My Tour of Nowhere

It has been months since my two debuts — a novel, Vanishing Monuments, and a poetry collection, Junebat — came out, but I’ve still not seen either of them in a bookstore. Not in person, at least. In April, I was supposed to see my books in a lot of bookstores. I had a three-week tour lined up, with around twenty events, in Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Guelph. In May, I should have seen my books in, at least, St. Louis, Lincoln, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Kansas City (where I currently live). In June, I was planning on Vancouver, Portland, maybe New York City, and, hopefully, Los Angeles.

We all know why I couldn’t visit any of these bookstores. In the second week of March, shortly after my partner and I decided not to attend a large literary conference in San Antonio, it became clear that I wouldn’t be going anywhere. Despite the...