Saturday Short Post--Winter Institute, and Yes, More Music Novels

I've written for the past week about music novels, and while I've done a little proofing (not enough, of course) of the pieces, I had for the most part written them last weekend. That's because I was at workshops, talks, presentations, signings, and receptions at Winter Institute, the annual gathering of booksellers, which met in Seattle.

The amusing thing was that I realized that music is really inspiring a lot of fiction this winter and spring. First I talked to Stacey D'Erasmo, whose novel Wonderland is coming out in May. Carla at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt presented the title at a lunch, about a woman rocker planning a comeback tour, and she was just crazy about it. D'Erasmo has had several novels in the past, and has made quite the reputation as a critic, and HMH is hoping this is the breakout.

Then I went over to the Wesley Stace line to get a copy of his forthcoming novel, Wonderkid. It's about a rock band that makes it, but as a children's music phenom. They still think of themselves as true rockers, but it's hard to balance scoring whatever and encouraging kids to jump around and shake it. At the small press breakfast, my take-away was Nick Hornby with decades of on-the-job training, as Stace is also the musician John Wesley Harding. It's a March publication.

So who was on the line with me to get a copy of Wonderkid? It was Len Vlahos, author of The Scar Boys, who I wrote about several days ago. I snapped this photo to prove it.