My book comes out today
It's about the queer woman who was arrested and put on trial for publishing James Joyce's 'Ulysses' before anyone else.
First of all, I’m sorry.
The Frontlist has been dormant since this summer for several reasons, chief among them the news that Substack not only recommitted to monetizing white nationalists and neo-Nazis, but also sent push notifications to promote them.
It was such a depressing string of events that I still, six months later, haven’t decided what to do with this newsletter. I’ll sort it out over the holidays, but today, I’m writing about something else.
My first book pubs today: A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls: Margaret C. Anderson, Book Bans, and the Fight to Modernize Literature. It’s a narrative biography of the queer woman who was arrested and put on trial in 1921 for publishing James Joyce’s Ulysses before anyone else. It received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist, and here’s some early press:
NewCity, Margaret C. Anderson’s Brilliant and Beleaguered Journey (thank you, Keir Graff)
Chicago mag, The Golden Girl of the Avant-Garde (thank you, Robert Loerzel)
Chicago Review of Books, Adam Morgan on Literary Pioneer Margaret C. Anderson (thank you, Michael Welch)
Unruly Figures Podcast, Adam Morgan on Margaret C. Anderson (thank you, Valorie Castellanos Clark)
Publishers Weekly, Adam Morgan on Six Suppressed Women Writers (thank you, Dana Snitzky)
If everyone reading this could please purchase 100 copies I would really appreciate it.
Hitting pub day is a strange experience. You feel an intense sense of urgency, but also helplessness: There is nothing you as the author can do at this point — you’ve already done it! Pub day is really just like any other day, except for the fact that your book is in stores. Which is amazing! But also oddly distant from your own experience.
I do have a few events for the book coming up in January and February. If you live in New York, Chicago, North Carolina, or South Carolina, I’d love to see you!
JAN 8
6:00PM
Flyleaf Books with Shelbi Polk
Chapel Hill, NC
JAN 15
7:00PM
Women & Children First with Julia Fine
Chicago, IL
JAN 27
6:30PM
Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library with Gayle Feldman
New York, NY
FEB 19
6:00PM
Hub City Bookshop
Spartanburg, SC
Like all writers, I have no idea how many copies this book needs to sell in order to be considered a success by my publisher — my only hope is that it does well enough to let me write the next book! It has been a grueling but wonderful experience.
Huge thank yous to my agent, Natalie Edwards, my editor, Nick Ciani, all the wonderful people at Simon & Schuster, Atria Books, and One Signal Publishers, and all of my generous blurbers, Rebecca Romney, Ling Ma, Kevin Kwan, Michelle Duster, Sarah Rose Etter, and Audrey Clare Farley. It takes a village.
Thank you for supporting my work. I’ll see you in the new year.
Congrats!
A huge congratulations!