May 1, 2008
Mwa ha ha! Fame and glory are mine, all mine!
Well, okay, not really. Sundays at Tiffany’s pubbed on April 29th, and though thousands and thousands of people have now bought a book with my name on it, my life is remarkably unchanged. I’ve seen my books in bookstores before, of course, and have pretty much had something for sale consistently for the last fourteen years. My alter ego, Cate Tiernan, currently has a shelf full of Sweep books in just about every Barnes and Noble and Borders. But seeing Sundays in stacks at Costco, as I fill my cart with kitty litter and bagels and butter and kids’ socks–it’s different. However, when I walk by the book, no neon halo appears over my head, flashing “cowriter” to everyone, so I’m still anonymous me. It’s a thrill though, seeing it–today my daughters and I were in a grocery store, and Jim’s book was there. We pointed it out to each other and giggled conspiratorially. A fun secret we could share.
A couple years ago, the Dutch company Elf, which has stores and a fantasy magazine, flew Cate (me) over to the Netherlands so I could speak at their yearly Fantasy Fair. I had gone two years before also. It’s just about the biggest Fantasy Fair in Europe, and tens of thousands of people come. The first time I went, Cate had only a small group of hard-core fans, and my audiences ranged from about eight people to about twenty-five. The last time I went, Cate filled the tent–there were hundreds of Sweep fans (Sweep is called Wicca in the Netherlands), and the line afterward to get autographs took kids about forty-five minutes to get through. It was amazing. Cate’s very popular in the Netherlands.
The Dutch publisher (Boekerij) had set up a “handler,” someone who would walk around with me and make sure I showed up at interviews on time. She was a lovely, incredibly sweet girl–the young wife of my former editor at Boekerij. Anyway, Caroline and I walked around, and every once in a while someone would shyly come up and ask for an autograph or to have their picture taken with me. Sweep is a YA series, so these fans were mostly young teens. Since they were Dutch, they were all about a foot taller than me. But people treated me like a celebrity, and even asked things like, was it hard for me to go out, at home, like to the grocery? Implying that I would be mobbed by eager fans whenever I stepped out the door. It was surreal. I kept explaining that no, back at home I was a nobody, no one ever knew who I was or recognized me, and they seemed surprised. Then I came home and had to go back to work, and make dinner, and scoop cat boxes, and mow the lawn, and it was like having two worlds collide.
Now I’m wondering if partnering with such an incredibly well-known and huge-selling writer like Jim, having my name on the cover, will change anything. So far I’ve determined that it will not make my children cut me any more slack, nor be more eager to do their chores, even for a semi-famous author. They’re still asking if there’s any clean laundry, and do we have Beanie Weenies for school lunch tomorrow, and to referee about whose turn it is to take a shower first.
I bet no one’s asking Jim that.
G.