Eastward Bound

Slowly, far slower than I like for my funding support efforts, things are coming together for my book promo tour of Serbia plus in April. Promotion primarialy for Pesme iz kazamata (Rad, 2005) but also for my contibution of the “Recna svita” book within Slike iz kanade (SKC Niš, 2005).

I’m excited, very excited, and working flat out to get a mess of Broken Jaw book and catalogue stuff done before I leave Canada. I will still be trying to do necessary work while in Eastern Europe and to chop back the email that sprouts like weeds but it won't be anything like the 10-, 12- and 15-hour days on the computer in Fredericton. I'll be seeing places I've not been before, metting people not met before, or ones briefly met. I'll be trying to share my writing with people many of whom would not have heard it or read it before.

Certainly, a goodly number of people in Serbia have heard me read and talk in 2004 and 2005 at the University of Beograd, at the Beograd Book Fair, in interviews on Radio Studio B and Radio Beorgrad 2, at the YACS conference and Slike iz kanade book launch at the University of Niš.

This time, my third visit to Serbia, I’ll be flying into and out of Budapest, Hungary. The airfare, with Air Can + Lufthansa service, is hundreds of dollars cheaper than Beograd return. Was hoping to visit Budapest anyway.

The main book promotion events confirmed are:
• 10 April, 5 pm: reading with translator Dubravka Ðjurić @ Narodna biblioteka Kruševac, Trg kosovskih junaka 1, Kruševac. Tel 37 418 310.
• 12 April, 12 noon: reading with Dubravka Ðjurić (translator) and Simon Simonović (publisher) launching the Pesme iz kazamata (Rad, 2005) promotional tour. Kulturni centar Beograda, Knez Mihailova 6/I, Beograd. Tel. 2621-469.

It looks like I’ll also be doing stuff in several private language schools in Beograd and Senta. I might be meeting with a writers’ workshop group. I may also be going to the university in Pale (Bosnia & Herzegovina), or back to the University of Niš in the south. Am still awaiting confirmation and written invitations for several events, and am still open to other events happening.

I’ll also be meeting with publishers, authors, artists, editors and translators while looking towards projects for the future: books and art.

Have heard that already there is some media interest in the tour from one of the newspapers in Beograd . . . that they came ’round the Rad publishing house offices.

There should still be personal time, sigh, to relax and enjoy life, even to write, to have a beer two on the river or at the Mojo Club . . .

T: Little Feat, Smooth Sailin’
loc: comCtr
temp: -8 C
Sound: The Pogues, Waiting for Herb