A poster! With Lawson's map, and Lawson's portrait, and my images, and maps from museums and God knows what all. Is it not awesome?
It's a weird thing, this business of telling things to people. About ten years ago I got interested in telling people about John Lawson, and a lot has happened since then.
So A Delicious Country has been out for around six months, and it's been one thing and another since then, almost all enormous fun. I've talked about Lawson and his journey and my own to people at bookstores and colleges, state parks and arts councils, museums and bars. And there's another several months to go in this little parade: I get to go this month to the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, which is as far as I'm concerned the best book festival there is. You can see the whole rest of the schedule here.
But today I want to tell you about what's above these paragraphs: a poster. From the beginning of this project I've tried to give it everything it needed to succeed. It has its website -- here you are, yes? -- which gives history about Lawson and his journey and updates about me and mine. It got the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT to support it. As the website provided updates on my progress, I also kept a supply of pins and patches to share as I went along, distributing them to people I met exactly as Lawson shared beads and tobacco and other treats with the people who helped him along.
And of course ultimately out came A Delicious Country, the book distilling everything I learned about Lawson and the Carolinas on my trek. It's been a treat to share that.
But from the start I believed this project needed one more thing: a poster. Between Lawson's map and the trail of my own series of campsites and adventures on his trail, between the wonderful images from his book and the stream of Instagram pictures I left in my wake, a little story attached to each and every image, it just seemed like a poster needed to exist.
So here's the poster. My genius friend Lacey Chylack is a designer, and she worked with me to create this poster. It has Lawson's map with highlights of our journeys marked on it. It has images from my journey and maps and pictures from his book and his time. I'm thrilled with it, and of course it's now available from the store page of this site.
I'm not sure why I felt this was necessary. But it seemed like a way to summarize this enterprise of mine, and Lawson's, and to put it all together in a way that would look nice on a wall but would also interest teachers and schoolkids. Getting people to know about Lawson has, after all, been at the center of this undertaking from the start.
It's a weird business, this belief that people need to know things and you need to tell them. Once I was on Lawson's trail, everything else seemed to just follow: the website, the pins, the patches, the book. And now the poster is here, and that's just about it.
Except oh yeah -- Friday, Oct. 4, an exhibit opens up about this enterprise at the City of Raleigh Museum.
So A Delicious Country has been out for around six months, and it's been one thing and another since then, almost all enormous fun. I've talked about Lawson and his journey and my own to people at bookstores and colleges, state parks and arts councils, museums and bars. And there's another several months to go in this little parade: I get to go this month to the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, which is as far as I'm concerned the best book festival there is. You can see the whole rest of the schedule here.
But today I want to tell you about what's above these paragraphs: a poster. From the beginning of this project I've tried to give it everything it needed to succeed. It has its website -- here you are, yes? -- which gives history about Lawson and his journey and updates about me and mine. It got the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT to support it. As the website provided updates on my progress, I also kept a supply of pins and patches to share as I went along, distributing them to people I met exactly as Lawson shared beads and tobacco and other treats with the people who helped him along.
And of course ultimately out came A Delicious Country, the book distilling everything I learned about Lawson and the Carolinas on my trek. It's been a treat to share that.
But from the start I believed this project needed one more thing: a poster. Between Lawson's map and the trail of my own series of campsites and adventures on his trail, between the wonderful images from his book and the stream of Instagram pictures I left in my wake, a little story attached to each and every image, it just seemed like a poster needed to exist.
So here's the poster. My genius friend Lacey Chylack is a designer, and she worked with me to create this poster. It has Lawson's map with highlights of our journeys marked on it. It has images from my journey and maps and pictures from his book and his time. I'm thrilled with it, and of course it's now available from the store page of this site.
I'm not sure why I felt this was necessary. But it seemed like a way to summarize this enterprise of mine, and Lawson's, and to put it all together in a way that would look nice on a wall but would also interest teachers and schoolkids. Getting people to know about Lawson has, after all, been at the center of this undertaking from the start.
It's a weird business, this belief that people need to know things and you need to tell them. Once I was on Lawson's trail, everything else seemed to just follow: the website, the pins, the patches, the book. And now the poster is here, and that's just about it.
Except oh yeah -- Friday, Oct. 4, an exhibit opens up about this enterprise at the City of Raleigh Museum.
Do you see this stuff? It's all the exhibit designed by the folks at the COR Museum. I worked with them and provided copy and connections with Lawson and things like arrows and rocks and other artifacts, but I'm kinda blown away by what it looks like they've done. I can't wait to see it in real life.
Real life. Again, the exhibit, called A Delicious Country, just like the book (taken of course from Lawson's own description of Carolina) opens First Friday, Oct. 4, from 6 to 9 pm at the Museum, and runs for a few months.
The Museum will have copies of the poster and of course copies of the book, to say nothing of the pins and patches, so if you want you can come home with an armful of every single Lawson thing we've produced for this enterprise.
I'll be honest -- I'm a little overwhelmed. I'm used to seeing books in print, though that's always a thrill. Then seeing the poster was pretty amazing. Now seeing this exhibit ready to launch, to sort of sound the starting gun for the next few months, probably the last few months of major support for the book, is amazing. I can't wait to see it set up in person, mixed with the artifacts they've prepared for viewing too. Come on out: I'll be there Oct. 4 from 6 to 9, though the exhibit will be on display for months every minute the museum is open. See you there!
Real life. Again, the exhibit, called A Delicious Country, just like the book (taken of course from Lawson's own description of Carolina) opens First Friday, Oct. 4, from 6 to 9 pm at the Museum, and runs for a few months.
The Museum will have copies of the poster and of course copies of the book, to say nothing of the pins and patches, so if you want you can come home with an armful of every single Lawson thing we've produced for this enterprise.
I'll be honest -- I'm a little overwhelmed. I'm used to seeing books in print, though that's always a thrill. Then seeing the poster was pretty amazing. Now seeing this exhibit ready to launch, to sort of sound the starting gun for the next few months, probably the last few months of major support for the book, is amazing. I can't wait to see it set up in person, mixed with the artifacts they've prepared for viewing too. Come on out: I'll be there Oct. 4 from 6 to 9, though the exhibit will be on display for months every minute the museum is open. See you there!
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