The best I can do during launch week

As I write this, it is Sunday of the week Blood Tango launched.  I have been so busy promoting it that I haven’t got two minutes to rub together to think of a proper blog topic, much less write one.  This is the fate of all mid-list authors: self-promotion.  So I have been running about the New York Metropolitan area doing what I can to get the book noticed.   So far, I have signed in a bookstore, attended a tango flash mob in Dag Hammarskjold Park, presided over a dinner with the dancers in said extravaganza, and presented at a library.

Truth be told, I enjoyed it all immensely.   Many writers, most of whom started much earlier than I, lament having to stand up and talk about their work.  But having spent two and a half decades of my life traveling around the world speaking to business groups and marketing my ability to do so, public speaking suits me.  It makes me feel sure of myself, which writing novels never does.

Don’t get me wrong, I prefer writing stories to any other work.  I waited so long for my fiction to be published that I still feel as if I’m in wonderland, especially during a week like this.  It’s just that writing stories takes every cell in my brain and every blood drop in my heart.  Talking about a book after the fact may be far less soul-satisfying, but it is a whole lot simpler.

Given the above, my post for this week will have to be part of a work in progress.  I am preparing a series of photos of Buenos Aires for my website.  If you have not seen the ones of Potosí  that I put up, matched with quotes from City of Silver, please take a look at the Photos page of www.annamariaalfieri.com.  The architecture in that city at 13,500 ft. is one of the marvels of the world.

The photos of Blood Tango’s locations in Buenos Aires will also be matched with quotes from the text.  This requires rereading the now printed book and selecting the right images from the hundred plus I snapped while in Buenos Aires in January of 2012.  Here is what I have so far:

“…nineteenth century buildings of scale and grace had earned the city its sobriquet—Paris of the South.”  Page 3

“If the rabble decided to bring their outrage to the seat of government, they would have only a few blocks to march to the Casa Rosada….”  Page 11.

“In their hovels in the villas miserias around the factories on the periphery, the poor rejoiced over the parting gifts Perón had announced over the radio…”  Page 45.

“...he accompanied Strade and his coterie of magnates down the regal staircase to the front door and saw them off.”  Page 99.

Next week, back to normal—whatever that is.

Annamaria - Monday