada! I Miss You
Good news! I'm down to six four copies of Hezada! in my personal inventory, so if you'd like a signed copy, now's the time to order through me. Send me a message via erinpringle.com, and I'll message you the details. If you're fine with an unsigned copy, please order through any of the below outlets.
🐘 Where to Buy Hezada! 🎪
1. My publisher Awst Press: Austin, TX
(https://awst-press.com/shop/hezada)
Buying from Awst means that most of the purchase price goes to the publisher and to the writer. When in doubt of where to buy a book, purchase from its publisher.
2. Auntie's Bookstore: Spokane, WA
If you live in the Spokane area, support this bookstore by purchasing from its shelves. Auntie's has hosted numerous events I've been invited to read at, and they've been supportive in maintaining a steady inventory of all of my books and those of other local writers and small presses.
3. Fact and Fiction Books: Missoula, MT
Fact and Fiction has supported my books and writing through purchasing and selling copies during two Montana Book Festivals, and through hosting a reading and signing for Hezada! early in its publication. The bookstore does much to support the reading and writing community in Missoula, from its inventory to its events to its central support of the annual Montana Book Festival.
4. Book People: Austin, TX
(signed, not personalized: https://www.bookpeople.com/book/9780997193886)
When I lived in San Marcos, TX, most all of the national authors would come through Book People to give readings and signings. They go out of their way to stock local authors' books and host a number of local author events, from readings to signings to release parties and more. I read here the first time when I was a finalist for the Austin Chronicle Short Fiction Prize. The next time would be on my tour for The Whole World at Once, and most recently, Hezada! I Miss You. BookPeople purchased a large number of copies and asked for me to sign all of them. So, you would be purchasing a signed copy were you to buy from here.
5. Amazon
(https://www.amazon.com/Hezada-Miss-You-Erin-Pringle/dp/0997193883)
Hezada! is available from here, too.
6. The bookstore nearest you via IndieBound (https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780997193886)
If you don't want to purchase Hezada! through the website of your local bookstore, then you can find it (and any book title) through IndieBound, and it will allow you to order that book through your bookstore or the bookstore nearest you. So IndieBound is a website that connects the book you want to the bookstore you want to buy from.
7. Small Press Distribution
(https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9780997193886/hezada-i-miss-you.aspx)
The distributor is one step away from the publisher/press. This is the company in charge of filling orders from bookstores and libraries. So, any time you pick up a book from a bookstore shelf, a distributor is what got it there. When the store decides it can't sell anymore of a particular title, it returns those books to the distributor at a loss, and those copies are typically not sent out again to be sold. So, while Hezada! is available for individual purchase from the distributor, if you see there are copies of the book at your bookstore, buy from there first.
8. Your library (https://www.worldcat.org/title/hezada-i-miss-you/oclc/114193852)
While this is not an option for private ownership, asking your librarian to purchase a title for its shelves benefits the community and allows the book to be shared with multiple readers who likely wouldn't have heard of the book to begin with. This seems like one of the best options for the environment, readers, press, and writer. It's also a good way to introduce librarians and readers to small presses that they may be unfamiliar with--especially if you live in a rural community where the library counts on its patrons to shape the collection. You can either order the book through your library's website, if it has one, or ask your librarian directly, or use worldcat.org to locate the title and publication information and print off the entry for your librarian.
🐘 Praise for Hezada! I Miss You 🎪
"It's haunting. It's lovely. It's an utterly painful and beautiful look at how life passes. Exploring the consequences of a suicide from those intimately involved to those on the sidelines, Pringle's unflinching view sets a summer circus as a backdrop for everything lost when life is gone." - The Austin Chronicle
"Mournful, funny, piercing, and profound, Erin Pringle's Hezada! I Miss You is a stirring, vivid novel [and] breathtaking work of art." ~ Sharma Shields, author of The Cassandra
"This novel is a lovely meditation on how the inevitability of change and loss is sustained by nostalgia and memory, and survived by that quiet beat of hope that lives in us all." ~ Donna Miscolta, author of Hola and Goodbye
"Set against the fascinating backdrop of a traveling circus, Hezada, I Miss You is a meditation on sorrow—how people deal with it, how they attempt to escape from it, and how, for some, it’s inescapable. It’s a tender novel that should be read slowly, each line given the careful consideration it deserves for the beautiful, heartbreaking insights it holds." ~ Rajia Hassib, author of In the Language of Miracles and A Pure Heart
"Brilliant. A heart-wrench of a debut novel. The writing cuts right to the bone, with cadences that sing. Reminiscent of Bradbury and Sherwood Anderson, Pringle's Hezada! I Miss You is a kaleidoscopic vision of love, desire, loss – and life." ~ Regi Claire, author of Fighting It and two-time finalist for Saltire Scottish Book of the Year
"Graceful storytelling and poetic clarity make this an enchanting and absorbing novel. I thought about these characters long after I finished the book. The lightness of touch belies the fact that Erin Pringle is a wise and fearless writer." ~ Laura Long, author of Out of Peel Tree
"Pringle captures the dynamics of family and small-town community in a way that recalls Tennessee Williams and Flannery O'Connor, yet her voice is lean and smart and entirely her own. Hezada! I Miss You is a powerful narrative about how we reckon with the cages we're born into, or craft for ourselves. What a beautiful gut-punch of a book.” ~ Melissa Stephenson, author of Driven: A White-Knuckled Ride to Heartbreak and Back
"Hezada! is a stunning first novel—quiet and devastating, an elliptical tale of loss and the limitations and failures of a small town. The circus is always on the verge of arrival, and there is something deeply sinister in that." ~ Polly Buckingham, author of Expense of a View
"With the cool-minded skill of a funambulist, the foolhardy courage of a human cannonball, and the secretive, poignant wisdom of a melancholy clown, Erin Pringle will leave you dazzled and bleary-eyed with Hezada! I Miss You. Your lesser half will want to keep this book to yourself. Your better half will want to share its wonders with the world." ~ Tom Noyes, author of Come by Here: A Novella and Stories
Here is a book that gives in novel form—people as stories performing like poems (“Where did your death come from?”) Where language is velocity & mass whereby the turn of phrase is the continually changing way people fall into or out of collective speech, demonstrating how our vulnerabilities to each other can transform into our feeling with others. ~ Julia Drescher, author of Open Epic
“Spare, haunting, as honest as poetry gets, Hezada! I Miss You is a dream of a novel that conforms to neither expectation nor demand. Though the external forces at work on this family succeed in tugging them away from one another, Pringle's precisely woven narrative connections are unbreakable. She again finds a way to render time and place as emotional states, while making memory as corporeal as you or me.” ~ Jack Kaulfus, author of Tomorrow or Forever: Stories
"This is a tale about magic, about longing, about the sometimes crushing weight of dreams. About the flashes of excitement that keep us alive." ~ Ann Tweedy, author of The Body's Alphabet
🕮
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
Book Giveaway: Win Hezada! I Miss You on LibraryThing
 |
| Reading a book, photo by Pedro Ribeiro Simões (used under CC license) |
Hezada! I Miss You is now available to win from LibraryThing, a worldwide website for readers of every feather.
Throw your hat into the book lottery and enter by September 15, 2020.
Summary
The last Midwestern traveling circus is due to arrive in a rural village it has visited for a century of summers. Like the village, the circus is on its last leg. It’s down to one elephant and a handful of acrobats. The circus boss’s sweetheart is dying. The former starring act is recovering from cancer. The assistant, Frank, plans to retire after this show. Meanwhile, twins Heza and Abe wander the hot fields and roads, waiting for the circus or anything better. Hezada! I Miss You is a novel that explores tradition, love, and suicide—set under the fading tents of small-town America and the circus.
Praise for Hezada! I Miss You
"It's haunting. It's lovely. It's an utterly painful and beautiful look at how life passes. Exploring the consequences of a suicide from those intimately involved to those on the sidelines, Pringle's unflinching view sets a summer circus as a backdrop for everything lost when life is gone." - The Austin Chronicle
"Mournful, funny, piercing, and profound, Erin Pringle's Hezada! I Miss You is a stirring, vivid novel [and] breathtaking work of art." ~ Sharma Shields, author of The Cassandra
"This novel is a lovely meditation on how the inevitability of change and loss is sustained by nostalgia and memory, and survived by that quiet beat of hope that lives in us all. ~ Donna Miscolta, author of Hola and Goodbye
"Set against the fascinating backdrop of a traveling circus, Hezada, I Miss You is a meditation on sorrow—how people deal with it, how they attempt to escape from it, and how, for some, it’s inescapable. It’s a tender novel that should be read slowly, each line given the careful consideration it deserves for the beautiful, heartbreaking insights it holds."
~ Rajia Hassib, author of In the Language of Miracles and A Pure Heart
"Brilliant. A heart-wrench of a debut novel. The writing cuts right to the bone, with cadences that sing. Reminiscent of Bradbury and Sherwood Anderson, Pringle's Hezada! I Miss You is a kaleidoscopic vision of love, desire, loss – and life." ~ Regi Claire, author of Fighting It and two-time finalist for Saltire Scottish Book of the Year
Graceful storytelling and poetic clarity make this an enchanting and absorbing novel. I thought about these characters long after I finished the book. The lightness of touch belies the fact that Erin Pringle is a wise and fearless writer. ~ Laura Long, author of Out of Peel Tree
"Pringle captures the dynamics of family and small-town community in a way that recalls Tennessee Williams and Flannery O'Connor, yet her voice is lean and smart and entirely her own. Hezada! I Miss You is a powerful narrative about how we reckon with the cages we're born into, or craft for ourselves. What a beautiful gut-punch of a book.” ~ Melissa Stephenson, author of Driven: A White-Knuckled Ride to Heartbreak and Back
"Hezada! is a stunning first novel—quiet and devastating, an elliptical tale of loss and the limitations and failures of a small town. The circus is always on the verge of arrival, and there is something deeply sinister in that." ~ Polly Buckingham, author of Expense of a View
"With the cool-minded skill of a funambulist, the foolhardy courage of a human cannonball, and the secretive, poignant wisdom of a melancholy clown, Erin Pringle will leave you dazzled and bleary-eyed with Hezada! I Miss You. Your lesser half will want to keep this book to yourself. Your better half will want to share its wonders with the world." ~ Tom Noyes, author of Come by Here: A Novella and Stories
Here is a book that gives in novel form—people as stories performing like poems (“Where did your death come from?”) Where language is velocity & mass whereby the turn of phrase is the continually changing way people fall into or out of collective speech, demonstrating how our vulnerabilities to each other can transform into our feeling with others. ~ Julia Drescher, author of Open Epic
“Spare, haunting, as honest as poetry gets, Hezada! I Miss You is a dream of a novel that conforms to neither expectation nor demand. Though the external forces at work on this family succeed in tugging them away from one another, Pringle's precisely woven narrative connections are unbreakable. She again finds a way to render time and place as emotional states, while making memory as corporeal as you or me.” ~ Jack Kaulfus, author of Tomorrow or Forever: Stories
"This is a tale about magic, about longing, about the sometimes crushing weight of dreams. About the flashes of excitement that keep us alive." ~ Ann Tweedy, author of The Body's Alphabet
🕮
Monday, August 17, 2020
Fairy Tales in the Park: Audubon Park, Spokane
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| From NeedPix |
When the pandemic began to affect the way life worked, I started having a harder time writing. How does one write about what it is to live when so much is in flux? To write of the past is to write before the pandemic, but to do that seems to require a way of remembering that hinges on how to think of the present. To write in the future seems to require knowing how to think of that future's past. Perhaps my worrying over how to do this is simply a useful rationalization for why I'm not writing.
I haven't told a long story since the rise of the pandemic, either, but I am interested in what that experience will be like. Of course, the frames of the fairy tales are there, but the present always influences the way in which I tell the story from the endings to character traits to details I will emphasize or de-emphasize.
I'm reminded of how fairy tales were once used by those not in power--to empower themselves and each other. Stories where lead characters figured out how to solve the predicaments they found themselves in because they did not lead lives where heroes swung in at the nick of time.
What is a fairy tale in the midst of a pandemic?
I certainly know what Hansel and Gretel is like when there is not a pandemic. But what of the story when its setting is so close to the world in which the storyteller sits, casting imaginations back?
Well, we can all find out in September, as I've decided to tell a story most every Sunday in Audubon Park. Because of the pandemic and safety, audiences are limited to six people. I hope that you will be one of the six. All ages welcome, masks and social distancing required. To learn more about the story events, what to expect, and to RSVP, please click on the appropriate link(s) below.
September 6: Splish-Splash, or The Frog Prince
6:00 PM
👉RSVP required: https://www.facebook.com/events/703504396868398/
September 13: Sleeping Beauty, or She Sleeps
6:00 PM
👉 RSVP required: https://www.facebook.com/events/787319855370535/
September 20: Jack in the Beanstalk, or The Famine
6:00 PM
👉RSVP required: https://www.facebook.com/events/687347808795322/
October 4: Hansel and Gretel
6:00 PM
👉RSVP required: https://www.facebook.com/events/310586030216704/
For additional story times, please check back at ErinPringle.com or like Erin Pringle on Facebook for faster event updates.
💜
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
The Illinois Pandemic Book Tour: Hezada! I Miss You
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| Small lost airplane by Shannon Clark, used under CC license |
Although I did write many pages of a novel featuring a plague, I never imagined going on a book tour during a pandemic.
But, here we are.
Hezada! I Miss You came to being in February, published by Awst Press. There was a book release party, a black formal dress, friends and more friends, and a good enough launch that I looked forward to all the events that would take me from Washington to Texas, from Spokane to Seattle, from home to hometown in Illinois. And I did make it to Missoula, Montana and to Austin and San Antonio, Texas, but that's when everything started shutting down and the virus counts began rising.
April was not only the cruellest month, according to T.S. Eliot, but it was also the month I should have arrived in Illinois and gone to several places to share the book, from the library in the town where I grew up, to a nearby art gallery, to the Champaign-Urbana public library.
The pandemic unfurled, and April was rescheduled to August.
Funny, in retrospect, to imagine that anyone would have thought August would have found us in an improved situation.
Now, it's August. My mother has turned 81-years old, I continue to distrust the way death winks at hope, and so I believe more in the pandemic's ability to cast me and my loved ones down than I believe in many other things more or less invisible than the virus.
Hence, I cancelled my flight, and while I have until December 13th to use my flight "credits," I don't know what means or what the world will mean by then.
So! I'm going to try the virtual route, luddite though I may be.
Here's the plan.
The Plan
Before I go virtual, I'm going to try hosting a reading from my front yard, with an audience of no more than five people. We'll see how that goes. I hope it will go delightfully so.
Then, I'll transport to Illinois via the computer. I hope to meet you there.
Casey Township Library, Casey, IL
On Saturday, August 29th at 2 PM (CST), I'll give a virtual reading for the Casey Township Library. The event is free and open to anyone, but I will be talking primarily about my relationship to the library, why I keep writing about the Midwest, and I'll read a bit from Hezada! I Miss You. You can attend the event on Facebook, via this link: https://www.facebook.com/events/777719309723187
The Vault Art Gallery, Tuscola, IL
On Sunday, August 30th, at 2 PM (CST), I'll talk about Hezada! I Miss You with my brother, writer Kirby Pringle, and read from the book. Those in the area will be invited to view the discussion in the gallery via a projector, and those who prefer the internet can attend on Facebook, via this link https://www.facebook.com/events/736635116828476/
Ordering Hezada! I Miss You
- To purchase Hezada! in time for the virtual events, please order at least a week before from Awst Press: https://awst-press.com/shop/hezada
- I'll give away one copy of Hezada! at each virtual event; those who attend will be eligible to participate.
- If you live in Illinois or Indiana and belong to a book group, I'd be happy to call in to talk about writing and Hezada! For those purchasing the book for a book club, please message me for a possible discount.
Let's do this.
🐘
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