Last week I was in Odessa, Texas as part of their One Book Odessa festivities for The Night Circus.
It was a wonderful, magical, fantastic couple of days and I met so many lovely people. I am amazed and awed at all the work and attention to detail that went into everything, Chandresh himself would be proud.
Above are some of the decorations from the Ector County Library, silhouettes of mini Widget & Poppet in the children’s section. The whole library looked amazing, the stairs were the Cloud Maze! And I loved the Wishing Tree.
Thursday was the Night Circus Gala held at the grounds of The Globe Theatre. Did you know that there are replicas of Shakespeare’s Globe & Anne Hathaway’s cottage in Texas? I didn’t, so it was a delightful surprise and a gorgeous setting for all the circusy festivities, including magic and tarot reading (I got a very spot-on reading myself) and the most adorable contortionist and fabulous music by White Ghost Shivers.
And then there was this cake which I was completely blown away by, photos can’t do it any justice because there was so much gorgeous detail from every angle. It was made by Brenda Ornelas and there are more photos on her facebook page.
The next day we were on the front page of the newspaper.
On Friday during the day I got to meet a bunch of wonderful high school students who had created their own circus tents that were all incredibly imaginative and fun. And that evening we had an onstage interview and q&a and book signing that was full of interesting questions and I apologize again for saying the name of the Scottish play (several times) in a theatre.
Then there was a beautiful (early) midnight dinner with exquisite little courses by Chef Alejandro Barrientos, which was extraordinary. (Also there was Night Circus wine!)
Dinner was followed by a special presentation of the dramatic reading of Part One of the book by Mark 10 Theatricals which was absolutely wondrous and so creative. This is me with the gorgeous cast & director:
Now I’m home in NYC and it all seems like a lovely dream. I’m truly astounded by the thought and care and creativity on so many levels, and I feel honored to have had my book embraced by the community so enthusiastically.
And huge thanks and gratitude to Randy Ham, who was not only a gracious escort for our time in Odessa and a splendid interviewer but the ringmaster behind all the circusy festivities.
Thank you, Odessa! Now I’m going to stay home and write and not get on airplanes for awhile.