Illinois Press Book Blog

As a first-time author, the whole meeting-the-readers idea is still pretty new to me. I’ve spent virtually all of my writing life working in a vacuum, very rarely having any contact with anyone who reads my work. That suits the shy side of my nature just fine, but promoting a new book offered a different experience that I thought might be interesting, or with luck, maybe even fun. It turned out to be that and more.

My book, King of the Queen City: The Story of King Records, tells the tale of an innovative and important record company that operated in Cincinnati, Ohio, from 1943 to 1971. I know that many people in Cincinnati are interested in the history and legacy of King Records—and feel strongly that King has never received the credit it deserves as a pioneering American record company—so I obviously hoped to reach that core group with the book. I was fairly confident they’d at least appreciate King of the Queen City. What I hadn’t expected was their gratitude.

I felt that gratitude most strongly at two Cincinnati events, the annual multi-author Books by the Banks festival, sponsored by the Cincinnati Public Library and held downtown at the Duke Energy Convention Center, and a book signing the next day at Shake It Records, the coolest record store I’ve ever had the pleasure of shopping at.

The first book I signed at Shake It was for a woman who had to rush off to catch her daughter’s soccer game. She bought a couple of books and promised to buy several more for holiday presents. She then said, sort of apologetically, “I know you’ve heard this a million times already, but I just wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for writing this book. I know it must have been hard, and my husband and I thank you for sticking with it.”

Well, no, I haven’t heard that a million times already, but I heard it over and over at those two gatherings. Most of the thanks came from folks who said they “had been waiting years for this” and/or that it was a story “that needed to be told.” The high point for me was hearing that from Zella Nathan, the nonagenarian widow of King Records founder Syd Nathan.

It was highly gratifying for a new author to sell some books at these two functions and fairly surreal to be asked to autograph them. I look forward to hearing from people that they enjoyed reading it and that they’ve recommended it to friends. But being thanked so profusely by so many people for doing what was essentially a labor of love—that goes way beyond gratifying. That will take some thinking about.

*****

Jon Hartley Fox is the author of King of the Queen City: The Story of King Records.

Coming to New York to launch I Feel a Song Coming On, my new biography of songwriter Jimmy McHugh, was certainly quite a contrast to the way any of my previous books has entered the world. Leaving my home in Oxford, UK, at 5.30 am for London’s Heathrow airport was an early start on the first day, and by the time I reached the Zankel Hall for Michael Feinstein’s McHugh concert that same evening, it was half past midnight—British time—when the show began. I mustered some kind of coherence for an onstage interview with Michael, helped by McHugh’s grandson Jim’s excellent and witty memories of the great songsmith.

By the time I left the after show reception at the Russian Tea Room, I had been awake for 24 hours. But after a brief sleep it was time to be up bright and early for a visit to WGBO in Newark. The same studio and the same interviewer (Andrew Meyer) whom I’d met on the promo tour for my New History of Jazz in 2001. That book had originally been scheduled to be launched on 12 September 2001 with a party at the Knitting Factory. Obviously the tragic events of the previous day made that impossible, and so my tour took place in October, with a launch party at a hastily cleaned up Knitting Factory club that still looked and smelt somewhat like a Pompeii exhibit.

Obviously traveling around talking about a jazz book in those somber times was light relief for some radio and tv shows, but I remember that entire fall book tour of 2001 had an air of unreality about it.

This time any air of unreality was to do with the marvelous events that had been organized in New York to get the McHugh book going. On the Friday of my brief tour, after a couple of other short interviews and much discussion of future marketing, there was a signing at Barnes and Noble, opposite Lincoln Center. Some of my author friends had been pessimistic— “You won’t get many people along,” “If anybody is there they won’t be in a book buying mood,”—that kind of thing. They could hardly have been more wrong. A great, friendly crowd, marvelous music from Wesla Whitfield, and a gracious interview by Tom Santopietro. And judging by the ache in my right wrist afterwards, I must have sold and signed a lot of books!

Thanks to everyone at Illinois University Press, Barnes and Noble, and Jimmy McHugh Music for making this flying visit a musical, social and commercial success!

*****

Alyn Shipton is a jazz critic for the Times of London and a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio. He is the author of the new book I Feel a Song Coming On: The Life of Jimmy McHugh.

This week will be busy for Gary Cialdella and Larry & Alaina Kanfer, authors of our two new photography books.

Gary Cialdella will appear on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight program this evening in the 7:00 pm hour to discuss his book The Calumet Region: An American Place.  On Friday, October 23, WGN-TV’s Midday News will host Gary for an interview.

Larry & Alaina Kanfer will discuss Barns of Illinois on WGN’s Midday News today, and then will sign books at the University Club in Chicago on October 21 and The Book Stall in Winnetka on October 22.

On October 9, 2009, Barnes & Noble Lincoln Triangle hosted an event for Alyn Shipton’s new book I Feel a Song Coming On: The Life of Jimmy McHugh, the first biography of the classic American songwriter. Tom Santopietro moderated a conversation with Alyn Shipton and McHugh’s grandson Jim McHugh, and Wesla Whitfield performed hit titles from the McHugh songbook.

Alyn Shipton interviewed by Guy Thomas for Jimmy McHugh site

Wesla Whitfield sings from the Jimmy McHugh songbook

For an audio tour of the Jimmy McHugh soundscape, listen to this week’s syndicated Riverwalk Jazz program.

John Broven, author of the recent book Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock ‘n’ Roll Pioneers, will participate in a From Songwriters to Soundmen: The People Behind the Hits panel at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland on October 21, 2009, at 7:00 PM.

And, the next evening, October 22, Broven will speak about Record Makers and Breakers at the Arlington Public Library (Central location) in Arlington, Virginia.

The paperback edition of Record Makers and Breakers is included in our Spring 2010 catalog and will be published in February 2010.

On September 19, 2009, the Bowery Poetry Club in New York hosted a launch reading for Poetry and Cultural Studies: A Reader, edited by Maria Damon and Ira Livingston. 

Penn Sound has posted audio clips of the event.

Readers include Ira Livingston, Maria Damon, Tracie Morris, Charles Bernstein, Amitava Kumar, Renato Rosaldo, and Pierre Joris.

Periodic downpours couldn’t keep away the 100+ people who celebrated the publication of Larry and Alaina Kanfer’s Barns of Illinois at the Larry Kanfer Gallery on October 1st.

On Thursday, September 24, University of Illinois Press authors will appear in Boston, Chicago, and Jackson, Mississippi.

-P. Gabrielle Foreman, author of the book Activist Sentiments: Reading Black Women in the Nineteenth Century, will speak at the Museum of African American History in Boston, MA.
-Liesl Miller Orenic will discuss her new book On the Ground: Labor Struggle in the American Airline Industry at the Open University of the Left/Lincoln Park Library, Chicago, IL.
-David Beito and Linda Royster Beito will discuss their new book Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard and the Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power at Lemuria Books, Jackson, MS.

On October 5, 2009 we will publish I Feel a Song Coming On, the first biography of great American songwriter Jimmy McHugh. That week, Barnes & Noble Lincoln Triangle (NYC) and Michael Feinstein will help us celebrate.

Special events:

Carnegie Hall
Michael Feinstein, with special guests Noah Racey and Wesla Whitfield, in “Standard  Time With Michael Feinstein: A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening…The songs of Jimmy McHugh.” Wednesday, October 7, 7:30 pm , at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall.

Barnes & Noble Lincoln Triangle
Author Alyn Shipton, McHugh’s grandson Jimmy McHugh III, jazz vocalist Wesla Whitfield, and host Tom Santopietro. Whitfield will perform from the McHugh Songbook. Shipton will read excerpts and discuss the composer’s life and music. Friday, October 9, 7:30 pm, at Barnes & Noble Lincoln Triangle, Broadway and 66th St., Manhattan.

The University of Illinois Press and the Larry Kanfer Gallery invite you to celebrate the publication of Barns of Illinois.
Photographs by Larry Kanfer
Text by Alaina Kanfer

Book launch party and signing:
Thursday, October 1, 5-8 pm

Presentation and book signing:
Saturday, October 3, 2 pm-5 pm

All events will be held at the Larry Kanfer Gallery
2503 South Neil Street, Champaign, Illinois

Questions? Please contact gallery@kanfer.com or 217.398.2000