Humpity Hump Hump Launch!

Ariel officially launched her book Hump tonight at McNally Robinson Booksellers, and it was everything it should be: surrounded by friends and family and colleagues and fellow writers and editors and lots of good will and love, and even a bunch of books being sold! Heck, even bookstore owner Kelly Hughes of Aqua Books managed to slip past McNally security and make it to the launch! ;-)

Of course the core of the WWG (Wolseley Writers Group) was there: David Jon Fuller, Polly Washburn and myself, cheering and heckling as needed. Polly and I went earlier to have dinner with Ariel, who was also accompanied by many other friends, including her publicist Dawn from Palimpsest Press (who is a really great and funny person in her own right).

Just before she went up to read, Ariel said she was getting really nervous, and she did indeed look a bit...pale. But when she hit the podium and started speaking, she was right on the money with jokes and plenty of Ariel-inappropriate stories (ha!) and great poetry reading of course. If she was still nervous as she read, no one could tell. She was all poise and professional poet up there!

Yay Ariel! Congratulations again!