Lew's Ark

Soon the whole neighborhood heard about the boat, and neighbors began coming over to see "Lew 's Ark"--as it was dubbed. We could have sold tickets.

I don't know how many believed my father would actually finish the boat. The general feeling-in the family and in the neighborhood-was not so much that my father was building a boat, but that he wouldn't finish something he started, and why start something so difficult to finish as a boat?

I wanted my father to finish the boat. His character and our reputation were at stake. I knew, as did everyone in the family and the neighborhood, that one shouldn't start projects one couldn't finish. Moral fiber hung in the balance. I wanted visible proof that his moral fiber would not be found wanting, to show the neighborhood, and myself. A boat would do it.

P minus 14 days….

For those of you trying the link to order the book, and discovering it’s not active yet, that’s because it’s not active yet!

Feb. 15 is P for publishing day, and I will let you know, so do your finger exercises until then, and get ready to click on “order” at my signal!

In the meantime, after monkeying around with Mail Chimp for a couple of weeks, I have officially won and am now moving on to tinker with the postcard. The version Finishing Line Press sent me does not meet my finicky standards, so--time to create another! May I please be pre-forgiven by any of you who receive a graphically overloaded if informationally correct postcard until I get my own version out?!

And brother Pete is on the 'scouring every library on Long Island' to market the book. Go Pete! He is also on his way to my mother's house, to pore over Uncle Jack lore, in anticipation of blogging about Uncle Jack's part in this venture. (That blog is here if you want something to do while waiting for Feb. 15, but there's not much yet--only one blog post so far!)

So many projects, so little time...but all things come to those who wait.

Guerilla Marketing

I am reading “The Frugal Book Promoter” and “Guerilla Marketing.” In case you don’t know this about the publishing world, the author is responsible for most of the marketing of his or her book. So I am doing a crash course in marketing and book promotion, looking up websites, collecting email addresses, picking up local newspapers to collect editors’ names, and exploring Mail Chimp.

I have updated my profile on Linked In. I’ve got Twitter and my Facebook page ready to go, and of course the blog is up and running. I’m sure I’m probably missing 12 forms for social media, but that’ll do for now.

February 15 still looks like the official launch date, and I am most eagerly looking forward to crawling around the coastal cafes and bookstores of New England and Long Island, birthplace of these poems, hopefully with my brother Pete in tow. And no doubt be inspired with new poems…

In the meantime, I have a postcard and a bookmark to create…

Growing up on Long Island

I grew up on an island, adjacent to the melting pot of New York City: Long Island, Jamaica, East Norwich, and finally Oyster Bay to be exact, home of Teddy Roosevelt’s summer white house, and Chink’s, serving the best lemon ices this side of citrus. Life revolved around beaches, boats and clam shacks. We lived for summer.

Some of my earliest memories are of bending over a wet sandbar, picking up a crab. Catching fireflies in June, at my grandmother’s house in Sea Cliff. Or following my father into a boatyard, staring up at the immensities that dwarfed me.

We didn’t have air conditioning when I grew up. Beating the heat was a full time job each summer, and we learned all the tricks from our elders: how to open the old sash windows at the top and bottom, so air would circulate better. Dress in natural fabrics—cotton was good; seersucker better. Drink lots of water.

Most evenings we sat on the porch, too hot to move, swinging and rocking, sipping drinks. Not even talking, just listening to the peepers. There has never been a finer activity.