I want to thank everyone who made it out to Vroman’s Bookstore last weekend for the All We Left Behind book launch! It was my first ever book launch and a really special day for me. I’m so grateful to have been able to share All We Left Behind with all of you.

I also want to thank my totally awesome husband, Russell, who photographed my event and provided the photobooth. Due to his awesome talents I have photo highlights to share with you. Please enjoy this sneak peek of my book launch!

I used to work at Vroman’s bookstore, and was drafting All We Left Behind while I was an employee in the children’s department. It was such a great homecoming to launch my book here. I also want to give a big shout-out to the amazing Jen Pino who made all the awesome decorations for the party, including this awesome All We Left Behind banner!

Swag bags! These little beauties were filled with journals and art postcards, as well as lip gloss, pencils, and bookmarks from my friend S.M.Parker, who’s debut novel The Girl Who Fell comes out in March 2016!

Since secrets and shame are an important theme in All We Left Behind, I also invited guests to share their secrets with my #shareyoursecrets box. The goal is to wrap shame in words so it’s spoken and doesn’t have power over you. This was an anonymous activity to help everyone see that they aren’t alone. I’ll be doing a separate blog post this month where I share these secrets!

It isn’t a party if there aren’t refreshments! I made my famous chewy molasses chocolate chip cookies, as well as chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting. Yum! Yum!

While readers arrived they got to play the “Name That Book” game and test out their book knowledge. I also received this AWESOME bouquet of congratulation notes from my Dystropians (the class I graduated with at the Vermont College of Fine Arts). I love my tribe!

The winners of the “Name That Book” game will be emailed via my reader group!

I was introduced by the wonderful Jeremy Radin, who hosted my event at Vromans with Kelly Burlingham. Jeremy — who happens to be a poet — also gave me a rad list of his favorite poets! The booksellers at Vroman’s bookstore are the BEST!

We started off the afternoon with some games. In celebration of my debut novel, we played “What’s this author’s first published book?” Those pretty swag-bags with the purple flowers were given out as prizes.

And of course, I got down to the nitty-gritty and talked about All We Left Behind, and read from the novel.

And no book party would be complete without giving away some free books!

All We Left Behind is dedicated to author A.M. Jenkins, who was my faculty adviser at the Vermont College of Fine Art. In honor of her, I gave away a copy of her out-of-print novel Damage.

I signed my first books! Woohoo!

Then we got silly in front of the photobooth with props created by my number one fan, Jen Pino!

A big THANK YOU to everyone who came out for my book launch! It was awesome to share my debut novel with all of you. I hope you enjoy the book.

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Photos courtesy of Russell Gearhart Photography