(originally appeared in The Patterson Irrigator)

Oh, my goodness, it’s been so long since I’ve written here. I’m terribly sorry about that. I hope you didn’t think something awful happened to me. Like I accidentally drove my wheelchair into a cosmic black hole that sent me back in time where I was eaten by a giant sloth. Or something even less realistic— that I couldn’t write because I was too busy working long hours for Trump’s reelection campaign.

Anyway, I’d like to state, now, that neither of these things happened. I’ve been busy with something else: I wrote a book! It all began when I heard about a writing contest held by the University of Nevada’s Basque Studies Program.

At the time, I didn’t know what I should write about, so I put it out of my mind. But then, a few months later, while sitting on the toilet taking a poop, I suddenly had an epiphany. (I’m convinced that all my best thinking happens while I’m staring at the bathroom wall.) So, I dropped everything (including writing for the Irrigator) to work on this project. I used every free moment to write. For months, I didn’t even watch Netflix (gasp!). Of course, I did take time to poop because I had to keep the ideas flowing somehow.

After I was done writing, I entered my 67,000-word manuscript into the contest. A few months later, I got an email. I had won! And they wanted to publish it into an actual book! A real book with paragraphs and honest-to-goodness CHAPTERS. Like Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf and all those serious authors that we pretend to have read, only we totally haven’t.

This isn’t to say that my book resembles those classics. It doesn’t. At all. You see, it’s a murder mystery. The kind of whodunit you read on a rainy day that makes you suddenly wonder if your uncle’s old neighbor that collected copies of the San Francisco Chronicle in his garage might have been the Zodiac Killer.

The publication process has been long. But my novel, Murder at the Boardinghouse, is now finally available. It’s a thrill to have it in-print. When I hold the book in my hand, I feel a zing happiness— like it’s a cuddly kitten, a pumpkin spice latte or a coupon for a free sandwich.

I’ve always dreamed of being an author, but stringing that many words together, in a row, seemed too daunting— and, frankly, annoying. But now that I’ve done it, it makes me realize that maybe I didn’t have the right incentive. Or maybe I just needed to spend more time pooping.

Nonetheless, I’m thrilled to share my novel with the community I love— and that has supported me and my writing for all these years.

So, I will be having a book signing event on Saturday, October 14th between 11:30am and 2pm at Blues Café right here in Patterson. There will be prizes, yummy drinks, and we’ll be collecting donations for two of my favorite local groups— Friends of the Patterson Library and the Patterson Township Historical Society. And, of course, I’ll have books available to buy— and I’ll sign any copy you bring to the event that you’ve purchased elsewhere (like Amazon).

If you want to purchase a copy locally, you can do so on my website or by stopping by the Patterson Family Pharmacy. They have a great gift shop where you can start your holiday shopping, too! I hope to see some of you on October 14th at Blues Café. I’d love to connect! In the meantime, happy fall—and happy reading. website: elizabetteunplugged.com