Now I'm Here - Enjoying the Ride of a New Novel

While it's been several days since the launch and first reading event for my sixth novel, Now I'm Here, I'm still energized by all the love and support shown by the nearly 50 people who attended the event.

So many folks sat patiently while I read and talked about my latest work. I'm not a big name author, so any attention and early purchases of my books are helpful, particularly from Dog Eared Books, where the first event took place, and Book Soup in West Hollywood, where my next big event on October 12 will include live music performed by Dudley Saunders.

I'm working with a small press, and with so many books being published these days, along with a barrage of painfully disgusting news coming from Washington, it's a feat to get folks out of their homes, or to make the decision to attend a book reading when we're all so busy.

And yet, after months of planning, it all came together. Among the photographers who attended (and whose images they graciously let me share on social media and here) were Tom Schmidt, aka Photos by Dot. Tom shot the cover photos for Now I'm Here back in May with our two handsome cover models, and the adorable border collie owned by publishing pioneers Jack Fritscher and Mark Hemry.

My Dog Eared Books event Sept. 20. photo: Gooch

Also taking great photos was nightlife and San Francisco community photographer Gareth Gooch, whose prolific work documents Bay Area events. I knew this event would mean a lot to me, and also that I would not have time to document it myself. So, it was great to have professionals capturing the evening's highlights.

I'd imagined recording each of musician Peter Fogel's four performances of acoustic versions of Queen songs, but was so nervous at one point that my camera work was wobbly.

I also knocked over the stool twice in between my reading excerpts from Now I'm Here! And I'm not sure if I should try to read the second excerpt (from Chapter 23), because I got a bit choked up. It was as if someone else had written those words, about my character Joshua's triumphant performance of "Bohemian Rhapsody" at a high school assembly.

Freddie Mercury: What I Owe Queen's Fantastic Lead Singer-Composer

September 5 is the birthday of Queen singer Freddie Mercury, and in anticipation of the release of Bohemian Rhapsody, the film biopic about Freddie and the band, the promotional Twitter account asked what fans owe to Mercury, and my answer, of course, is, "Quite a lot, darling!"

My sixth novel, Now I'm Here, (now available on ebook editions and in paperback September 20) fictionalizes some pivotal moments in my own life. 

 Since I was a child, I'd wanted to learn to play piano. But it wasn't until my dad's construction company, set to demolish some homes in northern Ohio for senior apartments, found a funky old upright piano in one of the houses, and my dad had it hauled to our home, where we dragged it into our dining room. Several keys were broken, and I had to strip its layers of paint to get to the deep wood color. How my family endured my hours of after-school playing I'll never know.

The piano at my home in 1977, with beloved cat Rachel.

While my early skills included learning basic classical pieces, I frequently surprised my piano teacher with songbooks of rock albums, Queen in particular. My junior high piano recital was a performance of "Melancholy Blues," an understated performance of a bluesy song. 

But for my senior recital in 1979, my ambition drew me to arrange a piano solo version of "Bohemian Rhapsody." I recall doing okay with the very complicated song (explained section by section on Wikipedia). Sadly, no one, myself included, thought to record my performance, nor any of my clumsy piano efforts of many rock songs.