My New Avocation:

Public Relations Maven. Who knew?

Here's how it's coming about: Leenie's writer friend, Sarah Dunant, is gearing up for the US release of a third novel in her series on women in the Italian Renaissance – and she is planning a publicity tour in the States in the fall of 2009. Her last two books both hit the NYT bestseller list, and this new one should, too. The subject is convent life in Italy during the Counter-Reformation and the church's oppression of women therein.

Because there are modern parallels to be drawn, Sarah believes (and so do I) that there could be a very reasonable rationale for discussion of the book in the light of church politics in the 21st century. The story of the Immaculate Heart Sisters and their standoff against Cardinal McIntyre in Los Angeles in the late 1960s comes to mind (and it's not that long ago, folks); and the current conflict in the Roman and Anglican churches regarding women's ordination seems pretty pertinent also.

Sarah was discussing the marketing of the new book with Leenie recently, and she said that since she has no real acquaintance with American Catholicism, she wondered if my daughter knew how she might gain some access to leaders and movers/shakers in liberal religious circles over the pond. Eureka: let's ask Fran!

Since I admire Dunant's writing for its well researched historical detail and lively style and have read the first two in the Renaissance series (and am eagerly awaiting publishers' proofs of the third), I agreed to see what I could do.

This public relations work is basically what John and I dub "nexializing" – a nexialist is one who connects – people, businesses, groups, etc. – for their mutual benefit. John's work as a consultant consisted of a lot of that sort of thing, and I'm a careful observer, so perhaps I learned more than I thought during the years in Europe. At any rate, I decided to see what I could do for Sarah.

Networking like a mad ferret, so far I have connected the author with Dr. Ann Taves, the Catholic Studies chair at UCSB, whom I know slightly via St. Mark's days; by good fortune, she had been looking for writers on book tours as guest lecturers for her Fall 2009 season. After doing a little research on Sarah's works, she took the suggestion of inviting Dunant to speak at the Interdisciplinary Department in cooperation with their Renaissance Studies wing, to her deparment head. That worthy said that he doubted they could tempt a best-selling author; Ann (laughing quietly to herself) replied that Dunant had already come to her!

Since Taves is on academic leave at Stanford this winter, I asked her if she had any San Francisco connections that might be interested in hosting Sarah while she is touring in the Bay Area; of course she does, and she's busily connecting things herself now, working directly with her NoCal colleagues and Dunant to set something up.

What else? I gave Sarah the names of the Catholic publications that might be interested in reviewing her book (Commonweal, America, National Catholic Reporter) – and some writers I know about who should receive advance copies of the book for possible jacket blurbs (Kathleen Norris, Joan Chittister, Nora Gallagher, et al). For ammunition when she meets with her publicists at Random House/NY in February, I also suggested two indy bookstores in Santa Barb that would be good venues for a book signing (Chaucer's, and Tecolote "where Oprah shops for books").

Do I dare tackle Oprah? A book-of-the-month push from her sure would help sales .... hmmm. No, I think Random House ought to try to get through that gilded door.

My next big push, after Sarah has a definite date in my old home town, is to get an evening meet/greet thing set up there for people who can't attend university lectures and don't like standing in line at bookstores. Stay tuned: I have some good ideas in mind.