I’ve been crazy busy the last couple weeks, mostly with my “other” hobby, publishing and promoting my husband’s books, etc. We had two weekends in a row with holiday events. One was at the Pottsville Free Public Library as part of the Local Author Showcase for Small Business Saturday. 26 local authors (or authors who originated in Schuylkill County) filled the library’s two public floors, selling everything from poetry and screenplays to children’s picture books to YA/fantasy to thriller fiction (that would be us!). We had a great time talking to authors we hadn’t met before, and had decent sales — of DVDs and CDs. Go figure.
The second one was the Christkindlmarkt, a two-day event at the Yuengling mansion in Pottsville, hosted by Schuylkill County Council for the Arts. 25-30 artists filled the mansion (and a tent outside — those poor people froze!!) with paintings, quilts, knitted wrist-warmers (I special-ordered a pair), hand painted Christmas balls, baked goods, soap, pottery, painted gourds, jewelry, and thriller fiction (that would be us again). We played 3 of our short films, “With Love”, “Dancing Shadows”, and the latest, “Purest Heart” all day long on our portable DVD player, played songs from a couple of our CDs, … and had decent sales of books and t-shirts. Just goes to show you NEVER know what will be popular at an event! Here’s a photo of the poster for “Purest Heart”, the mannequin who starred in our film “Dancing Shadows”, and the peacock feather-covered Christmas tree that was in our assigned room.
Photo by my husband, Stephen Pytak, and originally posted on his Facebook page.
We had a lot of comments about Evelyn (the mannequin) being a Victoria’s Secret model, but I pointed out she lacked the million-dollar diamond bra. This was the first time we actually had enough space to bring her to an event, complete with her wings from the film shoot. They gave us an entire room (which was actually SCCA’s office), so we spread out to make it look less office-y. Several kids called Evelyn an angel, which was cute, but she must have been a scary angel as none of those kids would go near her. Oh well.
And I guess next weekend I’ll have to start my holiday baking. I tend to only give baked goods as gifts, and use my back porch as cold storage for everything. Time to browse through all my cookie cookbooks and decide what gets baked this year!