News from Heidi

Thank you Flavorwire for the shout-out for The Girl Who Fell From the Sky on the Five Must-Read Small Press Titles 2010!

Maybe you bet on March Madness--well, us bookish folks have the annual Tournament of Books--novels of all stripes go up against each other bracket style--and I'm excited to say that I made the Tournament of Books Long List this year. Let's hope I'm in a good bracket--that is, if I make the brackets, but making the long list I think gets me one step closer. One of my favorite book people JennIRL annotates the list with info. on some of her faves on the list. If you don't know what the Tournament of Books is, check out this great Salon article or this NPR piece.  (If you're wondering about the rooster image--well, me too.  But this is ToB's jazzy logo & apparently the winner's prize.  And you can get it on a t-shirt too.

Hooray! The Girl Who Fell From the Sky makes the Washington Post's Best Novels of 2010 List! It was the Washington Post that called The Girl . . "an auspicious debut." It's very nice to get this accolade too! Happy happy day! Thank you Washington Post.

I've been told not to read my reviews, but no one said not to listen to them -- So imagine how thrilled I was to hear Jim McKeown's review on KWBU's Likely Stories (Waco's NPR). Okay, so I gave away that he gives The Girl Who Fell From the Sky five stars, but it is also a thoughtful review & well, truly, it was nice to hear on a day I was struggling with the new book. You can hear more of his reviews here and you can also follow his blog, Rabbit Reader, about books and reading--I'm going to. I have a feeling I'll like the stuff he likes!

I was very jazzed to see that I've been nominated as Best Debut Author in the 2010 Goodreads Choice Awards! Goodreads has been a wonderful place to connect with new readers and it would be a great honor to win this prize! Would you take a minute to vote? Vote here.  Thank you!

I love how small the world is getting with technology. I've been having a ball meeting with people as I travel around the country on the book tour, but also connecting with them from the comfort of my own desk via Skype. I've talked with book clubs in Glencoe, Illinois (thank you to the very dear librarian Nancy!), Columbia, S.C. (a shout out to Michele Kingery) and to students of Philander Smith College to mention just a few. So, if you'd like to get together via Skype, let me know--send me an email and if we can work it out schedule-wise I'd love to visit with your group!

Ebony Magazine has just released its Power 100 List in the Dec./Jan issue on newstands now. And guess who's in it? Me! Yup. Crazy, right? Too exciting. An incredible honor. I could go on and on. I make the list as an emerging leader in Arts & Letters which also includes the big writers: Malcolm Gladwell, Edgwidge Danticat, Ntozake Shange. Dude, I'm like crazy happy. Happy. Crazy. Excited. And yes, I am ready to embrace my role as a "Baller and Shot Caller" as the cover headline proclaims! Hee hee!  Please pick up a copy--it's the one with my favorite celebrity on the cover: the very lovely Vanessa Williams!  This is what the write-up says: “Biracial smarty-pants Durrow hit it big this year with her incandescent debut and award-winning novel The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, a coming of age story about the daughter of a Danish mother and a Black GI who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy.”

I was super-excited to read this fabulous profile piece in the Miami Herald last Sunday. The Miami Herald reviewed The Girl Who Fell From the Sky earlier this year and hailed it as a "powerful novel that is "poised to take its place among classics of the American experience."  (I love that review!)

I'll be at the Miami Book Fair this weekend along with writers Joanna Smith Rakoff author of A Fortunate Age and Susanna Daniel author of Stiltsville: Sunday, Nov. 21 at 12:30pm--Miami Dade College, 300 NE Second Ave., Miami, FL 33132, Room 7106/7107 (Building 7, 1st Floor).  Come say hello!

If you love to cook and you love to read, then you must pick up Table of Contents a new cookbook by the awesome folks who created the Book Club Cookbook: Judy Gelman and Vicki Krupp. It's a wonderful collection of recipes by America's favorite authors including Abraham Verghese,Gregory Maguire, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Sara Gruen,Chris Cleave, Jamie Ford, Garth Stein, Hillary Jordan, Dolen Perkins-Valdez and ME!
The recipes I've included are all inspired by The Girl Who Fell From the Sky--Heidi's Morning Bread, Mor's Pankekager, and Pecan Pie a la Dane. Let me know what you think!

Here's a small snippet from my Keynote Address at the 74th Annual Clark College Commencement in June 2010. Check out the video! (2 mins.) (mp4 file)

You can also watch the movie here--I've embedded below.