We've shared some big news over the last three years, but I'm comfortable saying this is our biggest news yet.
On Saturday, September 9th, and Sunday, September 10th we'll be exhibiting at Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago. Even more exciting, the authors of Safe Landing (Melody Smith, Kim Jockl, and Jim Borchers) will be participating in a panel discussion titled "Writing After Loss."
The "Borchers Siblings" will be joined by Chicago author Eileen Hamra, author of Time to Fly, a book that shares her powerful journey following the loss of her husband/father of their three children in a solo plane crash 3 days before Christmas in 2011. I'll have the opportunity to moderate the discussion, asking questions about their experience, their writing process, and how writing their books became a therapeutic experience.
Right after this panel discussion on Saturday, join us at First Draft (649 S. Clark Street, a couple-minute walk from Lit Fest) for a celebration and an opportunity to talk more with Kim, Jim, and Melody. "First Draft" is not only a great literary name but it's owned by none other than one of the Safe Landing co-authors, Jim Borchers!
Alright, how 'bout the rest of the festival?
Hey, glad you asked. So, we've got two Exhibitor tables. One will be the "Safe Landing" table. Kim and Melody will be there, and Jim will drop by too (but he'll also be very busy with the bar). For those who've read their book, it's an opportunity to talk with the authors, ask questions, or sign copies. We're excited to also introduce the book to new readers and share their story with those who've been in Chicago for decades and remember the Flight 191 plane crash at O'Hare.
Our second table will have the rest of our books available for sale. I'm looking forward to sharing the behind-the-scenes "making of" stories about how these authors started and finished creating their long overdue book(s). We'll also be joined by Dennis Buss, father of Kate Buss, who has quietly partnered with us on four children's books in the last two years.
I recently put my book, Here or There, through a "Book Renovation." Annie Leue made some updates to the front and back covers. I did another round of edits (yeah, I couldn't help myself). And then greatly improved the paper quality by using our go-to book printer, Diggypod. For anyone who has already self-published or hybrid-published a book, I'd love to share my experience of "re-publishing" my book and why I think it's a worthwhile endeavor.
We'll also have resources for aspiring authors working on or dreaming about their own "long overdue" book. These will include:
One-pager talking about the difference between Self-Publishing, Hybrid Publishing, and Traditional Publishing
One-pager detailing our two main services/classes: Feedback Circle and Final Draft
[Case Study] How Safe Landing went from a first draft in a binder, to a hardcover family version, and then a different paperback version for the public
[Case Study] For anyone who wants to write a children's book, we share the story of Vicki & Kristie's collaboration on two children's board books and also Harry Trumfio and Dena Ackerman who worked on their children's book over Zoom and email, separated by 6,000 miles (Harry's in Illinois, Dena's in Israel).
[Insert Infomercial voice here] But wait, there's more!
Behind the scenes, our team has been hard at work on over half a dozen books. Three of those books are nearing the finish line. We'll have pre-order information available at our table.
Dinner with Ahmet - A Turkish/Mediterranean cookbook from Ahmet Ergun, the original owner of Black & Caspian (located in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago) and current owner of Barrel, my favorite cocktail bar in the city.
Before You Sign - A pocket guide to contract law by Adam Hersh. Adam takes the difficult concepts in a legal contract and explains everything in easy-to-understand plain English. Great book/resource for business owners and law students.
Coming from Tuscany - We are thrilled to add Italian author Anna Camaiti Hostert to our Long Overdue author list. Her book is a WWII memoir set in Florence, inspired by her mom and dad's experience during the war. Anna might also be at our table on Sunday!
And that's not to mention Horners 2, the sequel to Kate's first Horners book, or T.C. Pendragon's second novel "Hopper's Dell," or Vicki's book on Pickleball that we think will be a pretty big "dill." While these won't be quite at the pre-order stage, we can share more about these titles at our table and keep you in the loop with more updates this fall.
Alright, bear with me for one of those "stop and smell the roses" moments. I remember going into 2020, we'd edited two books and there was my book, Here or There, which kind of counted to the Long Overdue library. Annie Leue, our Sr. Creative Director & Book Designer, hadn't stumbled on our website yet, so we were really just a freelance book editing company. We'd only recently met Vicki Sheaffer and we were 11 months away from meeting the Safe Landing siblings, three people who dramatically changed the course of Long Overdue, all for the better.
To now be 10 days away from our very first Printers Row Lit Fest, with 10 Long Overdue books on the Exhibitor table, authors represented from Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Florida, England, an illustrator in Israel, and the Safe Landing authors speaking, plus multiple books ready for pre-order, it's just wild to think how much has happened in the last three years. I want to thank everyone who reads these newsletters, everyone who's purchased one of our books, or supported us along the way. We are so thankful for your encouragement in helping us grow this community.
And I mentioned all of the behind-the-scenes work going on. I'm thankful to our team -- Annie Leue, Annie Cerovich, Heather Nelson, Logan Tomaszewski, Brendan Kolasa, Katie Palazzolo, Adina Edelman -- for all the work they've done and all the Zoom calls they've joined these last couple of years. Special thanks to Kimberly Galitz as well for the work she's done on our newsletter cartoons (and check out 33 of her cartoons in Here or There!) and Omar Muñiz who is off in the lab figuring out how to fit the "Noteworthy" puzzle piece into the larger Long Overdue picture.
Other Big News...
And while we're talking about big milestones, I'm thrilled to share Ashley and I just celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary on August 17th (woohoo!). It's been an amazing journey together, one that got even better just about this time two years ago (September 4th) when we welcomed our first son, Caleb, into the world. Caleb is the best thing that ever happened to us and I secretly hope to pass Long Overdue down to him someday (although, based on his excitement when seeing firetrucks and garbage trucks, I think he's solidly on the Fireman or Garbage Man career path).
"Best thing that ever happened to you? That was cold, Big Guy. Real cold. Oh! You must've just meant the best thing in the last three years. That makes more sense."
- Crash, Team Dog
Keeping up with Long Overdue
Best place to keep up with all things Long Overdue (including our authors' events like the one above) is a tie between our monthly newsletter and our Instagram page. Instagram will be full of Printers Row Lit Fest posts over the next 2-3 weeks. If you enjoy this newsletter and know someone who might enjoy it as well, let us know, we'll make sure to add them to our subscriber list. We also got back on Facebook recently, you can follow us here.
And check out our website - Long Overdue Books. Long Overdue Books is a community for creating books. It's a place for authors (and soon-to-be-authors), readers, editors, artists, and designers to come together and move their stories from ideas to finished books.
Also, if you have any questions, ideas, stories to tell, you can reach Cal the Librarian at - library@longoverduestories.com
Hi ALL, and thank you Chris for showing my book about a murder in France 'Strawberry Moon.'at the up-coming conference. I wish everybody involved great success with their sales. Joy M. Lilley