I’m pleased to announce that I’m launching my paperback tour with nine events in California, north to south from Pt. Reyes Station to Oakland to Los Angeles to San Diego. Plus I’ll be doing a virtual book event hosted by San Francisco’s legendary City Lights Bookstore that you can join from anywhere in the world. A European tour is in the works for the fall — more on that in the coming weeks.
Putting together a book tour is a lot of work but it’s worth it to connect with new readers and generate conversations around migration and immigration. As the author, I get to be the center of attention, but none of it would be possible without the ecosystem of independent bookstores, nonprofits, libraries, and other groups that support these events. I’m also grateful to my fellow authors who take time out to interview me. On this tour I’ll be in conversation with some of my favorite writers and reporters: Frances Dinkelspiel (Tangled Vines), Nina Schuyler (In This Ravishing World), Lauren Markham (A Map of Future Ruins), Michael Scott Moore (The Desert and the Sea), journalists Marco Werman (host of The World) and Kate Morrissey (Daylight San Diego), Roberto Lovato (Unforgetting), and Saumya Roy (Castaway Mountain). Oh, and I have help on all of this. Thank you Ellen Yang.
It all kicks off on Tuesday, April 28 @ 7 pm PT with my paperback release party at Bird & Beckett Books, one of San Francisco’s great independent bookstores, also known for its live jazz programming. The festivities begin with a conversation about A Greek Tragedy with Frances Dinkelspiel, followed by a concert of Greek rebetika music, and wine and cheese. In my book, I write about the Greek refugees who fled Asia Minor to the Greek islands and mainland in the 1920s. Rebetika is their music, a mix of Greek and Turkish folk styles played in smoky bars and tavernas across Greece. Bay Area musician Gregory Masaki Jenkins of the rebetika band Disciples of Markos will perform on baglamas, tzouras, bouzouki, and voice. Please drop by if you’re in the area or you can stream the event live on the Bird and Beckett YouTube Channel (7 pm PT).
See the flyer below for tour dates — and please check out my (newly designed) website for updates: jeannecarstensen.net.
I’m just back from New York and Los Angeles where I was a finalist for the PEN/Galbraith Award for Nonfiction and LAT Book Prize in Current Interest. Of course I would have loved to have taken first place! But all of the finalists were outstanding — it really is fair to say we were all winners. You can check out my video about walking the red carpet at the PEN here or watch this one in which I and Peter Beinart and Julia Cho and others share some writing advice.
On my panel at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books with Jazmine Ulloa (El Paso) and Amelia Frank-Vitale (Leave if You Can) I got a chance to connect some dots between A Greek Tragedy, about the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis, and the growing refugee crisis caused by the current war in Iran and Lebanon and the ongoing humanitarian emergency in Gaza. War isn’t the only root cause of forced migration, but it’s one of the major ones. At the same time Trump and Netanyahu are bombing millions out of their homes, we are slamming the door on migrants and asylum seekers. It’s senseless and shameful.
I make a similar point in a short commentary I posted on Instagram.
Speaking of connecting the dots, here’s a shot of me at the LAT Book Prize ceremony holding a bag made out of remnants of life jackets used by refugees in 2015. As you probably remember, so many thousands and thousands were discarded on Lesvos that year that they formed mountains. The small NGO Dirty Girls used sales from these bags to raise funds for refugees. Another note about the lifejackets: most of them were fake, manufactured to look official, with sporty logos, but made out of cheap foam and sold at inflated prices. Certain objects — this bag — and a spent tear-gas canister and a napkin with a note on it left for me by a Syrian refugee that I have saved from my reporting, still give me a jolt and remind me of the vulnerability and strength that I witnessed and that inspired me to write A Greek Tragedy.
Thanks so much for your support. And thanks for spreading the word about my upcoming events.
Happy to hear you are launching your paperback release at the wonderful Bird & Beckett! Can't wait.