The Southern Indiana Writers Group had a table at the Howard Steamboat Museum’s annual Victorian Chautauqua last weekend. We sold bunches of books, not even counting a member who had a separate table to sell her own books. Yay, all of us! The Chautauqua had a few lectures, but mostly entertainment. They had games and activities for kids and a steam calliope which played between lectures and live music.
The live music ranged from acoustic guitar to big band, and this inexplicable Hawaiian-shirted barbershop group.
Joy, T Lee, Dale the Roadie and Marian came to set up at too-early a.m. on Saturday. T and Joy brought tables, all brought chairs, T brought ground tarp, rugs and canopy, T and Marian brought food. Joanna had organized everything beautifully, so set-up was a breeze, once the tent was up.
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It rained off and on during the first part of Saturday, but it didn’t seem to discourage the crowds. It cleared up by the afternoon and both days were cool and beautiful. We met a Goth girl named Elizabeth, who was
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tickled to hear that Marian’s Yahoo nick is MomGoth and who said we could show her picture. Also met a most beautiful pug dog named Darla Rose, whose mommy said we could put her picture on our blog.
Ginny and Joanna, Dirk and Samantha and Dave all came for shifts, but T was there all of both days. She is a trooper! Others would have been there all of both days, too, but prior engagements and sick family members interfered. Slackers! Where are your priorities??!!
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Ginny found that one of the costumed folks cruising the site is a distant cousin, which was cool. The man’s real name is Jamie Eiler. Who he was dressed up to represent, this writer does not know.
We walked around, meeting people and buying things from other merchants. We had so much fun talking with the people who stopped by our booth, we would have considered the weekend a success if we hadn’t sold anything. The sales just made it all so much better.
The books that attracted the most attention were the ghost/horror books. GHOSTS: ON THE SQUARE… AND ELSEWHERE…., GHOST WRITERS and THERE’S SOMETHING UNDER THE BED-TIME STORIES sold the most. NOVEL INGREDIENTS, stories about food with a recipe accompanying every story, and DRAGON: OUR TALES, stories about dragons–real or imaginary–did next best. Joanna Foreman’s GHOSTS OF I-65 also sold well. For excerpts of stories from most recent SIW anthologies including our latest, MOST WANTED, click here.
We even had time to do some work. Joanna brought a chapter of her WIP, and we read and critiqued it there in the booth. We meet every week, but we still spent most of the whole weekend together, working and sharing. This isn’t how artistic temperaments are supposed to go, is it?
We plan to return to the chautauqua next year. Meanwhile, come see us at the Harrison County Library on May 30, 2009 from 1-4.
MA