Things I Learned About My Dad (in therapy), a compendium of essays on fatherhood headed up by Dooce’s Heather Armstrong, hits stores today. I contributed a chapter, with the caveat that it not follow any of those of the other writers (as they are all so astoundingly talented that mine would pale in comparison), and also not come first. I’m not sure how Heather pulled this off. Stayed up late last night, printing out copies of my piece from her home PC and stapling them to the back covers, is my guess.
Very cool, I’ve added this to my reading list. Congrats!
Posted by Jamie on April 29th, 2008.
I’m excited I just ordered mine today. Congrats!
Posted by lisey on April 29th, 2008.
Just made a purchase suggestion for this at Seattle Public Library — mentioned that it featured a Seattle author, the famous Matthew Baldwin! Looking forward to reading it! Congratulations!
Posted by Meg on April 29th, 2008.
I had this book on pre-order, so I’ve already had the pleasure of reading the whole thing. Your essay made me laugh more than once.
Posted by Heather Ann on April 29th, 2008.
congrats! looking forward to reading it!
Posted by tony on April 29th, 2008.
Hi Matthew. I am delurking after long readership to say congratulations! Now I’ll have to go buy a copy to see if your chapter could possibly be as amazing as your post about the Squiggle (nee Squirrelly)’s ASD diagnosis. A piece of writing so enjoyable that I recently sent the link to my best friend as the evidence for “This is why I read blogs.”
Posted by girdtmom on April 29th, 2008.
Congrats on the book!
Posted by Jonathon on April 29th, 2008.
Congrats! Do you have an Amazon link or something we can use to buy it (and hook you up with the associates credit)?
Posted by Patrick on April 30th, 2008.
Um, Meg, never admit to an author that you look forward to checking our their book from the library, i.e. reading it without directly contributing royalties to the starving scrivener…
Posted by Jeff on April 30th, 2008.
Well, I think it works out just fine if you got the library to purchase it.
Posted by Peter on April 30th, 2008.
Jeff – I suspect many authors are happy to have their work read by a wide audience, regardless of the source. Of course, it would be nice to purchase the book, but this is not always feasible. Many times I have wanted to read a book but could not justify the expense at the time. Libraries allow access to these books and the availability of them has not discouraged me from later purchasing titles that I truly enjoyed when finances allowed. Besides, I cannot recall even once when M. Baldwin has described himself as a “starving scrivener”
Posted by Lewis on April 30th, 2008.
How about “slightly mal-nourished scrivener”? “Occasionally peckish scrivener”?
Posted by Erik on May 2nd, 2008.