Conquering Venus Updates

Many thanks to Curt Holman at Creative Loafing for the article in this week's edition about the upcoming Decatur Book Festival. He quoted me at length -- mostly about poetry -- but there's also a plug for Conquering Venus.

Helen Losse, wonderful poet and Dead Mule School of Southern Literature poetry editor, has written the first long review of Conquering Venus and its now posted at Blogcritics. Here's a taste:

Kelley carefully and masterfully creates characters who must deal with the difficult situations in their various pasts — broken marriages, betrayal, sexual confusion and dishonesty, death, suicide, and family acceptance or denial of these — and a plot that draws them together on a trip to Paris.

Read the full review at this link.

Book PR guru Russ Marshalek has worked his magic and arranged back-to-back readings from Conquering Venus at The Tank space in New York. On Sunday, Oct. 18, there will be a "literary burlesque show" and I'm reading with Elise Blackwell and other writers Russ has assured "will make me pee" when I find out who they are. Then, on Monday, Oct. 19, Elise and I will co-host Just Working On My Novel, where we'll read from our just-published work and something in progress.

I found out tonight that Conquering Venus is the number one seller this week at Outwrite Bookstore in Atlanta. It's exciting to be number one anywhere! Oprah, are you out there?