Florence Dewey

Florence Dewey 1955 

Violet was not the only violinist in my family.  On my mother's side, the "Dewey" side, my aunt Florence, born in 1888, also played the violin. And she managed to make a career out of her music.

I've been dividing my time lately between promoting "Imagining Violet" - trying to expand my market beyond family and Salt Spring Island - and digging around finding out what I can about Florence.

Turns out, there's quite a lot of neat information to be excavated.  She did spend four seasons on Chautauqua tours, as my mother had always intimated. She did do an MA at Columbia University in 1942 when she was 54 years old. She did have a diploma from Juilliard. 

And she never married. 

Since the book launch

"Violet" has been been selling very well ... to friends and family ... as predicted. My initial print run of 100 copies is nearly sold out. Our wonderful local book store, Salt Spring Books, has also sold four copies.
But here's the dilemma.  Do I order more paper copies?  And if so, how many?  The flurry of friends and family is finished. 
My focus now is to a) generate some reviews on Goodreads and Amazon and b) sell "Violet" to libraries.  That's because in Canada, the Public Lending Right Commission pays authors a small stipend when their books are found in libraries.
And for something completely different, I must report that one of the benefits of the book launch was the realization that red carnations last a very long time - nearly three weeks, in fact.  So at Christmas, instead of the usual poinsettia plant, I bought a small bunch of red carnations - gathered some salal from our property, and for $4.00 I had a charming bouquet that has survived, with frequent snipping and water changing, until now, January 8th!