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My First Book Signing

Eric Margerum

Newsletter: June 7, 2024

It did rain on the day of the Summer Reading Kickoff but the top-notch folk at the West Lafayette Public Library were quick to give me an indoor alternative which turned out to be just perfect. (Go to my Facebook or Instagram page to see a fast motion set-up of the table set to music from the Benny Hill Show.) They also put a table near mine where children could spin a wheel and win free prizes. At my table I was generously handing out mazes and bookmarks.

The photo above was sent to me by the mother of these wonderful children who wanted to hear all about my book in addition to getting their free mazes. Their mother told me that they really enjoyed talking to me.

Many people bought my books and it all went very smoothly! (Thank you, too, to all of my friends and family who’ve been buying them on line.)

You’ll be glad to know the petting zoo outside the windows behind me was still a big hit and the rain never fell too hard. Apparently the ice cream truck was out there, too.

On to Barnes & Noble tomorrow where they’ve ordered 50 copies of my book to have on hand! I’ll be signing them all afternoon from 1:00 to 5:00. We printed more giveaways for the event, and I’ve barely dipped into the many bookmarks I ordered.

I so enjoy meeting people and I’m sure to have a great time. I look forward to getting more of the “Most Amazing” suggestions that were placed in the hollow book and sharing them with you.

TTFN!

What’s On The Other Side

Eric Margerum

Newsletter 05/31/24 

This is what the other end of the table looks like. To the left of the bookmarks is my special free giveaway: a packet of four mazes. Because the Shafer family has to find their way through the giant maze if they ever want to leave the museum. The ankylosaurus from Chapters 13 & 14 is holding them down is case of a wind gust. 

Behind that are coffee mugs with the cover design on one side and a quote from Doris Weatherton on the other. “Just remember that wherever you go, that’s where you are meant to be.” They’re $13.99 just like the books. 

The clouds in the background are representing the works of Raymond the Cloud Carver from Chapter 8, and the sailboat belongs to King Cloudias. The hot air balloon is Doris Weatherton’s mode of transportation, making appearances throughout the book.

Finally, the little gold mesh globe is from the Circle Room where Ryan and his father must earn circle-related tokens to return to the museum. The plastic jar under it holds dozens of circular objects like coins, checkers, washers, and costume jewelry. 

Debbie expressed some nervousness about tomorrow’s event and told me she wasn’t a carnival barker saying, “Come one, come all…!” I said that was the job of the props, the giveaways, and the poster (see last week). She was also the one who told me 31 years ago that there was still time to elope just as we prepared to walk down the aisle. Opposites do attract. 

I’m excited to meet people and invite them into my imaginary world. Doing theatre scratched that itch for a long time—and still does—but this book is my own invention entirely and now I get to share it. Wish me luck! 

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*Indiana Book Signings

June 1 – West Lafayette Public Library Summer Reading Kickoff 11 AM to 2 PM

June 8 – Lafayette Barnes & Noble 1 -5 PM

At Home Dress Rehearsal

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – May 24, 2024

There’s no performance without a dress rehearsal. That’s something I learned from fifty years of theatre. 

The image above is one end of my book signing table set up at home in preparation for June 1st and 8th.* The poster board and pile of books are to pique the interest of passersby so they approach my table. The bookmarks are a free giveaway, and the cloud and the butterflies are elements of the novel. 

See the peach colored book behind the bookmarks? It’s a hollow book in which I’ll invite children—and the young at heart—to contribute ideas about what they would have in an amazing museum: 

“What amazing idea do you have for a museum? Write it down and put it in the Most Amazing book. I just might include it in my newsletter.”

You can play along, too, if you want to send me your amazing ideas. Just hit reply.   

I’ll show you the other end of the table next week. More clouds and butterflies, of course, and other things from the book. 

Want to help? 

You can follow me (Facebook, Instagram, Substack, and X) and share my posts about the book. 

You can forward this newsletter to someone who would enjoy subscribing. They can click on this link: https://margerumwritesfiction.ck.page/f0b8e21e7f 

You can preorder the physical book on a few different sites including The Book Baby Bookshop, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. The ebook is available at all of those and at Apple Books, and Kobo.

TTFN!

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*Indiana Book Signings

June 1 – West Lafayette Public Library Summer Reading Kickoff 11 AM to 2 PM

June 8 – Lafayette Barnes & Noble 1 -5 PM

Love of Laughter

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – May 17, 2024

My mother loved to laugh and share funny stories. I clearly inherited that tendency with an added an emphasis on wordplay. My indulgence in this urge appears many times in The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles and your free read of “Plot Holes” is a good example. Who knows, Barry the Librarian may have additional spine-tingling adventures ahead of him. (See what I did there?)

When I was a young teen my mother came home from the grocery store with a funny story. She’d made a quick trip to buy condensed milk and found herself standing in the aisle surveying all the canned goods without finding what she wanted. A man walked up and also began scanning the shelves.

Mom apologized for standing in his way saying, “I just wanted to get a can of condensed milk, but it’s all evaporated.”

She heard the absurdity of the accidental joke as it came out of her mouth and suddenly burst out laughing. The man’s expression said he was dealing with a madwoman which only made her laugh more. He quickly found what he needed and left. She was still chuckling about it when she got home and pulled a can of condensed milk out of a bag from a different store. 

My mom’s ability to laugh at her own foibles was probably part of why Dad fell in love with her. I’m writing this on the day of their 71st wedding anniversary. They had been married for 66 years when they each passed away. Happy Anniversary you two! 

It’s just fifteen days until the Book Launch of MAMLA and my wife and I are gathering together various props and giveaways for the Summer Reading Kickoff at the West Lafayette Public Library. We ordered MAMLA coffee mugs that just arrived Wednesday, featuring the book cover on one side and a quotation from Doris Weatherton on the other. They’re the same price as the books: $13.99. 

Oh, you don’t know who Doris Weatherton is? Well, of course you don’t. She a very important part of the amazing museum.You’ll find out soon enough. 

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon 

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – May 10, 2024

I’m just two steps away from Kevin Bacon. 

Seriously. I can explain.

It starts with Six Degrees of Separation, the idea that all people are no more than six social connections away from each other.

The theory became a play by John Guare, which became a movie, which spawned a TV series… and morphed into a game: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. The man has appeared in a myriad of roles and ANY actor, director, author, producer, you name it, can can find a connection to Kevin Bacon. It also helps that his name rhymes with separation. 

Are you ready? Here goes. 

I was in a film called “Right To Die” with Raquel Welch and Michael Gross. 

Michael Gross was in a film called “Tremors” with [drum roll] …Kevin Bacon! 

BAM, two degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon. I win! (Bragging rights only.) 

Um, don’t look for my performance in “Right To Die” you’ll only find my name in the end credits. Which is where I found it at the premiere. The director apologized in the lobby afterwards. It was a made-for-TV movie and they had to make room for the commercials. [SIGH] 

Well, it makes for a good story, anyway. 

Remind me to tell you about my audition for the role of Woody on “Cheers.” 

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Speaking of good stories, it’s less than a month to the release of The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles and I’m psyched! 

It’ll be available through the BookBaby Bookstore, Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble Online, and more. If I won’t see you at the June 1st kickoff, please pre-order it on line so the book can have a good showing on the first day. 

I Made Up A Word

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – May 3, 2024

Shakespeare is credited with adding over 1700 words to the English language. I figured I could add at least one [humble bragging sheepishly]. 

Years ago I was trying to describe the phenomenon of looking at a digital clock while noticing that it was my birthdate. Friends had noticed the same thing and we all agreed that only our birthdate jumped out like that. 

It needed a name. I call it hypernataldigitation. 

Hyper for the increased awareness. Natal for the birthdate. Digitation for seeing it on a digital clock (you’d never notice it on the hands of an analog clock).

Here’s the really fun part, I submitted it to a website decades ago and I can still find it by doing a Google search! Yahoo is sure that I meant hyper nasality and after scanning through 30 search results I gave up.

I’ve only recently become a published author, but I did create a word a long time ago and it’s still on the internet. Is everything really on the internet forever? Maybe I’m immortal! 

Oh, shoot! I never signed my name to the word or the definition I wrote for it. You believe I created it, though, right? 

Hypernataldigitation: Awarenesss of a tendency to look at a digital clock when it displays your birthday. 

Example: She was acutely aware of her hypernataldigitation. She knew that she often looked at digital clocks when they show 6:17—her birthday is June 17.

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NOTE that no one is obligated to check the boxes asking you if you want to be included in other emailings. 

Starcatchers

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – April 26, 2024

I mentioned in an earlier newsletter that I’ve been directing a play called Peter and the Starcatcher, which I recommend highly if you ever have a chance to see it. High schools, colleges, and local theatres have been mounting some very entertaining and creative productions in the last few years. Ours included, if I do say so myself.

If you’re not familiar with the premise, it’s a prequel to Peter Pan where we learn the origins of certain characters, and how their fates became intertwined. The pirate Black Stache is a particularly gregarious comic character who, along with his sidekick Smee, plots to steal the queen’s treasure that will make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. He doesn’t know that the treasure is, in fact, starstuff, a magical substance that gives powers to those who come in contact with it.

I don’t want to give any spoilers other than to say the ending has a very well-crafted wrap-up that answers all your questions about the Peter Pan story we all know and love. The play makes use of narration and story-telling techniques to draw in the audience and encourage them to use their imagination to fill out the picture.

In preparation for directing this play I read the novel Peter and the Starcatchers, which I also recommend. It’s a middle grade adventure like my book, MAMLA*, written by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. Yes, the same humorist Dave Barry who had a nationally syndicated column from 1983 to 2005. And Ridley Pearson who had a successful series called the Kingdom Keepers, among others. Together they weave a good yarn! 

The play version adds a little bit of music through a handful of well-placed songs and simplifies the plot effectively, like paring three sailing ships down to two. The reason for the differences in the titles is that the novel refers to the Starcatchers as a group, while the play focuses mainly on Molly, an apprentice Starcatcher and how she teams up with Peter to keep the starstuff in the right hands. The Broadway show only used 15 cast members, deciding to make Molly the only female on stage to emphasize her struggle for respect in a man’s world. You can find several productions on YouTube.

Until next week or, as they say in the play: TTFN

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*MAMLA – The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles – available for pre-order from the Book Baby Bookshop or on Amazon (just search for Margerum).

Caret, Carat, Carrot

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – April 19, 2024

Caret, Carat, Carrot 

One’s an insertion,

The next is a weight,

The last is a veggie with peas on your plate. 

You’re welcome. I hope that’s helpful. 

I got the idea from Ogden Nash, who wrote: 

The one-l lama, He’s a priest. 

The two-l llama, He’s a beast. 

And I will bet 

A silk pajama 

There isn’t any three-l lllama.

These are much more useful, I think than the old “i before e except after c” ditty which really doesn’t hold up if you’re talking about a neighbor whose feisty foreign dog has seized you weirdly by the vein in your foot! 

Hopefully that never happens to you! I’ll let you know if I come up with any more useful verse.

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I’ve been invited by my local library to set up a table for their Summer Reading Kickoff outdoor event on the same day that The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles will be released: June 1st! I’ll be selling and signing books, giving away bookmarks, and all in front of my mother’s name on Sonya L. Margerum City Hall. She was mayor for 24 years. She also read early drafts of the book and said she could just picture it as a movie. Miss you, Mom!

Writing A Joke

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – April 13, 2024

I’m currently directing a production of Peter and the Starcatcher and I had a discussion after rehearsal with the actor playing Black Stache. We were talking about about a line in the play (spoiler alert: I’m about to reveal a joke from the play). His character complains that the treasure he seeks is as elusive as the melody in a Phillip Glass opera. 

It’s a funny line if you’ve ever heard a Phillip Glass composition. His minimalist music is often very repetitive and upends the standard concept of melody. 

But would the audience get it?

Suddenly our casual observation turned into a sitcom writer’s room in my head. What else would be elusive and funny? And why? I turned off my podcasts during the long drive home and teased out the possibilities like a kitten unraveling a cashmere sweater. 

As elusive as…

…a melody in a Mariah Carey medley 

…a closed-door meeting at a cat convention 

…a charging station in Chattanooga

…a greased pig at the state fair

…a credit score in cryptocurrency 

…the pickle in a game of pickleball 

…a bar of soap in a gang shower

…Waldo in a windstorm 

The play makes copious use of alliteration so I tried to incorporate that in my ideas as well.

The Waldo one is my favorite. It can be a challenge to find the right balance of what is elusive and what context makes it funny.

A Movie Called Ponyo

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – April 5, 2024

I subbed for an English teacher last fall and got to see the movie Ponyo with a couple of her classes. It’s an anime film by the creator of Spirited Away, and I was charmed by the two main characters and how quickly they bonded. The boy who rescued Ponyo from the sea thought she was a special goldfish and when she started sprouting limbs and talking to him, he found out she was extra special!

The teacher left instructions for the class to compare Ponyo to The Little Mermaid and I could see the similarities. Just roll Ursula and Triton together into Ponyo’s undersea father trying to protect her from the humans who live on land. But Ponyo’s mother is a kindly sea spirit who sees an opportunity for her daughter to learn more about the world and about love.

Watching the movie with two classes helped me to relearn something I need to remember: no two audiences are alike. Whether I’m submitting stories to a magazine, or listening to the audience at a play I’ve directed, everyone is different. One class watching Ponyo was very vocal, commenting and laughing at the dialogue while the other class just listened to the same scene without comment. 

It’s one of those really good G-rated movies but I admit I never got to see the ending before the bell rang. I’ll have to borrow the teacher’s DVD to find out for sure. (Also available on HBO’s Max.)