Soon I head to beautiful Whidbey Island to prepare for my upcoming events in support of GUTS. I now have several things on my calendar: author talks and readings and even a radio appearance!

Here is my first photo of GUTS in the wild, Christmas Day 2017, Raglan, New Zealand:

Thank you Penny for sending this photo and thank you Dan for gifting an advanced copy to Penny for Christmas. I like the look of my book nestled among the tropical fruit.

I’m feeling overwhelmed (in a good, awash in gratitude kind of way) for all of the support I’ve received from friends and family emailing me to tell me how much they like the book, or that they’ve ordered it, or that they are bringing their entire book group to my launch party! It’s a too-many-people-to-thank situation all around, but I’m going to thank a few anyway:

• A new friend, Marrie Stone, for inviting me onto her illustrious show, Writers on Writing. I’m both terrified and excited at the thought of being on a live radio show!
•  An old friend, Ross McCall, for agreeing to facilitate the Q & A at my upcoming reading in Boulder (and to his whole family for hosting me for 3 nights).
• The reviewer I’ve never met, who emailed me to say she’d started reading GUTS and “I’m loving it!”
• My grade school science teacher, Sally Crissman, for tracking down my blog and commenting about how excited she was to read GUTS.
• My dear friend Amy’s mother Suzie Moore for stealing Amy’s copy of GUTS and staying up all night on the red eye home reading it.
• All of the people who’ve pre-ordered.
• And of course, Matt Wiley for being a daily booster and for soloing this weekend so I can do the aforementioned Book Tour Preparation (BTP).