I Will Do a Book Club Anytime and Anywhere

For authors a book club can not be beat. First of all you are in  a room of people who have read your book. Does it get any better than that? And they have all bought your book which is also amazing. And usually it is a group of ten people or more so that means a real nice spike in sales for you. I am always asked if I will speak at the book club...YOU BET. Why not if it is within a hundred miles I am there. It is the least I can do for people who have bought my books.

So then you go there and not only has everyone read your book there is usually dinner first and drinks. Bonus. So now you are being fed and having some glasses of wine or a drink and good conversation with people who want to talk about what you just wrote. Ok. So if there is an author heaven then it has to be a book club of about thirty people who just want to talk to you about what you do. Do any of us get this in this life?

And then the discussion begins. You get to listen to not only peoples view on your book but also far ranging discussions on theme and relevancy and what they liked and didn't like. It is mostly a stacked deck and pretty much everyone likes your book. And the booze continues and sometimes these things go pretty late and then you drive home feeling very good about being an author.

So I say it loud and clear. You want me to do your book club then email me. bhazelgrove@gmail.com
I'll be there with bells on.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher

Waiting in the Green Room at WGN Radio

You have glimmers of something passing. Sometimes you just know that what you are seeing might not be around too long. Maybe it was the space reserved for the microphone from the Scopes monkey trial. Maybe it was the foundation of the Chicago Tribune building inscribed on Lower Michigan with Culled in 1920. The slight wisp of snow in the cold darkness as a guard buzzes you into the WGN studio in the bowels of the old Tribune building and you follow a man up to the green room, passing the cases where old microphones reside and black and white pictures of celebrities long passed.

Then you sit down and wait and there is no one there in the green room, just you and rows and rows of pictures of people who look curiously human. The celebrity quality is gone and they are just men and women with gray hair, getting old. A thirty minute radio interview on WGN in Chicago is something you want to hang on too. The man doing the interview is the son of a legendary newspaper man from the Chicago Sun Times. You can hear the footfalls and you shake hands and he tells you to relax and do whatever the *&%$ you want. All Chicago old school. Then you are on in front of the WGN microphone telling your story for thirty minutes.

You try and imagine people all over Chicago waking up and hearing your voice, but your mind doesn't work that way. All you think is that it is just the two of you talking and it doesn't go near long enough. There are a million things you want to say, but you just can't get it all in and then you are walking back through the silent building and down through the guard room and suddenly outside in the cold. It's barely eight o'clock on a Sunday morning. Chicago is empty and just waking up. You drive through the streets, knowing you have used up one of the moments of your life that will never come back. You hit the city limits, then slip into the past.


http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Rocket Man will be out in January