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

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.

Tonight’s reading was in Stillwater, a quaint little town on the Mississippi River, east of Minneapolis. I was there with the wonderful author Anissa Gray, whose debut The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls has captured the attention of reviewers and readers all over the country. Before the event began, Anissa and I shared fried Brussels sprouts and fish tacos at a great place called Lolo, and found in each other a kindred spirit. Two notable commonalities were that we’d both worked with the writer Alice McDermott when we were scholars at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference two years apart, and neither of us much enjoys the presence or smell of dogs. (Sorry dog lovers.)

After selling and signing many books, we, along with local mystery writer Allen Eskens, said our goodbyes, and headed off in separate directions to continue our respective tours. Tomorrow I’m going back to Houston for a few days, where I hear it’s raining, and it will be good to be home again, if only for a little while.