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 Courtesy of Jennifer Reynolds, The Galveston County Daily News We are thrilled to announce that all three Costco Warehouse stores in Houston will have Infinite Monster on their shelves next week! Thanks to the hard work and diligence of our publishers, thousands of readers in the Houston market will be able to get their hands on a copy of the book as soon as it comes out. If you haven’t been to Costco lately, it’s time to stock up!
Our weekend of launch parties and events is only a week away! We’re kicking things off with a “meet the authors” event at The Galveston County Daily News from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, June 18. We hope to see you there!
We’ll post more information on the rest of the events in a few days.
Costco Warehouse locations:
Houston (Galleria)
3836 Richmond Ave
Houston TX 77027 |
Katy Frwy at Bunker Hill
1150 Bunker Hill Road
Houston TX 77055 |
Willowbrook
12405 N. Gessner Rd.
Houston TX 77064 |
Rhiannon and the book will be making their television debut tomorrow on the Fox 26 morning show. She’ll be on between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m.
On Saturday, Rhiannon is taking the road show to the KHOU studios for another morning show interview. She’ll be on with them at 7:30 a.m. Set your DVR if you don’t want to get up that early on a Saturday!
Hopefully, I’ll be able to post clips from each appearance here. Stay tuned!
Galveston County Daily News Publisher Dolph Tillotson wrote a wonderful column about Infinite Monster in today’s paper. If you missed it, check it out here.
Dolph’s column is our first review and serves as an announcement of our first public book signing. The big event will be on June 18, between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. at The Daily News building on Teichman Road. Everyone’s invited, and we hope to see you there! We’ll be signing books, of course, and many of the people we interviewed will be there.
If you can’t make it to the big bash, we’ll be around town all weekend. More details on our schedule to come.
This one’s from Douglas Brinkley, the New York Times bestselling author of one of the most highly praised accounts of Hurricane Katrina. He’s also a professor at Rice University and a well-known historian. As part of our preparation for writing “Infinite Monster,” Rhiannon and I read several books on Katrina. “The Great Deluge” was one of them. We started this project as Brinkley fans, which makes his praise so much more meaningful!
Here’s what he had to say:
“Infinite Monster is a deeply moving, harrowing account of one America’s great cities–Galveston–being ravaged by Hurricane Ike. Highly recommended!”
—Douglas Brinkley is professor of History at Rice University and New York Times bestselling author of The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast
After working on this project for almost 18 months, it’s so exciting to find out what other people really think of it. Or, as Rhiannon put it, to find out what non-family members think of it. You know, you just can’t trust your mom when she tells you your book is fantastic. She’s biased, after all.
But we’re starting to hear from people who requested galley proofs, and their praise is so encouraging. We’re also starting to get endorsements from people whose word carries serious weight when it comes to judging books.
Here’s what Paul Burka, senior executive editor at Texas Monthly, had to say:
“Infinite Monster deserves a place alongside Isaac’s Storm and A Weekend in September as a tale of a star-crossed city’s struggle to endure the ravages of a mammoth hurricane. Leigh Jones’ and Rhiannon Meyers’ meticulous reporting chronicles the dramatic personal stories that took place on the night Hurricane Ike made landfall and the controversial decisions that had to be made in the storm’s aftermath.”
And Dolph Tillotson, publisher of The Galveston County Daily News, said:
“This is a wonderful book, filled with stories that made me angry (all over again), made me smile, and a few that made me cry. The only story Leigh and Rhiannon don’t tell here is their own — two young women who lost nearly all they owned to Hurricane Ike but fought on to tell the story. I could not be prouder of these two and the rest of our valiant and resourceful staff at The Daily News.”
We had so much fun this weekend meeting with Galveston merchants and showing them galley copies of Infinite Monster. Everyone loved it! We’ve had four stores place pre-orders already. They will have copies available as soon as the book is released, which should be June 15. We have several book signing events scheduled for the following weekend, June 18-20. We hope to see many of you then! We will post specific times and locations as the dates get closer.
We hope that everyone in Galveston will buy the book from one of the wonderful merchants who is offering it for sale. We will post a list soon. Those who can’t make it to the island should check it out on Amazon. It’s available now for pre-order, and our publisher tells us several people have already reserved their copies!
I broke one of the basic tenants of journalism (and writing in general) last week. I gushed about the arrival of the galley proofs but didn’t explain what they were or why their appearance caused so much excitement.
A galley proof is an almost final draft of the book that publishers print to give to people who have agreed to write endorsements or reviews. The proof includes the main text of the work but not the acknowledgments, forward, photos, epilogue, references or index. Although the galleys aren’t the finished product, they’re still the first chance we get to see what the book’s really going to look like. I haven’t actually gotten to hold one yet, since they were shipped to Galveston. But when I do, I think I’m going to have a hard time suppressing the ear-piercing squeal of delight that keeps sneaking up on me every time I think about this book becoming a reality. Of course we worked toward this goal for the last 13 months, but I never could silence that skeptical voice in my head that said we would never get it published. I cannot wait to share it with you!
After asking me to explain the galley proof concept, several people asked me about the final book’s cover. The first print run will be hardback. Subsequent printings will be paperback.
As I mentioned in my last post, Rhiannon and I will be visiting with Galveston merchants this weekend and should be able to tell you by this time next week where you can pick up a copy of the book. We also will be scheduling appearances and signing events. I’ll keep you posted as we firm up the dates.
If you haven’t already, check out our new Facebook fan page, where you can see more photos of Rhiannon inspecting the proofs.
Where do I begin? I have so much to share with you, and so much to celebrate!
 First, as you have probably noticed, the book (and the web site) has a new title. Throughout almost the entire writing process, we felt that “Forgotten” captured the essence of the story we were telling. But after writing the final chapter, we realized that Galveston’s struggle to recover from Hurricane Ike while no one was watching was only a part of a larger story. The overall theme, the foundation of Galveston’s story is a determination to prevail. Galveston refused to give up in the face of Hurricane Ike, the infinite monster that swallowed the city on September 13, 2008.
The inspiration for the new title came from a quote that I shared with you in a previous post. Pastor William Mercer Harris penned these words in 1900 after looking out over the Gulf of Mexico as that nameless storm surged ashore:
“It was a sort of infinite monster, tossing its million heads and frothing at its million mouths as it hungered to devour the city. I stood there and heard the monster’s growl – his cry for blood – and looked into the black terror of his murderous frown.”
Our second piece of good news involves our publisher. Earlier this month, Rhiannon and I signed a contract with PenlandScott, a small publishing house based in Dallas. Since then, we have scrambled to get the book ready to send to the printer in early May. If we don’t run into any problems between now and then, the book should be on shelves by mid-June. It will be available through Amazon and other national book retail outlets. But we also will be working with Galveston merchants to make it available to island residents and visitors. In the next few weeks, I will post a list of stores that plan to carry it.
 Photo courtesy of Jennifer Reynolds, The Galveston County Daily News As you can see, we got a shipment of galley proofs today. These advance copies are not the finished product, but they give reviewers an opportunity to read it in an almost finished form so that they can talk about how much they love it as soon as the official copies are released. At least, we hope they will!
The last piece of big news I have to share is that State Rep. Craig Eiland, of Galveston, has agreed to write the forward for us. I hope soon to be able to share news about endorsements, but it’s a little early for that yet.
Rhiannon and I want to thank all of you who have followed us faithfully through this process and encouraged us along the way. I really don’t think we would have made it as far as we have without that support. You can expect much more regular blog posts now that all of the editing, reference collecting and proof reading is done. Remember when I said I was finished writing last month? I had no idea how much work I still had to do! That’s all done, but now it’s time to start promoting the book.
I have two major regrets from Hurricane Ike: I didn’t keep a journal and I didn’t bring a camera. A journal would have helped remind me about the sights, smells and emotions gradually fading from my memory. And a camera would have made it much easier to include photos in the book. Since I didn’t take any of my own pictures, I’m depending on you to help make our photo insert possible!
The book will include eight pages of color photographs. Although we could use pictures taken by some of the excellent professional photographers who covered the storm, including our own Jennifer Reynolds, we want this to feel more like a personal photo album. We’ve said all along that this book is your story, as much as it is ours. The photos should reflect that.
So, we’re holding a photo audition. We have 16 slots for the very best shots we can find of the storm and its aftermath. If you are willing to share your personal photos, we would love to see them! All volunteer photographers will get full credit for their work.
Leave us a comment, and let us know what you’ve got!
The 1900 Storm shaped Galveston’s attitude toward storms, for better and for worse. Hurricane Ike only strengthened those responses.
After surviving and eventually recovering from what is still the deadliest natural disaster in American history, Galvestonians felt a sort of invincibility to hurricanes. If the great, unnamed storm couldn’t destroy the island, nothing could. Islanders compared every storm to the one that almost obliterated the city. Anything less than that just wouldn’t be feared. After 100 years of braving lesser storms, Galvestonians started to greet forecasted threats with bravado and complacency.
Although that inflated self-assurance proved dangerous as Ike spun to life in 2008, it also gave islanders the strength they needed to start to rebuild. The island survived almost total destruction and their forefathers refused to abandon their shattered city. How could present-day islanders do anything less?
In Chapter Four, we draw comparisons between the 1900 Storm and Hurricane Ike and show how the two very similar storms prompted very similar responses from their victims. In preparation for writing this chapter, Rhiannon spent hours in the Rosenberg Library researching accounts of the 1900 Storm. One of my favorite quotes comes from William Mercer Harris, who was then the pastor of First Baptist Church. In his account of the storm, Harris included this description of the Gulf of Mexico:
“It was a sort of infinite monster, tossing its million heads and frothing at its million mouths as it hungered to devour the city. I stood there and heard the monster’s growl – his cry for blood – and looked into the black terror of his murderous frown.”
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Early praise for Infinite Monster Infinite Monster is a deeply moving, harrowing account of one America’s great cities–Galveston–being ravaged by Hurricane Ike. Highly recommended!”
—Douglas Brinkley is professor of History at Rice University and New York Times bestselling author of The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast
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“Infinite Monster deserves a place alongside Isaac’s Storm and A Weekend in September as a tale of a star-crossed city’s struggle to endure the ravages of a mammoth hurricane. Leigh Jones’ and Rhiannon Meyers’ meticulous reporting chronicles the dramatic personal stories that took place on the night Hurricane Ike made landfall and the controversial decisions that had to be made in the storm’s aftermath.”
—Paul Burka, senior executive editor at Texas Monthly
+++++
“This is a wonderful book, filled with stories that made me angry (all over again), made me smile, and a few that made me cry. The only story Leigh and Rhiannon don’t tell here is their own — two young women who lost nearly all they owned to Hurricane Ike but fought on to tell the story. I could not be prouder of these two and the rest of our valiant and resourceful staff at The Daily News.”
—Dolph Tillotson, publisher of The Galveston County Daily News |
