Newsletter #88 — Nominee for Dorothy Mills Seymour Award
August 15, 2024
Newsletter #88 — Nominee for Dorothy Mills Seymour Award
A Nominee — On July 31 I was nominated for the 2024 SABR Dorothy Mills Seymour Award, given to a woman who has played a role in helping promote women in baseball. (SABR is Society for American Baseball Research, of which I've been a member since the 1980s . . . I actually don't know my membership date.) Perhaps typical of life in the age of social media, I learned about this on Facebook, when a fellow SABR member congratulated me on my nomination. I and others asked, "What nomination?" He then posted a link and thus I learned about the four 2024 nominees.
I find it amusing that, if you consider this a contest, I am up against Maud Nelson (who hugely deserves this award) — the person I "discovered" after four years of research. She was the single most important person in the first fifty years of women playing hardball. In Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball, I wrote about Maud's fifty-year career and also who she really was: Clementina Brida.
The award will be given in late September.
Thank You — A big thanks to those who have written reviews of Exit Velocity on Amazon! Since sending out my request I've gone from 11 reviews to 17. I'm striving to reach 50 reviews by the end of December.
Artists Against the Blockade — The photo above is of me at the beginning of the July 26 autographing. The area was crowded and things got a wee bit shoved around as the evening progressed. In general, though, I managed to keep my sales table neat and replenished with books. Those attending the social-justice event (raising money for medical supplies for Gaza and Cuba) were very interested in both of the novels I was selling. Notice that my necklace and shoes coordinated with the floor banner: Facebook friends advised me to do so. Photo by Phil Passen.
Deeply Loved — When I wrote Exit Velocity I thought of the parrot as a literary device, a way of allowing readers to look at our economic system from the point of view of an outsider. I didn't foresee how readers would love Deeply. When somebody writes to me about my novel, Deeply is usually the first character they mention. Sometimes the only character they mention! If they talk about something other than Deeply, it's usually the donuts.
Amazon Review — Here's a wonderful reader view from Carol Joann, as posted on Amazon.
5 Stars for Originality
From the opening scenes, you know this isn't like anything you've read before, a blend of passionate politics and utopian sci-fi, with the funny, heart-tugging character of Deeply at its center and a little romance thrown into the mix.
Printers Row Lit Fest: No — Back in February or March I filled out an application form for me and fellow author and friend Nancy Rosenstock to give a presentation at Printers Row Lit Fest. The proposal was not accepted. (As I've said: Win some, lose some.) But for your reading pleasure, here's the proposal:
Giving Life to the Past, Through Nonfiction and Fiction
Nancy Rosenstock (Inside the Second Wave of Feminism: Boston Female Liberation 1968-1972, An Account by Participants, Haymarket 2022) and Barbara Gregorich (Exit Velocity, Philbar/Bookbaby 2024) knew each other in the 1960s and 1970s, when they were both active in women's liberation struggles as well as in the anti-Vietnam War and Black liberation movements. Fifty years later they both found themselves wanting to offer their experiences to new generations, but in different ways.
Nancy, an activist in CFAR (Chicago For Abortion Rights), wrote a nonfiction book. Barbara, author of the award-winning Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball and other works of fiction and nonfiction, wrote a novel. In this presentation Nancy and Barbara will discuss why each chose the particular genre she did, and what their unique challenges were in shaping the stories they wanted to tell.
Printers Row Lit Fest: Yes — I will be selling Exit Velocity from noon to 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 7, at the Midland Authors table. If you're attending Printers Row, drop by to say hello. Or to rave about Deeply. Or to bring me some donuts!
Friend and fellow author Carol Saller will be at the Midland Authors booth during the same time slot, selling copies of her middle grade novel, Maddie's Ghost, which I've mentioned in previous newsletters. Be sure to check out this wonderful story, winner of the 2024 Midland Authors Award for Children's Fiction. And if you're bringing donuts, don't forget Carol!
To-Do Lists — In my August 15 blog I talk about how to-do lists helped me complete everything I needed to do in order to publish Exit Velocity. Well . . . almost everything.