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Next Stops on the Tour – Ann Arbor, Chicago Area and Milwaukee

by with No Comment The FieldTravel

Here are my next stops on the Book Tour. Ann Arbor this Saturday and then Chicago and Milwaukee the last weekend in May. Having a great time meeting booksellers and readers. Barnes and Noble has been wonderful!

Looking to connect with Chicago area friends and family at Women and Children First on May 31st! Hope to see you, too!

Nicola’s Books

Ann Arbor, MI

Saturday, May 25th 3:00pm

Women and Children First  Bookstore

5233 N Clark St, Chicago, IL 60640

Wednesday, May 29th ~ 7pm

Readings and Book Signing

Barnes and Noble

Racine, WI ~ Southland Center

Friday, May 31st ~ 7pm

Readings and Book Signing

Barnes and Noble

Deerfield Square, Deerfield, IL

Saturday, June 1st ~ 12:00 to 2:00pm

Skokie Lagoons

by with One Comment The Field

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I grew up not far from the Skokie Lagoons in Northfield, IL. In fact I drove past them several times a week in high school and college on the way to various waitressing jobs in Northfield. I fictionalized them for THE FIELD and they actually play a key part in the story, Earlier this summer I was in Chicago for the ALA (American Library Association) conference. We decided to stay in the suburbs to avoid the traffic and hassle of the city and the hotel my husband found randomly through one of those price-cut websites was right across the street from the lagoons! Mere coincidence? I think not!

A lot of Chicago was swamp and marsh generations ago – the lore of my childhood was that Chicago was an Indian word for ‘smelly onions’ and Winnetka, the town I grew up in, meant ‘beautiful land.’ I research the Skokie Lagoons for my book and discovered another Indian connection. They called them the  ‘Chewab Skokie’ which means ‘big, wet prairie.”

It was lovely to see them again!

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Signing Books at ALA Chicago 2013

by with No Comment The Field

This past weekend at was at the American Library Association conference in Chicago signing books and meeting librarians.

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Rita Kohn of NUVO Newsweekly said in a review of THE FIELD that will run this summer “Tracy Richardson is a worthy heir to Madeleine L’Engle”. WOW!!! Is it hubris of me to call THE FIELD, “A Wrinkle In Time for the 21st century?” It certainly got the attention of the librarians.

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I also attended the Newbery Caldecott Wilder awards dinner. This is my beautiful dessert with a white chocolate wafer displaying the artwork for the evening. And, yes, I ate it. It was delicious!

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The speeches by Jon Klassen (Caldecott winner for This Is Not My Hat) and Katherine Applegate (Newbery winner for The One and Only Ivan) were funny and touching and self-deprecating. I couldn’t stay to hear Katherine Patterson’s speech for winning the Wilder award. 🙁 I had to catch the Red Line subway back to Rogers’ Park to my brother’s house where I was staying. Riding the ‘L’ (for elevated train) in Chicago is interesting to say the least. The Gay Pride parade had been held that day and there was no shortage of supporters wearing rainbows in new and unusual ways. A real slice of life. There was also some sort-of girl fight going on further down the platform and while I was very curious, (purely from a  writer’s point of view) I had enough sense not to investigate.

All in all, a great weekend!