I was the kind of dork that, in the old days, kept a running list of stuff I needed to look up. I’d go to the library about once a week and dig for that New Yorker article I remembered reading one summer. I’d check addresses in the extensive collection of telephone books, and figure out when people were born. I’d look up how to tie a bowtie, see who wrote that song I liked, find out when copyright laws were invented, browse the history of Indian pudding. Really.
I still love libraries but I also love being able to look up anything whenever I want. Just thinking about all the magic that is now, literally, in the palm of my hand makes me also think about how much surrealistic fun it’s been to publish a book in the internet age.
Creating a web presence for my novel was a project I tackled with a great deal of glee. How nice to pull myself out of my own mind, away from words, and turn to images and graphic design. It was a kind of dream to collaborate with my brilliant web designer, Will Amato, and create a site that exactly fit both me and my book. The good times continued when my brother, Michael Bavaro, a filmmaker and natural artist who was seriously selling GREAT drawings to Cape Cod tourists at the age of 5, produced my gorgeous book trailer.
And Pinterest! I’m still not sure about Pinterest, but it was a blast to put together a collage of the art that created my web presence. All the visuals that went into the making of the web site and trailer are important to me, and important to my novel. There is my grandfather’s old magnifying glass, and old postcards and books I love. There are gorgeous stills from the trailer shoot. How handy to have a place to showcase all these beautiful images. I don’t know about you, but I’m happy to live in a time when magic and reality are kind of the same thing.