December 28, 2011

Award nominations for 2011

I’m hugely honored that my publishers have nominated two of my works for annual awards this year.

Dad’s Eye View, my book about great kids’ activities in the Twin Cities from Minnesota Historical Society Press, has been nominated for the Minnesota Book Awards. Sponsored by the The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, the Minnesota Book Awards showcases books by Minnesota authors and Minnesota presses; in the past, the finalists have included writers like Anton Treuer, Kevin Kling, Kate DiCamillo, Eleanor Arnason, and Bill Holm–a pretty great group. This year’s finalists will be announced January 29th.

And in a surprising bit of news, my story Open Every Womb has been sent to the Best American Short Stories editors for the 2011 anthology. The competition for inclusion is pretty stiff–there are a lot of great stories published every year, by people like Alice Munro and Ann Beattie. But to even be considered is a great honor–a huge thanks to the folks at Atticus Review!

March 6, 2011

Dad’s Eye View

I’m very excited to announce that my book from MHS Press, Dad’s Eye View: 52 Family Adventures in the Twin Cities, is getting closer to release! The final proofs have been corrected, the files are off to the printer, and very soon you’ll be able to walk into any bookstore or gift shop in the Twin Cities and ask for your very own copy.

As part of the release, I’m going to be putting out fresh content on Facebook and Twitter, and also on a new site I added to my digital empire specifically for the book. MHS Press is doing an iPhone app with the book–it will let you know when you’re close to one of the adventures highlighted in the book, puts the important information (like bathroom availability) up front, and lets you share your experiences online. My goal is to get some interaction going around the general topic of off-the-beaten-path attractions in the Twin Cities, including the many wonderful places that I couldn’t squeeze into the 52 in the book (which turns out to be quite a small number in the end).

It’s still early in the process, so I haven’t figured out all the details. I expect to use this site a little bit,and We Like It Here a little bit more, to extend the book’s digital reach. There will also be some cross-posting on my existing Twitter accounts (@mhartford and @WeLikeItHere), in addition to contests, quizzes, polls, and such conducted on Facebook and Flickr.

I’m going to respect the tone of each site that I use, though; don’t worry that there will be a lot of marketing to slog through if you come here for book reviews, political intemperance, or translations of modern Irish poems. To the extent that there’s something happening in the “Dad’s Eye View” universe that touches on one of those topics, though, I’m going to look for the synergies.

This whole self-promotion-on-the-web thing is new to me; and I have to admit to being not especially good at self-promotion in general. So if anyone has ideas, tips, suggestions, etc., that they’d like to share as I start down this path, please feel free to pass them along! I’ll certainly be sharing what works as I go.