The late O. Richard Norton was a gifted and dedicated science writer. He wrote with a concise clarity that brought the most complex of concepts warmly to life. He was also an admired personal friend. His seminal work Rocks from Space, published in 1994, was the first popular book to bring the study of meteorites to a large audience. It remains an important, engaging, and informative work to this day, as do his later books, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Meteorites and The Field Guide to Meteors and Meteorites (with Lawrence Chitwood). Richard’s wife, Dorothy Sigler Norton, also a personal friend, worked closely with Richard on all of these titles and — an accomplished scientific illustrator — she provided much of the artwork for the books.

I, myself, provided numerous images for Dorothy and Richard’s new book, What’s So Mysterious About Meteorites?, as did my staff photographer, Suzanne Morrison. We offered these photographs gladly because everyone wanted to see Richard’s last work come into the world, under Dorothy’s guidance. As such, some might think me a little biased towards this new publication, but I am not. With a wealth of fascinating new books seeing print each and every year, I choose not to waste time discussing works I did not enjoy. So, this review is mixed with delight at holding Richard’s posthumous final work in my hand, and sadness at the realization that there will be no more.

In Dorothy’s introduction she writes:

“O. Richard Norton passed away before he completed work on What’s So Mysterious About Meteorites?, a book that meant a lot to him. He had always wanted to provide a basic introduction to his beloved meteorites that could be read by young adults and anyone else interested in the subject of rocks that fall from the sky. While finishing it, I could hear his voice in my mind, explaining some detail about meteorites to students or to the many people who showed up at our door with boxes of rocks. He was a wonderful teacher, a great husband, and a generous friend to all who studied and searched for these curious rocks.”

Amen to that.

What’s So Mysterious About Meteorites? (Mountain Press, 2012) runs exactly 100 pages, is 8 3/8 x 9 inches and, with its lively, colorful cover, is clearly aimed at younger readers. And that’s good news because I already have two overly large shelves filled with highly technical tomes on my favorite subject; works that will not appeal to any but the most eccentric school kids (I’d be a little concerned if anyone under the age of fourteen was, for example, tackling Buchwald’s Handbook of Iron Meteorites). What’s So Mysterious About Meteorites? is packed with pictures of meteorites in the lab, in studio settings, under the microscope, in the field, as well as images of me and my more-than-a-little-offbeat comrades doing what we love best — scouring the wilderness for space rocks. The most amusing of these images is a picture, on page 46, of my friend Tim Heitz gazing rapturously into the sky, while sitting atop a 37-ton South American iron meteorite known as El Chaco.

Many times, over the years, I have been told: “Geoff you really should write a children’s book about meteorites!” I chose not to pursue such a thing because I knew Dorothy had already embarked upon a similar project, and because I was already busy with existing book projects, but mostly because I knew that with Dorothy’s caring spirit, extensive knowledge of the subject, and attention to artistic detail, she would do a much better job than I could.

An image on page vi, opposite the “Table of Contents,” admirably sets the tone for the book. The full-page color photograph depicts Manuel, a young Argentinian boy, pointing at a just-found specimen of the Berduc meteorite (fell April 7, 2008) lying in the dirt. I well know that look on Manuel’s face. It is awe and wonder, mixed with amazement and triumph; the expression of a successful meteorite hunter who has, against all odds, discovered that most elusive of quarries.

In a clear and friendly tone that will be easily assimilated by younger readers, Dorothy begins the book with a brief explanation of what meteorites are, how they differ from meteors, comets, and asteroids, and later adds pleasant doses of astronomy and space exploration to the mix. She jumps straight into the action with an account of the Park Forest fall (March 26, 2003), the only meteorite shower in recorded history to have landed within the confines a major city, that being Chicago. 14 year-old Robert Garza narrowly escaped injury when a loaf of bread-sized space rock crashed through the roof of his family’s suburban home. Thousands of other smaller meteorites landed nearby. Robert’s father called the police, believing some mischief-maker had thrown a rock through the roof of his house:

“But who could throw a rock with that much force? The police took the rock away and put it in an evidence bag. Under ‘offense’ they wrote, ‘N/A (Act of God).’ The rock in the bag at the police station was soon joined by more mysterious rocks. One had hit the roof of the local firehouse. It quickly became clear that these trespassing stones were meteorites. As word got out, people started looking for them. And they found them all over the place.”

I was one of those people. I found seventeen Park Forest meteorites, and gave one each to my meteorite-hunting colleagues, Professor Jim Kriegh and Twink Monrad, both of them also close friends of the Nortons.

Later chapters discuss, in considerable detail, where meteorites come from, what they are made of, and explain meteorite-specific scientific terms such as ablation, strewnfield and rollover lip. The “Fireball Observer’s Checklist” is a handy reference for those fortunate enough to witness a very large meteor in flight. Other sections include “Mars Has Meteorites Too,” a comparison of different meteorite types, and a look at impact craters. The chapter “How Can You Find Meteorites?” provides tips for the would-be searcher, and there is guidance on how to start a collection. What’s So Mysterious About Meteorites? is rounded out by a list of helpful print and online resources, and a glossary of terms.

One of the many interesting space rocks featured in the book. This meteorite is Canyon Diablo from Arizona. Photo by Suzanne Morrison © Aerolite Meteorites LLC

During the past three years I have hosted an international television adventure series called Meteorite Men. The show has sparked a great deal of interest in space rocks, especially — to my considerable glee — among younger viewers. Parents often telephone, or email, and tell us how thankful they are that our series has inspired their kids to walk away from the box and go dig for rocks, instead, in the fresh-air world. Well, except for one slightly frustrated parent who complained: “My garden now looks like the surface of the moon, thanks to you guys!”

For those who want to learn more, we often recommend my first book, Meteorite Hunting: How to Find Treasure from Space, which is a technical, hands-on field guide for those smitten with the desire to go out and recover their own cosmic visitor. My books are written for an adult audience, although they have been enjoyed by some precocious young readers, one of whom reportedly carries a heavily dog-eared copy around with him, daily, at school. His mother told me that he sometimes gets teased by other students and called a “nerd.” I asked her to pass along to him that he should not worry about any of that, because he is a whole lot smarter than the other kids, and they will all be bitterly envious, anyway, when he finds his first thousand-dollar meteorite.

Musings aside, my point is there has been a vacuum in the meteorite world until now. What’s So Mysterious About Meteorites? is not a technical book, but it covers the technical aspects of the complex science of meteoritics in a kid-friendly manner. It tells the amazing story of meteorites in an easy-to-read and easy-to-understand manner that will engage children and young adults who yearn for something more cosmically puzzling and stimulating than reality television or Xbox.

So, parents of kids who dream of being astronomers, or astronauts, or meteorite hunters when they grow up, here is your chance. What’s So Mysterious About Meteorites? will make a wonderful gift for your science-curious progeny and, who knows, perhaps it will ignite a spark that will send them — a couple of decades from now — rocketing across the globe (or into space) on the adventure of a lifetime. What could possibly make for a better present than that?

All photographs and text © Geoffrey Notkin and/or Aerolite Meteorites LLC.
Book cover © by Mountain Press.
All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission.

My media director recently received an invitation asking if I was available to participate in a book signing and writers’ panel in New York. I would be joining two accomplished and successful science writers, one of whom is a personal friend of mine. It sounded great! In the email, the organizer wrote: “I normally don’t invite self-published authors to my events, but made an exception in Mr. Notkin’s case.” [The italics are mine] I do appreciate that this was almost certainly intended as a compliment, but it also unintentionally illuminated a buried vein of snobbery that exists within the strata of contemporary writing: the idea that a self-published writer is, somehow, not a real writer.

Some sweeping elitist views contain at least a nubbin of truth; could this be one of them? In a hi-tech world where Macs and page layout programs can be acquired cheaply and easily, and where print-on-demand (POD) outfits and vanity presses will happily crank out your life story, American novel, or self-help guide, almost anyone can be an author if they have spare time and some extra cash. Painfully simple paint-by-numbers design programs like Microsoft Publisher mean even a smart 10-year-old could theoretically put out an (admittedly short) autobiography grousing about how his parents forced him, daily, to suffer at a proto-Fascist private school, while forbidding him to stay up late and watch the sexy and alluring Diana Rigg in The Avengers on TV (I am quoting from my own childhood here). How tedious would such an account be for the average reader?

I doubt a lad with only a decade’s worth of life experience could share much in the way of insight or enlightenment, and consider how poor the design and typesetting would be. Actually, I don’t have to consider that because I’ve seen plenty of self-published books that have been put together so horribly I likely could have done a far better job myself, even as a ten year-old. Yet, I maintain that there is nothing wrong with self-publishing; quite the opposite in fact. It is a homespun artistic uprising akin to the magnificent and tumultuous punk rock revolution of 1976. Punk was a generation-defining social movement which accidentally gave birth to the fanzine—a Xerox-nourished zygote that slowly grew and mutated—decades later—into independent publishers and POD. The startling realization that you could do things yourself—put out your own record or publish your own counterculture “magazine” (I use the term loosely as most fanzines at the time were hand folded and stapled stacks of photocopied pages)—was fueled by the true original indie labels like Stiff Records in London. Without Stiff we would not have the punk anthem “Neat, Neat, Neat” by The Damned or My Aim Is True by Elvis Costello, and that would be a loss to the arts too bitter to contemplate.

Improved tech, and advances in low-cost printing allowed this proletarian putsch to alter the way in which words on paper were made available to the public, as did the epiphany that—truly—everyone has a story to tell and anyone can write a book. Well, I take that back. I’m not sure that many of today’s American high school teenagers can complete a sentence without using the word “like” at least twice, but you get my drift. Self publishing means Random House or Penguin don’t have to sign off on your book in order for it to live.

Passionate though I am about giving freedom to words, and much as I delight in the nuances of the English language, and even though I have encouraged many friends (and my World War II veteran father) to record and preserve their unique experience of existence through do-it-yourself literature, I will also be the first to admit that many self-published books are not that good. In fact, many are downright diabolical. Hence, no doubt, the comment from the nice lady organizing the authors’ event in New York. In the old days, if a publisher went to the considerable expense of putting your book out, some professional, somewhere, with some knowledge of writing thought it was good, or would at least make some money. To self publish a book today, the only person who needs to think it’s any good is the author, and that can be dangerous.

I could have replied to the New York book event lady and listed the 100-plus articles that I’ve written for “real” publications, or my contributions to other “real” published books, but why bother? I also might have explained that I could, quite easily, have found a recognized publisher for my recent book: Meteorite Hunting: How To Find Treasure From Space, but I didn’t want to. There were three reasons for this hard line attitude: artistic control, timetable, and money.

As the first two seasons of my television series Meteorite Men started airing around the world and we began the preliminary plans for a third season, I realized there was one thing that many or most of my viewers wanted. They yearned to find their own meteorite. After being deluged with literally thousands of emails from hopefuls who thought they had discovered a valuable space rock in their yard or driveway, we put together an online guide to meteorite identification in the hope that we’d be able to curtail those inquiries through education. Answers to basic questions about meteorites, along with simple tests that the would-be space rock hunter could carry out at home, were clearly presented on my flagship website. The idea backfired disastrously. The meteorite ID guide became so prominently indexed by Google that it did nothing but generate more inquires. Lots of them. So, if all these people wanted to find their own space rock I would show them how to do it, and how to tell the difference between valuable meteorites and common terrestrial rocks.

Between the end of the Meteorite Men Season Two premieres and the start of production for Season Three we experienced a lull back at company HQ. A lull for us is much like a busy 40-hour work week for your regular office employee, but—by our standards—things were quiet. My staff amuse themselves by pointing out that every time we appear to have things under control at Aerolite Meteorites LLC, and our work load slows to a relatively normal pace, I quickly dream up a new and massive project which, once more, puts us back under the gun. And so it was with the book. I can’t help it. I don’t like to be idle.

I would be on a tight timetable. If I was going to produce a book, it was vital that it be in hand by late January of 2011, when the annual gem show opens in Tucson. Tens of thousands of rockhounds would descend upon the Baked Apple during those first two glorious weeks of February; many of them would be Meteorite Men fans and, hopefully, some of them would want my book. So, I rose early each morning during that comparatively lazy December and January with the firm intention of writing two chapters per day. Some days I only managed one chapter, and some days I edited existing chapters, but I worked at a furious pace, and I got it all done, start to finish, in 31 days. As I am a contrary fellow, the very first thing I did was design the cover. The first chapter I wrote is the last one in the book. Next, I wrote the Afterword and then the Acknowledgements, which go at the beginning (some writing teachers like to poke fun at would-be authors who write a list of “thank yous” first and then never get any further with their book, so I did that just to spite them), and finally the middle part, which required some real work.

My editor friends, Dr. Larry and Nancy Lebofsky, kindly agreed to suspend their own personal lives in order to assist me in completing my high-speed magnum opus. I gave them just over a week to work through the entire manuscript, and I felt that was a bit like dropping an anvil on a friend’s pet, but I’d made up my mind that the book’s official publication date would be February 1—my birthday (you can do fun things like that when you are the publisher). The mother of my Director of Operations is an English teacher who happens to be a hell of a good copy editor. She went over the manuscript three times (I did pay her), and my excellent friend Chris Cokinos, author of the brilliant work The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History Of Shooting Stars, wrote a marvelous introduction pretty much overnight. My Meteorite Men co-host, Steve Arnold, read through the whole thing in a day or two, made some helpful suggestions and wrote a fabulous back cover blurb for me. My friends really pitched in to help.

The Meteorite Men attend a book signing during the Tucson gem and mineral show. Photo by Suzanne Morrison.

Imagine having an agent take your manuscript to one of the big publishing houses in New York and say: “Hey guys. I need you to have this edited, typeset, and printed in a few weeks. Get to it.” That’s an amusing mental image. The major publishers take months, or sometimes years, to move a book from manuscript to final product. It’s okay, they’re big companies, I’m not knocking the way they run their businesses, I just don’t want to deal with it. The typical first-time author will be assigned an editor which he or she may or may not like, and a cover will be designed by some in-house artist who does nothing but dream up covers for books he or she hasn’t read. If you are lucky, you might be shown the design before it goes to press, but as a new author don’t be under any illusion that you’ll be asked for input on how your book should look. This fact, more than any other, explains why I do things myself.

In addition to being a television personality and a science writer, I am an art director. I have a degree from New York’s famed School of Visual Arts, and I started publishing underground fanzines way back in the punk era. In all modesty I already have all the skills: writing, photography, design, typesetting, indie publishing experience, and something of a knack for guerilla promotion. As such, why on earth would I turn my book over to some big corporate entity, let them re-write it the way they want, and decide on a cover design they like. If I did sign away by book, I would then hope desperately that some publishing exec might choose me as one of the few authors they would bother to actively promote that quarter and, finally, I would sit around and wait for a meager royalty check to maybe arrive one day. Forget it. I demand complete artistic control over my product and—in the event that it is successful—I want the money too.

And there—would-be self publishers—is the canary of truth in the coal mine. You do the work, you take the risks, you make the money; if your book sells. And mine did, eventually.

I have a great print manager; really great. His name is Guy Rovella of Aardvark Press here in Tucson. If you want to print business cards, flyers, brochures, a lithograph, a laminated card with a wacky hologram on it, or if you are a detail-oriented perfectionist publishing a complex full-color book about how to hunt for meteorites, you should go to Guy. He is the best.

Guy shopped around and got me a super deal on printing my books. With 100 pages, full color throughout, a glossy and hefty cover, lustrous paper, and full bleeds, I wasn’t cutting any corners. I could have done the job for less in Hong Kong, but I believe in keeping work here in the USA, and I wanted to be able to sign off on proofs and be in regular contact with the printer. The last time I was involved with a job that was printed in Hong Kong, we received 1,000 expensive, seawater-damaged hardbacks that some wastrel had stowed in the bottom of a leaky old freighter. You get what you pay for.

I am very meticulous, and all my design projects have to be “just so,” or they have to be redone. I don’t accept jobs that are “okay.” I expect them to be as near perfect as can be. In this instance, I was particularly concerned about certain matters related to the binding and positioning of some images, and I distinctly remember Guy talking to the printer by telephone, while he and I were both in my office looking at the color proofs. “Please tell them to pay particular attention to these issues,” I said, and Guy relayed that to the printer in front of me. “Oh yes, we’re aware of those things, everything will be fine,” the printer replied, and then—about ten days later—when 2,000 copies arrived on a big palette in my driveway, everything was not fine. Numerous copies had been misprinted, many were poorly bound, and some were missing pages. I wanted the entire run reprinted, but I had a serious problem: the gem show was opening in a few days and I absolutely had to have copies on hand for that. I told the printer that I wanted the job redone, but that I would pay for the good copies I had received, of which there were enough for us to get by. No, that wasn’t going to work, the printer said. I had to either keep all of the books, or reprint all of them and there wasn’t time to get reprints to Tucson for the opening of the show. There was some talk of lawyers, and I think someone discussed visiting the printing plant with a sledgehammer (not me), and we eventually arrived at a semi-amicable agreement: I would keep all of the 2,000 books, pay a reduced price for them, discard the misprints, and the print shop would do another run of 2,000 for the original agreed-upon price. I didn’t really want to order that many books, but the plan reduced my per-copy price, so it seemed like a workable idea. Imagine my surprise, then, when the second 2,000 books arrived and exhibited all of the same flaws as the first batch.

Eventually, after much negotiation, and some books being trashed and some being reprinted, I ended up with about 4,000 copies at a rather favorable price. The print shop people actually were very nice, and mistakes do happen. You just don’t want them happening when you’re on an extra-tight deadline, and footing the bill yourself.

The response to Meteorite Hunting at the gem show was splendid. I did two book signings, and Steve Arnold was kind enough to sit in on both of them. We sold many copies, and received only one complaint. A 50-ish rockhound guy with sunken cheeks, and stringy grey hair that looked like seaweed, came into the showroom and complained to me about the $25 cover price. “That’s a lot of money for a 100-page book,” he griped. I was into, probably, my eighteenth consecutive 14-hour day in the showroom by that point, and may have been a bit cranky. “Really!” I replied. I vigorously explained to him how many mega thousands of dollars it had cost me to print the book, not counting the expenses related to editing and photography, the 31 consecutive days I spent writing it, the problems with the printers and defective copies and reprints, the rush to get the project done in time for the gem show, and I likely would have carried on for quite a while longer, but he was—by that point—already cowering, and attempting to slink out of the showroom. “It’s cheap at the price!” I barked after him as he disappeared through the showroom doorway. Not our finest customer service moment, but really, we are usually much nicer, and I suppose the incident illustrates that I may not take criticism very well when it comes to a labor of love, and I am over tired. Oddly enough, he came back the following day and bought two copies, at which point we shook hands, I gave him a little free meteorite, and all was well with the world.

A distribution company specializing in science and natural history books asked to work with us, and they are now getting copies of Meteorite Hunting into mom and pop rock shops and indie bookstores across the company. They are good people and have already moved 1,200 copies. More power to ‘em. Readers liked the book and I was pleased. I collected a page full of unsolicited customer testimonials which we put on the website. We are most of the way through the 4,000-ish copies that we ended up with. I suppose I shall have to reorder soon, and will doubtless go over some other hurdles to keep the title in print, but it was so worth it—expenditure, long hours, headaches and all. I have three other book ideas in the works, and two friends now want me to publish their titles.

Should the giant publishers be the arbiters of taste for all of us? Certainly not, but they are important businesses, struggling to stay afloat in a digital age of video games and texting, and they have helped shape and educate our world by making great works of literature, science, travel, memoir, history, and humor available to millions.

Should Mrs. Beck from upstate New York be allowed to self publish her possibly dull memoir about a barefoot-and-pregnant housewife shacked up with a cheating husband, even though she hasn’t taken any formal writing classes? Should the 40-something nerd living in his mom’s basement have the opportunity to save up some bucks from his job at the fast food dump and self publish his ten-years-in-the-making fantasy epic? Of course they should! Will these books be any good, or sell any copies? How the hell should I know?

The beauty of self publishing is you get to do it the way you want, when you want. In the unlikely event that your book is a big success, the money will also go into your pocket instead of into the corporate vault of some major publisher who probably views your life’s work as nothing more than this month’s product.

As it turned out, I couldn’t attend the book signing and panel in New York anyway, as I was committed to appearing at another promotional event at the same time. Long live the revolution.

My esteemed editor at the The Voice of Tucson, Mark B. Evans, emailed me recently to ask if I would be taking a booth at this year’s Tucson Festival of Books. Since I myself published a new book just last month, I really should have organized precisely that, but the idea of renting a booth had simply not occurred to me. My excuses would probably be that I was focusing on shipping out copies of the new science book, recovering from the 2011 Tucson gem show, and pondering what we could and should do during the upcoming third season of my TV series Meteorite Men. Okay, they’re excuses, but fairly good ones at least.

To my delight, Mark asked if I might be interested in appearing at the TC.com Voice of Tucson booth during the weekend and, of course, I said yes. Enthusiastically. So, my staff and I packed a big meteorite, and many small ones, a few boxes of books, and some photos and collectibles into the Aerolite Meteorites truck and headed down to the U of A campus in preparation for two 1 to 5 pm stints on Saturday and Sunday. Somebody told me that 80,000 people were expected—that’s roughly the same number of spectators in attendance when I saw Joe Cocker, Echo & The Bunnymen, and Ian Dury & The Blockheads at the massive Glastonbury Festival in the UK! Are there really that many people here interested in books in this modern world of social media? Good news if it’s true.

I was expecting some traffic around the campus, but was not prepared for complete mayhem: Closed streets, police barricades, and more bumper-to-bumper car jamming than I have ever seen in Tucson, and that includes the gem show. We eventually waded through the morass of vehicles, dolly-dragged our books and space rocks past the crowds of pedestrians, and met up with Team Voice of Tucson.

One of the issues with appearing at big public events is that I often miss things I’d like to participate in, because I am manning the booth. That’s not a complaint, just a fact. I had hoped to catch a couple of science fiction writer panels, but once I started talking to viewers of my TV series, meteorite and science enthusiasts, and fellow writers, I found myself happily engaged for the rest of the day. The was, however, one event I was not going to miss: The featured lecture by astronomer Mike Brown, author of How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming—a lively and entertaining speaker. We had a brief chat after his presentation and Mike seemed truly delighted that he’d made his large audience laugh. No surprise there—he talked about his work with a gently self-deprecating humor that was both engaging and illuminating.

Another high point was a surprise visit to the TC.com booth by author and illustrator Eric Rohmann. He was extremely complimentary about my TV show, and went on to relate an extraordinary tale about how he’d found a genuine meteorite in Illinois, at the advanced age of nine, and later had it positively identified by the Field Museum in Chicago. He certainly had me beat! I was in my thirties before I found my first meteorite. As we were chatting I pulled out a copy of my book and began inscribing it to him. “Oh, we’re going to do the book exchange thing now, aren’t we?” he asked, in a jovial manner. “We don’t have to do that,” I replied. “I’m just giving you a copy after hearing that amazing story.”

Eric then asked if I happened to like squirrels, so I freely admitted that Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin has always been a favorite of mine. I added: “And with a name like Notkin, you can imagine what the kids called me at British school.” So, he inscribed a copy of his gorgeous children’s book, Last Song, “For Geoff Nutkin.” I’ll treasure it.

The author at the 2011 Tucson Festival of Books, with a favorite space rock. Photograph © Andy Morales

The low point of the event was our first-ever meteorite theft. Well, to be entirely fair, I should really say attempted theft. On the Saturday afternoon, a family with five unruly kids descended upon the booth. These were the type of kids who are compelled to rub and grind their hands over every piece of merchandise within reach, crease book covers, and knock things on the ground. I noticed that one little boy palmed a small iron meteorite—worth about $50—from my table and then walked off in an overly-elaborate nonchalant manner. I called out to his parents: “Hey, your young man is walking off with a meteorite he hasn’t paid for!”

“Is this true?!” the father boomed (to his credit he believed me, instead of instantly lashing out at me for accusing his son. Perhaps it was regular behavior for his kid). Sure enough, once the kid’s sweaty palm had unfurled, the stolen space rock appeared. The dad dragged him back to the booth and forced him to apologize. He looked pretty shellshocked and I bet he was in for a decent spanking later on. Richly deserved in my opinion.

Another surprising and not entirely useful event was the inexplicable performance, on the main Arizona Daily Star stage, by a teenage rock band, at 4 pm on Sunday. I’ve been a professional musician for more than two decades, so don’t think I’m being a fuddy-duddy. I’m a punk rocker too and nobody likes the guitar feedback more than I do, but really, at a book fair? Organizers please note: There is a time and place for everything. Our booth was adjacent to the big stage and as a result of the band attempting to rock out we were unable to conduct any business (or even talk) for the last hour of the festival. Suggestion: Next year, if you want to feature some rock ‘n’ roll—and there’s nothing at all wrong with that—please ask the nice people at Plush if they’ll host a post-festival gig for you, instead of blasting the passers by, who were doubtless expecting a somewhat more literary experience. Odd thing, but bookworms and rockers don’t usually fit together that well.

Towards the end of the afternoon an older lady came up to the booth, looked at our display table for a moment, then asked if the meteorites were free (as least this one asked, instead of just palming one). “No,” my charming sales manager replied. “Meteorites are rare and valuable. Can I show you anything, perhaps a copy of Geoff’s new book?” To which the punter answered: “No, I’m just here for the free schwag.” Thank you for participating! One of my staff members also commented: “Most of the people here don’t seem that interested in books.” Whether or not that was true, they were out on a sunny day, at least looking at printed words, and that beats Xbox in my book. Oops, accidental pun.

I really had a blast at the festival, so don’t think I’m knocking it with my little anecdotes. I enjoyed the whole thing immensely, and I plan on returning next year when we will hopefully have less theft, no rock ‘n’ roll, and I may even be able to finally catch up with author Charles de Lint.

The author wishes to thank fellow Voice of Tucson blogger Andy Morales for permission to use his photograph.