Ask Your Librarian

Do you use your public library? In Seattle and the surrounding areas, we are fortunate to have wonderful neighborhood and small-town libraries. As a schoolgirl the Issaquah Library was a common place for parental after-school pickups. Later as a mother with a young daughter, we frequented the West Seattle Library on a regular basis. Now, one of my grandson’s favorite rainy-day outings is a visit to the wonderful children’s room at the Bellingham Public Library, and I continue to visit my local library to pick up to request books or download audio and eBooks from home. These services are privileges I do not underestimate.

As a writer, libraries serve another purpose. My biggest challenge – and I am not alone here – is getting my work into readers’ hands. I am uncomfortable asking people to purchase my books or to write reviews – I do it, but I don’t like doing it. I didn’t become a writer to become rich and famous. I’m too much of a realist for that. Still, having readers is important to me.

I was reading an email from a niece the other day when a thought came to me. I suggested she request my new book – in fact all my books – from her own local library. Libraries exist to serve the reading public, and they want to know what you want to read. Using our libraries and letting our librarians know what we’d like them to shelf helps keep our libraries viable, especially in difficult times. My niece generously offered to take her sons to the library – one of their favorite spots – and make the request.

Would you be willing to do the same? To visit your local library and ask for a copy of Pandemic Baby: Letters to My Grandson Before He Could Read? 

Or, there might be an easier way. Perhaps you’d be willing to check your library collection online and see if any of my books are listed. If not, there should be a link on the website to allow patrons to request specific books be added to their collection.

Here are the links in my area:

The Seattle Public Library https://www.spl.org/books-and-media/suggest-a-title 

King County Library System https://kcls.org/faq/interlibrary-loan-suggest-a-purchase/#suggest-a-purchase

Sno-Isle Libraries https://www.sno-isle.org/suggest-a-purchase-ill/#suggest 

Bellingham Public Library https://bellinghampubliclibrary.org/ask/request-an-item

You will likely need an active library card as well as the ISBN and publication date of any book you’d like to request. Below is a list of my books with the required information. For other books you can’t find in your library, you can find ISBN and publication date on Amazon.

Pandemic Baby: Letters to My Grandson Before He Could Read (ISBN 979-8304136532, December 19, 2024)

The Ex-Mexican Wives Club: A Memoir (ISBN 978-1701090576, October 19, 2019)

Mom’s Last Move: A Memoir (ISBN 978-1730764233, November 2, 2018)

The Thirty-Ninth Victim: A Memoir (ISBN 978-1717582072, April 29, 2018)

Walking Home (The Alki Trilogy) (ISBN 978-1974165742, April 20, 2015)

Biking Uphill (The Alki Trilogy) (ISBN 978-1974164738, May 6, 2014)

Running Secrets (The Alki Trilogy) (ISBN 978-1974128150, December 30, 2013)

Thank you using your public library and for considering this request. If you decide to give it a try and suggest your library purchase a title, would you please let me know how it goes? 

Coincidence or Cautionary Tale?

Shortly before the recent publication of my latest memoir, I received an interesting email – a series of probing questions really – from a friend. These questions prompted me to dig deep to find some answers.

During the five years of writing, you questioned when to end the book... when the crisis is "over"? At the vaccination release? And here we are - just entering Round 2 of who knows what fresh hell awaits and the book is ready to be released. A key point is the crisis ISN'T over. It seems like it will never be over. So what do we do with that? Is your book a caution? A reminder of how bad it was so we maybe don't repeat the same mistakes? A warning that we can't just check out because we are weary of crises? The timing of the release of PB right after Trump 2.0 begins seems like something to take note of - a significant coincidence? Perfect timing? And to hopefully achieve what?

Needless to say, this friend has become a bit of a muse – a muse I have learned not to ignore. So how do I answer that stream of questions?

First, I write to understand, clarify, remember, create. I write because it calms my soul, allows my brain to stop and sleep. I am not a writer who writes to convince anyone of anything or even to entertain. I do not think of “audience” when I write. And I certainly don’t think I’ll ever clear a cent of profit from my writing. So why publish at all?

I have been journaling off and on for over fifty years. In 2002 I began writing what became my first book, published in 2008 and re-released in 2018. Why did I seek that first publication? Because The Thirty-Ninth Victim gave voice to a silenced past. Without publication, without voice, I believed – and still believe – I would have remained an incomplete woman.

Three memoirs and three novels later, I have written and published Pandemic Baby: Letters to My Grandson Before He Could Read. What began as a coping tool of journals and letters during a dreadful pandemic gave voice to my political and social beliefs in a more direct manner than anything I had written prior. A clarifying of my beliefs. To publish was to give voice to those beliefs. And though I am no one famous or important – a retired ESL teacher, a cyclist, reader, gardener, wife, mother (always), and a new grandma – my beliefs matter. Just as yours do. 

So I published. I published on Amazon. I’d prefer my books be in every independent bookstore and library across this country. But I am an elderly white woman of average talent, with a limited writers’ network and minimal means. I have published with three small presses that all went out of business. No major agent or publisher has expressed interest in my work. Publishing on Amazon allows me to hold that work in book format and share my voice with a small audience of devoted readers. For this I am grateful.

Why now? Why publish a story about the tragedies of Trump’s first term just after he’s been re-elected to a second? Pandemic Baby was never intended as a cautionary tale; I wasn’t trying to convince anyone how to vote in the 2024 election. It is, however, an accurate description of the period from early 2020 when COVID hit the Seattle area to summer 2022 when my grandson could finally be vaccinated. The book opens with an overview of the Trump years prior to his birth in June 2020. It was a time unlike any other in the history of our democracy. I wanted to document the world as I saw it, the world into which he was born. 

But Jack was only one of over three million babies born in the United States during the first year of the pandemic. The story I wrote goes beyond him and me. It is a story for all the pandemic babies, their parents and grandparents. It is a book I published to give voice to a unique yet universal story. The publication just after the Trump re-election was a coincidence, and yet if it serves as a reminder of what we have been through and what we need to prepare ourselves to endure once again, the timing may indeed be perfect. I hope you will read it and let me know what you think.