Mary Sidney—She's the Man

Last week I had a discussion and book signing at Garcia Street Books in Santa Fe, and it was so great. There were about 60 people and the store sold out of 55 books. Which is particularly wonderful because it’s my home town and because you never know if anyone’s going to show up for a book signing. Worse than no one showing up is when one person shows up, which is what happened in Cupertino many years ago. Cupertino, of all places, where Apple lives. One person showed up and it was mortally humiliating, but worse, I heard through the years that this one person told everyone else that only one person showed up. sigh.
 
But the event in Santa Fe was wonderful and everyone was so supportive and everyone bought books. It gives me the courage to carry on.
 
Our new bumper sticker: Mary Sidney—she’s the man!

Get serious?

When I showed someone our invitation to the 2005 Sidney Supper, he read through it, paused for a moment while pondering his thought, trying to figure out how to say this politely, then murmured, “Um, this isn’t very . . . scholarly. It looks, well, like you don’t take yourselves very seriously.”

Isn’t that odd, that if it looks like you’re having a good time, it can’t be “scholarly” or “important” or “right.” That's exactly what happened when I wrote my first computer book—it was easy to read and easy to understand and it made you laugh here and there. So it couldn’t have been a good computer book! But some have claimed that it changed the direction of computer books. And it's sold more than a million copies.

Serious can often equal boring. “Wives may be merry and yet honest too.” The Mary Sidney Society, the book Sweet Swan of Avon, the board meetings, the Sidney Supper—not boring.

Authorship book has an authorship problem

If you’ve been looking for the book, Sweet Swan of Avon, by Robin Williams, you may have noticed that some bookstores have it listed as by Kim Brady! Somehow Kim’s name got in the Books-in-Print database and we’re having a hard time getting it out. I don’t even know who Kim Brady is! She wrote a book about scrapbooking for Peachpit and somehow her name got attached. But don’t worry—it’s the right book.

My new book, Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare, is now available at Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble, and independent bookstores everywhere!