Lauren Wilkinson and I at Buffalo Street Books, Ithaca, on June 10

Well, not physically there, but we’ll be crowdcast (crowdcasted? is it a verb?) at 7pm Eastern Daylight Time, having a conversation about The Stone Loves the World. Here’s a link to the event.

Lauren is the author of a way better first novel than I ever wrote, American Spy, which came out in 2019 from Random House.

It’s a literary thriller with an international political angle inspired by historical events; it’s also a smart and moving story about a family. I won’t say more because personally I don’t like to know much—or really anything—about novels before I read them, so I’ll extend the same courtesy.

I’ve never met Lauren in person, but she read The Saskiad when she was 14 and had the sort of intense experience that teen-aged readers can have when they come across a book that speaks to them. She kindly wrote a note to me about that, and I asked her if she was willing to do this Buffalo Street Books event with me, and she even more kindly said yes.

Lauren Wilkinson’s author photo by Niqui Carter