Now that the world has "National Day of " just about anything you can name, why not have a day to celebrate laughter, imagination, and generosity?
Wait - we do!
It's called Calkins Day.
Calkins Day was invented by Ed Calkins. Ed was a former supervisor of mine in our family's newspaper delivery era.
He created an alter ego for himself (ruthless dictator) and named his birthday (Feb. 13) as Calkins Day.
Ed said the day should be celebrated with a parade (we had a small one in 2017, where Rebekah and I walked a bowl of candy to The Herald-News on my day off; watch the video here) and a three -day holiday (since it falls between Abraham Lincoln's birthday and Valentine's Day).
Because Ed is both a BryonySeries author and Irish vampire character, the BryonySeries adopted Calkins Day as its very own holiday, which we will celebrate this year on Feb. 13 at The Book Market in Crest Hill.
Here why you should attend:
1) No long lines: Local author events tend to attract the author and a few family and friends, both of which thin out when you've been hosting such events for more than a decade.
2) Free stuff: Authors can leave with one of five BryonySeries books for free if they bring one they've written (or appeared in) as a gift for Ed, who loves reading, promoting, and buying books by local authors (true story).
For details, read the flyer below or this blog post from last week.
And refreshments are also free.
3) We are celebrating laughter: Who needs a good laugh? You, maybe? I certainly do.
You can laugh at our paltry attempts to create a holiday out of nothing. (We do). You can laugh at our attempts to write good books (We do).
Or maybe just come out and laugh - or, at the very least, muster up a smile or two. Life is hard, especially on a Monday night.
But you can pop in for just a few minutes (because lines will be short to nonexistent), grab your free stuff, and then (hopefully) leave smiling.
4) We are celebrating imagination: Reality is hard sometimes, isn't it? And yet, imagination is such a great escape! It costs nothing and can provide endless hours of amusement.
And what can be more imaginative than a dyslexic sixty-something man imagining himself as a ruthless dictator (his creation), Irish vampire (my creation), who then becomes an author despite his dyslexia (all true), who turns his dyslexia into a novel featuring my characters and a few of his own (all true and we have the book to prove it, which you can take home for free while supplies last. And what local author doesn't have a decent supply of books he cannot sell?).
5) We are celebrating generosity: Ed is generous. When he supervised a portion of the distribution center where my family worked, he bought and cooked steaks on the Fourth of July for all his carriers, hosted a Queen of Christmas contest where the winner distributed the gifts Ed and his wife Nancy bought for the children (ages twelve and younger) of his carriers, distributed free candy canes to all the carriers every day during December, and organized a pallet jack race for Labor Day.
And this was just for starters.
So the BryonySeries is continuing that theme of generosity with free stuff (explained in point two).
And you thought Calkins Day was just a ploy to market our books! Sheesh.
Of course, we will have other BryonySeries titles for sale. And The Book Market has thousands of new, used, and rare book titles you may browse and buy at this after-hours event.
So...we hope to see you there!
Because we will be there, chatting among ourselves and watching the front door with hopeful eyes, waiting for someone to show up.
No comments:
Post a Comment