1000 WORDS is Out in the World

Hurray!

Hi friends.

Oh my goodness it’s the 1000 WORDS pub day, can you freaking believe it? There was a huge thunderstorm here last night, all night, so I didn’t get that much sleep but I still woke up early, all hyped up and ready to go. Hurray, a new book!

Also out today is The Fetishist, by Katherine Min, which I read, loved, and blurbed, and I am excited to read the new Bonnie Jo Campbell novel The Waters because she is a great writer, and I am so excited she’s getting all the hype. I am also intrigued by that Clare Oshetsky book, Poor Deer. Hurray, so many new books!

1000 WORDS is my ninth book. I love them all equally but for different reasons.

Sometimes I love a book because it feels like I’ve made a huge step forward with my work. Like maybe I’m proud of the way I executed the concept. Or I can see how I stopped being afraid in my writing and embraced a new level of honesty.

Sometimes it’s because they remind me of the place I was at in my life when I wrote them. Youth, energy, sunlight. The acquisition of wisdom.

And I love the less than perfect ones, too. Even the mistakes are worth loving. We have to make them in order to get to the next place with our work.

With this new book, I love the fact that I got to publish 54 of my favorite authors under one cover. Like what an absolute honor. And I love the vibe. I am happy I have made something helpful and encouraging and welcoming and accessible. I really hope it makes people want to write—and feel like they can.

It is available in your local bookstore this very second. It is currently out of stock online on Amazon and BN.com which seems nuts but Bookshop.org has them in stock. You can also request it from your local library. (We love libraries!) And it is available immediately obviously in ebook, and audiobook, which I partially narrated. No shade to these last two formats, but I wrote 1000 WORDS with the dream that it would sit on your desk and be your encouraging companion while you worked. I am happy with however you choose to consume it, though.

Some nice news:

We went into a third printing last week which is incredible. Lit Hub called it, "the new Bird by Bird," which is also incredible. BookPage said, “it’s like being at a writing retreat with some of the best contemporary authors on the planet.” And Electric Lit published an excerpt this morning.

This afternoon I’ll be doing a virtual event with London Writers Salon at 2 EST. Tonight I’ll be at Baldwin & Co in New Orleans having a launch party. Tomorrow and Thursday I’ll be in New York for events at the Center for Fiction and Books are Magic/St. Ann’s Church. Then I’m off to DC for Loyalty Books on Friday, and Philly on Sunday for this fun write-along. There are also some virtual events. You can find my complete schedule here.

Thank you all for being a part of this. I have said this before, but I mean it: this book would not exist without all of you. This community is so important to me! You inspire me. I hope I’ve done at least a little bit of justice to what we have made here together.

Sending so much gratitude,

Jami

You are reading Craft Talk, the home of #1000wordsofsummer and also a weekly newsletter about writing from Jami Attenberg. I’m also on twitter and instagram.