Quick Update on my Book Tour, 4 June 2023

[PHOTO NOTE: On the road near Pella, Iowa, 3 June 2023.]

The modest book tour I’ve set up for my new book The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning that I’ve released this month is continuing as we speak. Although I jokingly called this a summer tour, some of the events I’ve either confirmed or am trying to confirm will extend into this fall.

I’ll also be giving some additional reminders of these upcoming events on my other platforms, including Substack Notes, Substack Chat, my Facebook page, and my Instagram author’s page.

The following is a list of the appearances I have confirmed I will be at as of this writing. One of the biggest changes so far is I have set a confirmed time and location for my official launch party. Even though the paperback version of The Yank Striker is already out, I want to have an official party not only celebrating that release, but the release of the ebook edition of that book in late June.

On the Calendar (AKA Liegois’ Summer 2023 tour):

  1. My next appearance will be at the Authors on the River Walk event from 12 to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 17, at the Hampton Inn & Suites, Downtown Capital Meeting Room, 120 SW Water St., Des Moines. I’ll be part of a wide variety of authors from different genres, so come check us out.
  2. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, June 24, I’ll be appearing at a community book fair at Gävle Hall on the campus of Augustana College, 639 38th St, Rock Island, Illinois. The Midwest Writing Center, of which I was a member when I lived in Muscatine, is hosting the book fair as part of its annual David R. Collins Writers’ Conference.
  3. At 1 p.m. on Sunday, June 25, I’ll be back in my hometown of Muscatine, Iowa, for an appearance at Musser Public Library, 408 East 2nd St. Muscatine. It’s not the old library where I spent good portions of my weekends and summers when I was a kid reading away, but it is a very fine facility and a good successor to the other buildings bearing the Musser name. I look forward to seeing you there.
  4. My Official Launch Party for The Yank Striker will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, July 1, at Chocolaterie Stam, 2814 Ingersoll Ave., Des Moines. My thanks to Terri Cooper for helping arrange the event. If you can only make it to one of my events, I would love it to be this one.
  5. From 12-6 p.m. Sunday, July 9, it appears that I will be one of the area authors participating in the Northside Market event in the Highland Park business district in Des Moines. I’ll be based at The Slowdown Coffee Co., 3613 6th Ave.
  6. I’ll be participating in the Iowa/Regional Authors Book Fair sponsored by the Iowa City Book Festival from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15 at MERGE, 136 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City. This will be my first year participating in the event and I’m really excited to do this in Iowa City, where I lived on and off for four years during my time at the University of Iowa.

At all of these locations, I will have advance copies of The Yank Striker for sale, as well as copies of my first book, The Holy Fool.

There’ll be at least a few more additions in the days and weeks to come, so keep posted. However, if you want to find my books online, just click on the buttons below. Hopefully, I might see you around, anyway.

There’s Going to be a Book Tour This Summer

[PHOTO NOTE: Since I was on the road the other day in Des Moines, I thought this picture was appropriate.]

You might have heard that I’m releasing a book this summer. I also want to get out and about and talk to people about my new book, The Yank Striker, and about my other work[1].

Well, this week, I’ve started getting in contact with people and talking about making some appearances. And I’ve already started to book some dates.

I truly don’t want to keep doing repetitive blog posts on my “touring” schedule, however, so I’ll probably do one weekly “update” post, but also post some notices on my other platforms, including Substack Notes, Substack Chat, and my Facebook page. I have puttered around with Instagram, off and on, for a few years, and two days ago I broke down and decided to set up an Instagram author’s page[2].

So, the following is a list of the appearances I have confirmed I will be at as of this writing. I am planning to add to this as much as possible. As soon as I know something, you will know something.

On the Calendar (AKA Liegois’ Summer 2023 tour):

  1. From 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, June 2, I’ll be at Pella Books, 824 Franklin St. Pella, Iowa, as they act as one of the hosts for the Great Iowa Road Trip.
  2. I just found out that I’m going to be part of the Authors on the River Walk event from 12 to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 17, at the Hampton Inn & Suites, Downtown Capital Meeting Room, 120 SW Water St., Des Moines. I’ll be there with a whole slew of other authors, so I’m hoping for a good crowd.
  3. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, June 24, I’ll be appearing at a community book fair at Gävle Hall on the campus of Augustana College, 639 38th St, Rock Island, Illinois. The Midwest Writing Center, of which I was a member when I lived in Muscatine, is hosting the book fair as part of its annual David R. Collins Writers’ Conference. While I’m not planning on attending any of the workshops this year, I have gone to it in years past and it is a great conference that I learned a lot from.
  4. At 1 p.m. on Sunday, June 25, I’ll be back in my hometown of Muscatine, Iowa, for an appearance at Musser Public Library, 408 East 2nd St. Muscatine. It’s not the old library where I spent good portions of my weekends and summers when I was a kid reading away, but it is a very fine facility and a good successor to the other buildings bearing the Musser name. I look forward to seeing you there.
  5. From 12-6 p.m. Sunday, July 9, it appears that I will be one of the area authors participating in the Northside Market event in the Highland Park business district in Des Moines. I believe I’ll be based at The Slowdown Coffee Co., 3613 6th Ave.

At all of these locations, I will have advance copies of The Yank Striker for sale, as well as copies of my first book, The Holy Fool. I hope to see you there at one of these appearances, at least. There’ll be at least a few more additions in the days and weeks to come, so keep posted.

Also, please let me know if you do use the pre-order button and something doesn’t work correctly. It’s the first time I’ve ever tried something like this before.

Footnotes:

  1. This is where I want to apologize if, during the next few months or so, I begin to sound a bit repetitive when it comes to book promotion. However, if I don’t say something about it, nobody is going to hear about my work. I don’t have a public relations guy working for me. I’m it when it comes to selling my work.
  2. I’ll try to take more photos as a result. You might even see a few here.

Subscriber Exclusive: “Into the Deep Forest”

A few weeks ago, I mentioned I had entered a short story for the Midwest Writing Center’s Iron Pen Competition. Even though I didn’t place in that competition, it was a great experience and I would definitely do it again next year.

I’ve been thinking, however. I personally think what I produced was pretty good. It was a short but expansive look at a different world and dipping my toe into fantasy writing, although there was no magic to be seen in it. (According to Google and the articles it sent me to, a story without magic in it can definitely be still considered to be in the fantasy genre.)

Then I considered something else. Why sit on this story? I think it’s pretty good, and it’s continuing to inspire me to continue planning for this original fantasy series idea I’ve been toying around for a while.

With that in mind, I’m going to make this a subscriber exclusive for Liegois Media. Right now I don’t have the time or inclination to be chasing down places to print my short fiction, so I might as well do it here. If you are my subscribers, you should have something to show for it, and original fiction definitely fits the bill.

So, here you go. The sentence below was the prompt for this piece. It gave me the idea which expanded into this story. Enjoy.

Between the ocean and the mountains is a wild forest. That is where I want to make my home.

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