My book trailer was supposed to be my big news, but the Newsweek essay on Columbine is up, and it's a stunning piece, and also a rave on my book, "Columbine":
The Columbine Generation
A decade later, the school shooting is still causing collateral damage.
My favorite lines (my bold):
More on that below, and a day of huge developments below. But first, my book trailer just hit the web:
It needs more views, ratings and embeds to go viral. Please click, forward, rate it, link and embed. Thanks.
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Back to Newsweek. Ramin Setoodeh was only 16 when Columbine happened, and it really shook him up. He's already a Newsweek editor--astounding, but you'll see why when you read the piece. He is one talented writer and observer. He takes us back there and illustrates why Columbine was such a cultural earthquake.
I would love this piece even if I were never mentioned, but I'm happy he devoted 2/3 of it to my book. That blew me away. My other favorite quotes:
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My book is the cover story in the Chicago Tribune's Book World Sunday, with another rave:
' . . . Dave Cullen's "Columbine," an astonishingly comprehensive look at the incident and the decade of struggle in its aftermath . . . Be forewarned that Cullen includes some blunt descriptions of the shootings, but those are far from a focal point of his book, which avoids sensationalism and carefully constructs a timeline of the events. It would be a rare and dubious distinction to complete "Columbine" without shedding a tear, but in the violence and grieving and heart-wrenching side stories, this an American story deeply embedded in the national psyche.'
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I created Facebook event listings for my book tour:
Cities include NY, LA, DC, Miami, SF, Seattle and five stops in Colorado (including Denver, Boulder and CO Springs).
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Time Magazine comes out with a big story including me at the end of the week. Cover story in USA Today coming, plus about 20 more national magazines and papers, and national TV that I can't talk about yet.
Watch for something with Joan Walsh in Salon soon.
Details and Reader's Digest are out. I have not gotten one bad review yet! I'm sure someone will burst that bubble soon, but not yet!
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I have my first Washington Post byline tomorrow: review of a Virginia Tech memoir. It is running on the front page of their Sunday Outlook section.
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Earlier, my book was featured on the New Yorker's website, as Very Short List's pick of the day, and a big true crime site compared it to In Cold Blood.
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The filmmaker on my trailer, Andrew Kemler, is brilliant. Check out his other work. (He worked on South Park for years, and those guys don't work with any slouches.) I'm really grateful for what he did.
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Thank you guys so much for all the support.
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Comments
RATED and APPRECIATED for dedication and years of work.
Enjoy and relish every moment of this well deserved success. Eschew the temptation to think that this isn't real or that a bubble will burst. Ride this well earned wave like an old pro on a longboard.
there will be bad reviews coming, though. my editor had a chat with me about that in december. he loved the book and predicted stellar reviews, and was banking on it, but he warned me that no matter how good they were, there would be some bad ones. he talked about when he published Seabuscuit: it debuted at #1, and was a critics darling, but a couple critics trashed her.
i think these are insulating me for when those hits come, though.
there are a few people in the community who will also be furious. one is attacking me now on every sight he can find. i expect him here any minute. so far, most are pleased. you can't please everyone.
meanwhile, i'm giddy. i was racing around so much today--and my hair stylist squeezed me in for an emergency appointment--that i didn't even stop to notice:
newsweek compared me to shakespeare! wow. and i can never even remember how to spell shakespeare. hahaha.
i think my single favorite thing so far is when critics praise/notice something that i put a lot of energy into and really focused on. his best compliment came for the pacing and complexity, and man, i spent literally years trying to get that right. that was so important to me, and every time we cut or changed something, i went back and looked at the rhythm of it. the structure was my single biggest challenge, i think, which went right along with the pacing, and juggling nine different storylines. you can't imagine how happy that made me to hear him say it worked.
lea, i can't wait to meet you.
dorelvis, that's funny, i just came from commenting on the designer's post. it's here:
http://henryseneyee.blogspot.com/2009/03/columbine.html
i'm planning to write a blog post about it. he's a really talented guy.
so is the guy who did my trailer, andrew Kemler. i need to link to him.
Amazon let me know they are shipping your book to me on Thursday. I should have it by Tuesday. I'm really excited.
Love the trailer. Good luck with the book trailer (and the secret stuff). If you come anywhere in Texas, I'll make sure to attend.
I also thought you and your videomaker did a great job on the short video.
Strange as it seems, not all of us are on Facebook! Is your tour schedule posted anywhere else? Last time I checked your Columbine site, it wasn't posted, although I'll go check there again after I hit post on this comment.
And I can't wait to read it, by the way -- it sounds utterly fascinating!
I know the good news will keep on coming .....and maybe like Kerry speculated: A movie!
i did hit the big stress wall monday. it was silly, but i started to feel overwhelmed, and i guess fear of falling.
i got over it wednesday. all better now. shew! i got over myself.
life is pretty damn good. i'm remembering to enjoy it.
and i think Time Mag comes out any time now, though i'm not sure of their schedule.
I also want to comment on a "movie deal". That seems a little weird. (If true, or if not true.) I would be glad that you made a lot of money, but it's like releasing "Capote" a few years after the actual event. It just seems wrong to me, somehow.
(I never saw "Elephant", although I have meant to. )
I'm really happy for you, but always worried about your car. Did you give it away?
Keep us posted!
i'm still driving the car, have not even had the window fixed. no time.
all the glass fell out. sometimes it's cold. mostly it's been spring here all winter. no rain yet.
I remember your articles in 1999 - they were a much better look at the events than most other things at the time. I'm sure the book will be fantastic. Good luck.
http://columbinefamilyrequest.org/
http://columbinefamilyrequest.org/
http://columbinefamilyrequest.org/