While I should be writing

People sometimes ask me if I worry about people not showing up at my events. And in general, I really don’t. I’ve visited  a lot of bookshops and libraries in my days, and I’ve had great evenings with five people in the audience, and 30, and 50 and so on. I tend to focus more on the real people that do show up, than the hypothetical people that don’t. As long as the people there are friendly and nice and interested, it really doesn’t matter. And I have never met a person in a bookshop that wasn’t friendly and nice and interested.

Now, with Iowa, I worried.

I’ve written a book that is basically a love letter to Iowa and its past and its people and its corn; I’ve spent years of my life living with half my mind constantly among the cornfields of Iowa, and my publishers have gone to a lot of trouble to bring me to my beautiful Iowa bookshops. All this hit me on the way to Dragonfly Books. What if no one shows up? I thought. In Iowa, for God sake.

It did  not help that the bookshop had, for some bizarre reason I thought, practically filled the entire store with chairs. Couldn’t they have just put like five chairs or something in front of me, so that it would not look so bad when two people showed up?

But then they all came, in a steady trickle. Slowly at first, as the first people to show up took their place in the back. I went out for a quick cigarette, and saw small groups of people walking down Water street, and then into the bookshop! In the end, the only seats that were left were a couple in the first row: obviously it is some sort of universal thing to avoid the first row.

And it was great. I was there with Shana, my publisher, who is from a small town in Iowa (when she emailed me to tell me that she’d bought the book and that she was in fact herself from Iowa, my first thought was: “oh, shit“). So we talked about the processes of editing, of mistakes that had somehow slipped into the book, and everyone laughed at the idea that someone would serve store-bought cookies to a guest. Store-bought! The very idea. The bookshop served cookies, and I need hardly add that they were home-made.

There was even a Swedish group there: people meeting to learn Swedish, led by a Swedish-American, and there was people from the library, and I got to sign a library book. Writing in a library book!

I don’t think my first evening in a bookshop in Iowa could possibly have gone better. When I returned to the bed and breakfast where I was staying, I found a package waiting for me: a cd with music from Iowa, delivered while I had dinner, from one of the guest from the event. That’s the kind of town Decorah is.

I’ll tell you all about my visit at Dragonfly Books in Decorah, but first I want to tell you how I got there.

I don’t think you’ve really travelled on a straight American road until you’ve been on a road in Iowa in May, before the corn takes over. Everything is flat. The road you’re on is flat, the earth is flat, and every now and then it’s interrupted by a intersecting road. Also straight. It’s as if someone had taken a ruler and just drawn it all up; planned, organized, nothing in the land that requers detours or turns. I imagine that’s precisely what happened.

I was picked up outside of the TV station in Des Moines by Daniel of Hometown Taxi. It’s based in Decorah, and he was certainly more comfortable there than in the big city of Des Moines. I was standing outside waiting, twenty minutes before the scheduled time, and it had just begun to seem very likely that I would be waiting in the rain, when the Hometown taxi pulled up.

“You wouldn’t by any chance happen to be Mary, would you? Miss Bivald?”

I am Mary: it’s my middle name, but since it appears first on my passport, it’s the name used for most of the bookings during my trip. A side-note: for several drafts, right up until I got a publisher, Sara was called Mary. But the sales/marketing/pr-department of my publisher put their foot down firmly on this one: “We can work with the strange title, and somehow manage to get people to know that this American novel is written by a Swedish writer, but we can’t have an American novel written by a Swedish writer with a main character with a Brittish name.” It did sound reasonable, when they put it like that.

Anyway, I was Mary, and we were off to a good start, managing to get out on the right Interstate and so forth. Daniel is not a modern technology-kind of person. He has a smartphone, but he got it reluctantly three weeks ago because he’s partners at the taxi company insisted. He can call on it, he has just figured out how to text people; a few days ago he had even taken a photo with it! “But then I didn’t know how to send it.” He looked at me, with phone in hand. “But you seem to have mastered them things?”

Naturally, he did not have a GPS. He had the adress written down in a clear, precise hand on small notes that he seemed to carry with him everywhere. But we got on Highway 35 in a couple of hours, straight ahead, and then we turned sharply onto Highway 9, also straight ahead, until eventually we arrived in Decorah, Iowa.

Decorah is nothing like Broken Wheel, except that the people are as friendly. Daniel showed me all the places in town, including the college, the two (!) microbreweries, the place where his father proposed to his mother and the three biggest streets in the town: Broadway, lined by trees and impressive Victorian homes owned by retired doctors and lawyers. And Main Street, the non-main street in town, lined by trees and slightly smaller homes. And Water street, the main street: “Water street is our main street”, said Daniel. “Well, there is a Main street as well, but that’s not the…” – “Main street?” said I. – “Eh, no”.

Naturally, he also showed me the bookshop, which is pretty much all I need to know, and a coffee place that had suprisingly good coffee.

I don’t want to insult anyone, but american coffee is sometimes something of an oxymoron. If they had called it lightly coffee flavoured tea it would have been closer to the truth. I am normally a very polite, generous person, but lack of coffee does not bring out the best of me.

Then again, great coffee apparantly bring out slightly worrying sides of me as well. And the coffee in Decorah was amazing. Everytime I stand in line I debate the age-old question: Americano or regular drip coffee? I prefer drip coffee, but the likelihood of a disaster is greater than with an Americano. Still, I decided to be brave. A tried the drip coffee. I added milk. I noticed the coffee colour was still a dark brown, almost black, and the smell! Tentitavely I tried it. Coffee! Real coffee!

I had to double back with my take away cup to the man behind the counter. “Excuse me!” I said, slightly manical. I think I might have interrupted the three ladies waiting in line. “Your coffee is great! Amazing!” I then proceeded to empty my pockets of all the coins I could find, into the tip jar. The ladies looked slightly nervous as I gave the poor man a 100 – 200 % tip

But my God, it was worth it!

I have been writing the last few blog posts at my hotel in Des Moines, Iowa.

Des Moines. The name has a magical sound to me. So, indeed, do all places in Iowa. I am here. Back where I and my characters surely belong. I have been in Iowa before, once, when I saw Spencer and its public library that once had a library cat named Dewey who touched the world, and corn, and high ways.

One thing I did not see during my last and only visit to Iowa, though, was bookshops. So in the coming two days I will find myself and my book in bookshops in Iowa for the very first time, and I hope to see you there, too.

First up is Dragonfly Books (beautiful name!) in Decorah, where I’ll be tomorrow at 7 pm.

And on Tuesday, I’ll visit the Book Vault and Hunter’s Café in Oskaloosa for a book luncheon at 12.30 pm. I have always liked the word luncheon, and I am sure it is going to be lovely!

I’ll keep you posted about my Iowa adventures, and enclose a photo from my last visit here.

So Saturday was great.

Any day that is filled with two amazing (and huge) bookshops and a chat with Cover to Cover-host Mark Dewitt is obviously a great day.

Books & Co is located on 4453 Walnut Street, Dayton, and the minute I stepped into the store I knew I was in big trouble. “Look at all these books!” I wispered greadily and perhaps slightly manically to Lathea.
Lathea looked at me. “Katarina”, said she. “Focus.”
Lathea has taken the place of my sister for this trip: she knew I had just been to the post office without entirely solving the weight-problem. I had sent five books home, but been unable to part with so many that I still had to sit on my suitcase to be able to close it.

In the end, I was saved by the fact that our interview with Mark was at four o’clock in Cincinatti, and the event at Books & Co was in Dayton at two. Math and the relentless passing of time meant I did not have time to look around.

But I had a great time. Nothing is more fun than to get to meet other people who love book like I do. One had brought her mother to my event for Mother’s day. “It’s an hours’ drive for both of us, but from different directions, so we sort of meet in the middle.”
I looked at the mother in question, a bit worried. I wondered if she considered listening to me babble on about books quite as nice a mother’s day gift as her daughter did. But she didn’t seem to be suffering too much, or maybe she was just too polite to show it. Mother’s can be like that.

There was also two sisters there, which naturally speaks to me.

“But she doesn’t forbid me to buy books”, said one of them.
“It’s because I don’t have to live with you”, said the other.

After Books & Co, we went on to WRRS-FM Cover to Cover, hosted by the charming Mark Dewitt. He said the title of my book so many times that I didn’t have to worry about doing it myself – before that I had been certain that I would either a, forget to mention it at all during the entire 25 minute-interview, thereby babbling on and on while leaving all listeners happily unaware who I was or what I’d written, or b, that I would annoy the hell out of every listener by saying it constantly. Of the two, the first scenario was definitely the more likely one. But Mark took excellent care of me, and asked some great questions.

And then we were on to Joseph-Beth Booksellers, which are also huge, and so very charming. We visited their store in Cincinnati, but they also have one in Kentucky. Before the event, I thought aloud to Lathea about the origin of the name of the bookshop. “It has to be the founders, I guess”, I said, somewhat disappointed. It’s such a mundane explanation. Then I brightened. “But wouldn’t it be fun if it was in fact founded by two people with completely different names? Like… Joseph-Beth Booksellers, founded by Steven and Jane.”

As it turned out, both versions were correct: it was named after the founders, but after their middle name. So they could in fact introduce themselves like this: “Oh hello, we’re Neil and Mary, founders of Joseph-Beth Booksellers.”

I hope they did.

Anyway. I digress. The bookshop was absolutely lovely. One of the employees of the Kentucky store came by after a Kentucky Derby party, with her friend. “Did the right horse win?” I asked, and apparently the friend had both bet on the right horse and won the prize for the best hat. “It’s a lovely hat”, I said honestly.

Which reminds me: people should wear hats more often to book events. I have to start the trend myself, I guess. Unfortunately I did not forsee this need when I packed back home in Sweden, but now I feel an incredible longing after a good hat for events. I could call it my book hat and refuse to go anywhere without it. And if you’re coming to one of my events – don’t you feel that a hat would brighten things up enormously?

Anyway. The employee from the Kentucky store was responsible for the Crime/Mystery-section, and as I had been in the mood for some cosy crimes for days, I naturally asked her for recommendations. It also turned out that they did have one Miss Fisher Mystery in stock, which was my particular craving.

“Have you seen the Netflix-series?” asked the Kentucky-employee.
“Yes!” I said, delighted to have met a fellow Phryne Fisher-fan. “Isn’t she just great? I want to be like her.” I leaned in closer and sort of whispered, half ashamed: “I think I might actually prefer the Netflix-serie to the book…”
“Oh, so do I”, she said, and I felt as if we were fast friends by then.

I knew we were fast friends when she proceeded to recommend four other books to me.

Lathea only shook her head. By the time she discovered the pile of books, it was too late anyway. They were already mine, mine, mine.

PS. A funny side story. They offered to give me the banner (see below!), and naturally I accepted gracefully. Only afterwards did I stop to think: where exactly am I going to put it? The living room might look sort of strange, but so would my bedroom. My bedroom already looks like a library, adding a banner of my own book might not improve it.

“You should just put it at your front door”, said Lathea.
“But what would your sister say?”, commented a new friend who’d heard me on one of my talks.

But my sister is very supportive. She would just help me get it up there on the front door. The only problem is that we live in an apartment with a mail slot on the door. Might be tricky getting the mail with a big banner in front of it.

Then again, it’s mostly bills nowadays anyway.

For a light Friday evening entertainment, Lathea and I drove to Corrallton to visit Georgia’s oldest bookshop. Not only is it charming and, obviously, the oldest bookshop in Georgia (which in itself makes it well worth a visit), but they also have three cats. Anyone who’s read my book knows my fascination with Dewey the library cat, so naturally I was thrilled to see not one, not two, but three bookshops cats. As a friend of mine said: “Books and cats, it’s like my idea of heaven!”

The bookshop was founded sometime late 19th century, and they even have the text of the very first advertisement for the store. My bookish heart is especially pleased with the last line: “I sell for cash, but will take eggs, or chickens for school books when parties can’t pay the money.”

Amen.