Good morning. The paperback edition of HER COUNTRY is out today, about a year after the book was released. It has a lovely newly redesigned cover, ready to be read on the beach or airplane or subway whatever you prefer to read your books. Signed copies will also be available soon in Nashville at Parnassus and the Bookshop. I am having a lot of feelings that I didn’t think I would be feeling, especially reflecting back on just how hard it was to write this thing while parenting young kids through a pandemic - it broke me in ways that I don’t think will ever be fixed. But I guess you have to tear the muscles to get stronger, so I’m waiting on that (and so is book 2). Anyway, I hope you took something from it, and I’m still proud of it and any one-star Goodreads reviews like these (don’t worry, I only read the 1-star reviews because they are funny, it’s the measured 3-star ones that would break my heart):
It’s a busy and complicated time for many reasons, so I’ll be doing only one event to celebrate: hitting the famed Prairie Lights bookstore in Iowa City in conversation with the amazing Lyz Lenz on May 9th at 7 p.m. I hope to see any of you Iowa City area folks there, including men other than Jason Isbell and “atraight blonde republican women”! I’m such a fan of Lyz, so this is particularly cool.
A nice thing that was announced yesterday is that HER COUNTY won, alongside the great David Cantwell and his book on Merle Haggard, THE RUNNING KIND, the Belmont University Country Music Book of the year prize. Anyone headed to the ICMC in June, I’ll see you at the luncheon on the 2nd. A real honor!
In non-book news, I wrote a piece for the New York Times on Joy Oladokun. This person’s music has kept me going lately, and I expect Proof of Life would do the same for you. A real thrill to write, the kind of thing that made me remember why I love doing this so much.
That’s it from here, off to sign some books.
Best,
M