My weekend at the Newburyport Literary Festival was marked by many memorable experiences.
- Drinking scotch and talking books with author Andre Dubus while attending a party in his beautiful Newburyport home.
- Listening to former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky recite poetry with the accompaniment of a world class jazz band.
- Speaking on panels on the subjects of social media and the author-editor relationship.
- Spending some quality time with my editor and other friends in the publishing industry.
- Connecting with authors, editors, publishers, songwriters, poets, bloggers, audiobook performers, and others in the book world.
- Meeting readers, signing books and chatting about my novels.
- The hijacking of my books by a creepy little doll in the Inn:
But one of the highlights of my weekend came on Sunday around 9:30 AM when I finally made it to Richdale, a store in the center of Newburyport that sells 25 cent hotdogs (over half a million sold!). Except this weekend, the hotdogs were free in honor of the owner’s recently deceased dog, Husker. None of my friends would eat one of these hotdogs with me throughout the weekend, so after breakfast with my editor, we strolled down to the store and I enjoyed a post-breakfast treat before packing up and heading home.
