Dispatch 16: Chris Cander and The Weight of a Piano make a final tour stop in Chicago

March 21, 2019, by

Houston author Chris Cander’s “Dispatches from Book Tour,” a multi-week blog series of reflections and updates along her 17-city U.S. book tour for her new novel The Weight of a Piano (published by Knopf), comes to a close with Dispatch 16, from Chicago.

Friday, March 15, 2019

I blew into the windy city for the final official stop on my book tour. Before my event, I asked my Uber driver to take me to the Brewster Apartments, which was the building I fictionalized in my novel 11 Stories. I took along the miniature piano I photographed in Death Valley while I was writing The Weight of a Piano, and held it up right about where my protagonist Roscoe fell from the roof of the building in the novel. (Roscoe, meet Mini #Blüthner; Mini Blüthner, meet Roscoe.)  Continue reading

Dispatch 15: Chris Cander and The Weight of a Piano go to LA!

March 18, 2019, by

Houston author Chris Cander’s “Dispatches from Book Tour,” a multi-week blog series of reflections and updates along her 17-city U.S. book tour for her new novel The Weight of a Piano (published by Knopf), continues with Dispatch 15, from Los Angeles, California.

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

From blizzard to beach: after an early flight to L.A. and before my interview with the legendary Michael Silverblatt for his Bookworm podcast, I put my feet in the sand and watched the blue-green Atlantic Ocean waves roll in on the beach where, in The Weight of a Piano, Clara’s parents took her as a child during happier times. Continue reading

Dispatch 14: Chris Cander and The Weight of a Piano go to Stillwater, MN

March 8, 2019, by

Houston author Chris Cander’s “Dispatches from Book Tour,” a multi-week blog series of reflections and updates along her 17-city U.S. book tour for her new novel The Weight of a Piano (published by Knopf), continues with Dispatch 14, from Stillwater, Minnesota.

February 21, 2019

Pamela Klinger-Horn is an angel among booksellers. She founded and has, for years, run something called Literature Lovers’ Night Out™, a ticketed event that draws usually a hundred readers to hear 3-4 writers talk about their latest novels. She was a big fan of my last novel, Whisper Hollow, and offered early endorsement of The Weight of a Piano, and I was so delighted that she invited me to be part of her literary tradition. Continue reading

Dispatch 13: Chris Cander and The Weight of a Piano have a day off in Minnesota

March 1, 2019, by

Houston author Chris Cander’s “Dispatches from Book Tour,” a multi-week blog series of reflections and updates along her 17-city U.S. book tour for her new novel The Weight of a Piano (published by Knopf), continues with Dispatch 13, from Excelsior Bay, Minnesota.

February 20, 2019 

Due to the 9” of snow that fell today, tonight’s event–Literature Lovers’ Night Out™ in Excelsior Bay, MN–was canceled. So while everyone else bundled up and hunkered down, I shed my outerwear (see previous post re: my actually being a polar bear) and went for a walk in the blizzard. Afterward, I got to spend a few hours in the company of one of my very best friends for more than twenty years, the author Charlie Baxter. We got to toast to the completion of his newest novel and to the publication of mine, and to catch up on the many things we love to talk about.  Continue reading