Thank You West Seattle!

How often do we have the opportunity to see folks from all aspects of our lives, every corner and crevice, come together and mingle in the same room?

I was fortunate to have just that experience yesterday at the book release celebration for Walking Home and the completion of The Alki Trilogy.

As I planned this event, I envisioned a community party with food from an ethnic restaurant. The Beveridge Place Pub was the perfect venue - a West Seattle icon with no food service at all! Owner Gary Sink invites his patrons to order food from neighboring restaurants. When I asked my students for recommendations, SabaEthiopian Cuisine was at the top of the list. They didn't disappoint.

As I watched friends and strangers mingle and chat from the signing table at the side of the room, I thought about the groups we each have in our lives, and how rarely those groups intersect.

For me, I saw college colleagues and students - current and former. I saw old friends, friends I've known for over thirty years, friends from the Mother-Daughter book club formed when our 26-year-old daughters were in elementary school. I saw Biker Babes, the incredible women I cycle with and some who may decide to join us. I saw people I didn't know at all, others I'd met when posting flyers and handing out postcard invitations at the West Seattle Farmers' Market last Sunday. I saw family - husband, daughter and fiancé, sister - as well as friends who have become family. Sisters of the heart, you know who you are. And I saw writers, that special breed I am honored to one with, amazing creative souls who put stories on the page one letter, one syllable, a word, a sentence at a time.

There were many folks who couldn't make it, my inbox flooded with regrets. Thank you. I understand. I wish you could have been there as well. Here's one from my dear friend, Luli Weatherwax, I'd like to share:

"... I did finish the third book and enjoyed it very much, my favorite of the three.  I never read a trilogy before so it was very interesting when I finished to think back on all the characters and how much more I got to know them than I would have in a novel.  I felt like I was saying good bye to friends when I finished the trilogy.  The books also made me feel great about living in Seattle where we have the luck to meet so many people of different cultures.  I always feel like I gave my kids such a gift to have them grow up with such diversity around them ..."

Yesterday was a blast, a blur, an event I will not forget. I am so grateful to all of you, those who made it and those who could not, for your ongoing support and readership.