First Fiction Tour, from Ann Arbor to Iowa City

The latest report from Miranda Beverly-Whittemore in her cross-country tour with three other debut novelists...

So tired. So very tired.

It's 2:30 p.m. and I'm sitting on my bed in Iowa City after a very early flight this morning from Detroit, one to which we arrived the full, responsible two hours in advance. Ugh. We were in Michigan for a mere 15 hours, giving the First Fiction Tour a touch of the surreal. We read last night at the Arbor Brewing Company in Ann Arbor to a smaller crowd than we'd hoped, but our introductions from Shaman Drum Bookshop's Ray McDaniel were funny, smart and just generally fantastic. He'd actually read the books!

So here are some strange things about doing a book tour that are much more fun to do as a team than by yourself:

• Walking into bookstores and presumptuously stating that you are "here to sign stock." Which is embarrassing if they don't have your book, but equally just kind of weird if they do. Poor Ed Schwarzchild's book, Responsible Men, doesn't officially pub until April 8th, so he's gotten the short end of the stick on this, but he's being a great sport about it.
  
• Being met at the airport and driven around by a "media escort"--almost always a middle-aged woman with a Lexus--with whom you have to make small talk when all you want to do is sleep. We take turns in the front seat.
  
• Eating. Just about any meal is more fun with other people.
  
• Reading. It actually is really fun to read from your own work when there are other people next to you, reading from theirs. Tonight we read here in Iowa City at The Sanctuary, a local watering hole