'cause everyone's your friend in new york city

"new york city" by they might be giants & tour updates

IF this newsletter goes out on time I want all the credit in the world. I want the pitcher to point at me and clap because he KNOWS I’m the only reason his ERA is intact. It’s just been a hectic week and I’m having the best time but also feel like I’m letting a lot of things slip, okay? If I owe you an email or a text or a thank you card or whatever I hope you’ll forgive me.

Baseball Book Tour is in full swing and in the past week I’ve been in Durham seeing a Bulls minor league game; in Washington, DC for an event; in Baltimore seeing an Orioles game; in Philadelphia seeing a Phillies game; and now in New York City for an event and a Yankees game. I feel a little like Chris Farley’s character in Wayne’s World — “Next stop is St. Louis, then he’s gonna come back through Chicago, on his way to Detroit.” Seemed extraneous at the time . . .

“For a security guard, he had an awful lot of information, don’t you think?”

I like to think of myself as a fairly flexible traveler — I can stay up late if needed, I can wake up early if I have to, I can shift my meal times around, I’m not super picky about what I eat. But I’ve realized I actually have quite a list of things I feel like I *need* every day just to feel human, and if I’m not getting them then I get very fixated on exactly WHEN I will get them. For example, my ideal day, no matter where I am, would include:

• a true-up of my budgeting app (walking around with UNCATEGORIZED TRANSACTIONS swirling out there in the ether? I’m haunted);

• coffee in the morning and late afternoon (even at home I set my whole day up around making sure this happens);

• Duolingo session (IDEALLY I’d be doing all my daily challenges, lifting my weight in a Friends Quest, staying on top of the Diamond League leaderboard, but at this point I will settle for just keeping my streak alive! btw I KNOW that at some point maybe Duolingo does gamification better than it does language learning, I am aware of this, but what can I say I’m pulling that lever waiting to see a pellet come out!!!)

• at least one (1) hour of quiet time where I am not talking to anybody or doing anything

At this point, I’m doing *okay* with keeping my hierarchy of basic needs met, but it’s been a challenge!

Durham Bulls Game (Durham Bulls Athletic Park)

The first stop was to catch a Durham Bulls game, since they’re the Rays’ AAA team. I really love this area — we visited some bookstores in Chapel Hill like Flyleaf Books and Epilogue, we walked around Durham, and then we saw the Bulls pull off a walk-off win in dramatic fashion. What a start! I got to see a Curtis Mead home run in person, which means maybe I can finally let go of the time I missed his first major league home run in the Trop because my kids were leading me on a merry chase through the stadium for a Dippin’ Dots vendor that was open (if you read my Acknowledgments, this is why I make the reference to getting Dippin’ Dots BEFORE the seventh inning lol).

East City Bookshop (Washington, DC)

My first event was at East City Book Shop, which has been on my bucket list of bookstores to see for a WHILE. One of my friends who attended (hi, Hayley!) said something about how she remembered me saying I wanted to visit the store like two years ago, and then she was so glad she could see my event there when I finally made it out. Another friend attended (hi, Hailey!) who read The Art of Catching Feelings in the very, very early days of it being only a few chapters in a Google doc. idk it was just really cool to have everything finally come together!! And I had a chance to meet so many people I’ve been dying to meet in person, including fellow authors like Timothy Janovsky, Ava Wilder, Laura Hankin, Mae Bennett, and Audrey Goldberg Ruoff, bookseller Laynie-Rose, and people I’ve known through social media for a while.

My conversation partner was Nikki Payne, who I basically want to be in conversation with always and forever. She even played walk-up music for my entrance (I’m sorry I fucked it up and didn’t know when to come out, I’m more of a Little Leaguer about these things.) One of my favorite parts of the event was at the end when she asked me to name walk-up songs for different celebrities, including —

C’mon, it has to be “What Comes Around…Goes Around,” right? Or maybe “Cry Me a River?” His mirror’s staring back at him, that’s for sure. God bless Justin for his Hubris Hits.

Nikki Payne is HILARIOUS and so fucking smart, and if you’re not already reading her books Pride and Protest and Sex, Lies and Sensibility, following her on Instagram, subscribing to her newsletter, well . . . I highly suggest you get on it! I want Nikki to live her best life but I also want her to churn out content constantly to keep me fed because I gobble up every bit of it. One audience question was about an author we’d fangirl over if we ever met them, and since I’d just come from Chapel Hill I HAD to say Sarah Dessen because she was on my mind, but Nikki’s whole bit about being weird outside Stephen King’s house is still making me laugh just thinking about it.

Baltimore Orioles Game (Camden Yards)

The Nationals were out of town when I was in DC (down in Tampa playing the Rays, funnily enough! like ships in the night!), so we headed to Baltimore to see an Orioles game instead. Honestly, Camden Yards has always been on my list of top ballparks to visit, because I’ve seen it a lot on TV (divisional rivalry and all) and it’s so iconic and beautiful. It didn’t disappoint! Sold out game! City Connect Hawaiian shirt giveaway! Heston Kjerstad grand slam! No, I’m sorry, I did NOT end up trying the famous crab fries because I was just too fucking hot!!!

One thing that was super cool — when the game was over, I heard someone behind me calling my name, and it turned out that a reader saw me holding up the book and recognized me! I’m always low-key a little embarrassed to be caught taking these kind of pictures (bookstagrammers, how do you do it?!?), so it was nice that such a positive, lovely interaction came out of it! Made my night.

Philadelphia Phillies Game (Citizens Bank Park)

Then it was on to Citizens Bank Park to see the Phillies play! We were on the edge all day waiting to see even if they WOULD play, or how long the game would be able to go for, because there were storms predicted in the area. One thing we don’t deal with at the Trop is rain delays!

But fortunately, the sun came out just in time to give us a full game experience. Also unfortunately the sun came out because it was another hot one! It’s such a cool park, though, and I loved the cheesesteak I had (Tony Luke’s, with whiz and onions, for those of you who care about these things), watching Bryson Stott single out a fan dressed as Spiderman in the crowd to throw a ball to, seeing the Phillie Phanatic riding his little four-wheeler around in person, all that. It was an error-filled game (Alec Bohm with two while playing two different positions, which feels like a real Chris Kepler Going Through It type of day), but the Phillies pulled it out. We’re 3-0 on the road!

The Ripped Bodice (Brooklyn, NY)

I got to be KT Hoffman’s conversation partner for his launch event at The Ripped Bodice back in April, and I love this full circle moment where he was my conversation partner for my event! We’ve both told this story in person, so if it’s a repeat I’m SORRY, but KT and I met on Twitter when he was subbing an early draft of The Prospects to potential Pitch Wars mentors, and he wanted to know if I’d be open to reading a baseball manuscript since he knew I was also writing a baseball romance and of course I was like YES, ALWAYS, PLEASE. It worked out where he ended up with two other amazing mentors, and I ended up working with another incredible mentee, but we stayed in touch and have been friends ever since.

His questions were so good honestly that maybe I’ll even use some of them as inspiration for future newsletters, because either we addressed them at the event but I have more to say, or else we weren’t able to get to them because we were too busy ranking sexiest baseball positions. I do want to clarify that I don’t actually think all outfielders are the same, but I was conscious that maybe I was going on longer than MOST people would care for me to on the subject so I was trying to speed things along lol. Just for the record.

An audience question about a sex scene in the book also had me pointing out that Chris *is* a third baseman but also a third base man if you feel me. 😂 In all seriousness, I really do appreciate the opportunity to talk about this kind of stuff on a craft level, and I felt like this event was such a safe and open space to do that in. I appreciate everyone who came out!

Upcoming Tour Dates

Okay, phew, that’s a lot! Below are some of the events still coming up, in case you happen to be in the area for any of them:

• Monday, July 8: Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN (a joint event w/ KT Hoffman!)

• Thursday, July 11: The Novel Neighbor in St. Louis, MO (in conversation with bookseller Stephanie Skees!)

• Saturday, July 13: Eagle Eye Bookshop in Atlanta, GA (a meet and greet rather than a formal event per se!)

Currently reading . . . I feel like I am giving this book SO MUCH AIR because it just happens to be the only thing I’ve read in the last week, but I bought this little paperback Andy & Andie for $0.25 solely because it was one of those books where you read Andy’s perspective and then you flip it over and read Andie’s perspective and I’m trash for that kind of thing. It was exactly what I wanted in that it was a fast, easy read, but man was the book a product of its time! Andie has a “reputation,” you see, and that causes a lot of distress because Andy doesn’t know WHAT to believe! Poor Andie. In my fanfic she’ll tell every single person to go fuck themselves.

watching . . . I’m not watching shit because I’m on the road, but I *will* be watching Broad City when I get home because after navigating Brooklyn parking¹ I have to see the episode in particular where she gets a car from her grandmother and then just abandons it rather than dealing with parking. TOO real lol.

listening to . . . The song choice for today is because I’m in NYC and we really did listen to TMBG on one of our late night drives, and it was exactly what we needed to fuel us forward. What incredible music to sing along to, honestly. All I want is music that’s fun to sing along to on the road! We also played “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton right when we hit 1,000 miles on the trip.

preordering . . . July 9 book releases

• Let the Games Begin by Ruraro Faith Mazarura (perfect if you’re starting to get hyped about the Olympics like I am!!)

• The Game Changer by Lana Ferguson

• Until Next Summer by Ali Brady

• The Next Best Fling by Gabriela Gamez

• Not You Again by Ingrid Pierce

1. I didn’t do shit lol, this was all my husband, but still my proxy anxiety was real!