April 26–27, 2025, Blackbird Blues showcased at the LA Festival of Books

A few weeks ago we were approached by a company called Quipper Prints with a proposal to showcase Blackbird Blues in their booth at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this coming weekend, April 26–27, on the campus of the University of Southern California. This is reported to be the largest literary festival in the country, drawing about 150,000 visitors every year, including hundreds of participants and exhibitors appearing at dozens of panels and events to present and discuss their work.

We had never heard of Quipper Prints before. It turned out they are in the business of finding and promoting novels that deserve more attention. One of their in-house researchers had come across Blackbird Blues and thought it most certainly does deserve more attention. In return for a fistful of dollars they were offering to put Blackbird Blues on the shelves of their booth (booth nr. 171), put up posters of Jean, hand out flyers and bookmarks, and staff their booth with a "facilitator" who will have read Blackbird Blues and can tell passersby what it is all about.

Needless to say, we were delighted that someone we had never even heard of had not only read Blackbird Blues but had also liked it so much that they wanted to promote it at the LA Festival of Books. If nothing else, it is a good opportunity to get more people to read Blackbird Blues. So we accepted, and we are going to fly to LA ourselves. We want to see how Quipper Prints is going about their business and attend some of the panels and discussions and maybe the prize ceremony on the evening of April 25. Perhaps we'll even get to see some of you there. It would be a pleasure.

Quipper Prints would have liked to feature a video of Jean announcing this news on their Facebook page. But since Jean is not up to recording any videos, I recorded one myself and spoke about Blackbird Blues on her behalf. You can watch it on Quipper Prints' Facebook page and here: