Sorry it's been so long since I've updated, but it's been a busy couple of weeks. I've spoken at Rotary Club meetings and an awesome comic shop, Comic Evolution, in Puyallup, Washington. I've lined up radio interviews and made a name for myself (some would say a "reputation") in the Weekly Volcano. I'm seeing and reviewing two plays in the next forty-eight hours. I'm booked as a guest speaker for Crypticon, a horror and comics convention in Seattle this June. Meanwhile, it's the last few days before finals at my teaching job. Things are flying together at high speed now. The Lightfall is underway. I noticed my book can now be ordered from any Barnes & Noble, both online and within each store. If you live near one, please do me a favor and point this out to the manager there. Let's get things moving!
Speaking of moving, the Oklahoma book tour is a mere nine days away. I cannot wait. Below is the press release we just sent out to newspapers, radio, and TV stations all over Oklahoma. Are you starting to feel the excitement? We accomplished something, you and I, together. I mean that. You were each a big part of our success. In nine days I'll be signing copies of Lightfall at the same entertainment store, the Ada Hastings, where I worked one summer in my undergraduate days. I've dreamed of this moment. My alma mater, which once denied me a job as an adjunct professor of English, has changed its mind and is welcoming me back as a favorite son.
Your job continues, my friends. You Oklahoma Lightfall fans, I want to see and meet you at these signing events, even if you've already bought and read the book. Bring your copy and let me sign it and shake your hand and thank you in person for giving me a shot. Wherever you live, do me a solid and recommend me to your local Barnes & Noble or Borders manager. If you run or know someone who runs an independent bookstore, please give Fear Nought Publishing a call. We cannot lose momentum. It took us far too long--I might even say too many years--to make it this far. We can't let it dissipate now.
Here's my promise to you in return: I will never forget you're a part of Team Lightfall. If you choose to read it in your book group, I'll show up if I can or arrange a conference call if I can't. I will always answer emails to Carv@ChristianCarvajal. If you dislike the book, tell me why and I'll remember it as I work on the next one. If you love the book, tell everyone you know. Talk it up on Facebook, and add me as a friend if you haven't already.
I suppose it may have come as a surprise to many, but Lightfall is about inclusion. It's about opening our minds and hearts and eyes to the valuable insights of others. It's about opening our places of worship to people who may have had different life experiences, or different God experiences, than our own. It's about stepping away from outdated fundamentalism and toward cosmic reverence and humanism. And most of all, it's about the Christ I admire, a guy who came to save us, not from the sins of Adam and Eve, but from our own xenophobia. So what else can I say but this is our book, our moment to share?
See you in Sugar Roses!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Christian Carvajal
4910 Auto Center Way, 201-B
Bremerton, WA 98312
(580) 399-0750
carv@christiancarvajal.com
(Olympia, WA) Fear Nought Publishing is proud to announce an Oklahoma book tour in support of the wide release of LIGHTFALL, a novel by former Ada resident Christian Carvajal. He describes his book as a satirical thriller about the End of the World, as seen from a pious Oklahoma college town called “Sugar Roses.” A series of supernatural events inspires many of Sugar Roses’ Baptist residents to anticipate the Biblical Rapture. What might actually be happening, and how Christians’ true natures are revealed under cataclysmic stress, constitute the central mysteries of the novel. Fear Nought is a traditional publishing company based in Olympia, Washington.
Carvajal will sign copies of LIGHTFALL at Harbor Mountain Coffee in McAlester at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, March 20, then at the Ada Hastings at 2:00 p.m. He’ll be at the Ada Public Library at 4:00 p.m. Monday the 22nd, then make several appearances at East Central University during that week including a 7:00 p.m. reading in the Estep Center, Tuesday the 23rd. A Thursday night signing is tentatively planned for The Bean and Berry in Shawnee. He’ll conclude his Oklahoma tour at Full Circle Books in Oklahoma City, 3:00 p.m., Saturday the 27th. All events are free and open to the general public.
“I wouldn’t say Sugar Roses is meant to duplicate any Oklahoma town precisely,” Carvajal writes, “but it could sure pass for Ada in dim lighting.”
Christian Carvajal is a 1985 graduate of Crowder High School and a 1993 graduate of East Central University in Ada, where he earned Bachelor’s degrees in Communication (Theatre) and Math for Secondary Education. He currently teaches math at Olympic College in Bremerton and Shelton, Washington, and writes as a theatre critic for THE WEEKLY VOLCANO in Tacoma. He maintains a website and blog at ChristianCarvajal.com. LIGHTFALL is his first published novel.
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LIGHTFALL
· Fear Nought Publishing
· ISBN: 978-0-9824855-2-1
· Pub Date: November 13, 2009
· Pages: 304 pp. hardcover
· Price: $21.95 hardcover, $4.95 e-book
www.ChristianCarvajal.com
SAMPLE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
How do you think your novel will be received in small-town Oklahoma?
What inspired you, an unaffiliated agnostic, to write about religion?
How do you believe the world will really end?
How did your years as a Jehovah's Witness affect your outlook on religion?
Does LIGHTFALL pick on Christians?
Should religion be subject to skepticism and/or satire?
What inspired your book's title?
Can religion and present-day science and technology coexist peacefully?