Today is the last day to take advantage of sale prices on all of our books. Pick up a copy of my latest novel, Darkest Day and check out all of our other books.
Everything was set. Tickets were printed. Extra luggage was purchased. Rental car, rentaled. As we packed the last of the books (for the millionth time as we tried desperately to not have any of our bags be overweight with hundreds of books in them,) from the other room came the vicious sound of phlegmy barking from Ari, our five-year-old. It wasn’t your run-of-the-mill throat clear/part-of-my-Otter Pop-went-down-the-wrong-way choking sound. It was a full force, there’s-something-definitely-wrong-with-me hacking. So… we gave her a rapid test. Positive. Our poor baby had Covid-19. If you’re a parent, you know that it’s not even a matter of time until you will be sick as well, no, you’re already sick, but you just don’t know it yet.
And so, flights were canceled. Books and clothes, unpacked. Multiple non refundable travel needs, non refundabled. And we went about our business of not leaving the house and sharing our germs and new viral companions with only one another. Ari was a little under the weather for 2 days. Then I fell ill. Of course, any illness I have compounds with my male inability to handle any sort of discomfort, and I lay in bed for five days only made bearable by a plethora of binge watching shows I’d not had the time to watch and a steady stream of expectorants and decongestants.
Just as my back pain and constant snotting and dying started to ease, Andrea, my far superior half, caught the plague. She, by no small surprise, handled it much better than I did but was still confined to bed for a few days. She’s still suffering but is well on the road to a full recovery.
Now that everyone is safe and basically healthy, we wanted to voice our frustrations with having to cancel our Erie, PA Dead Star Press Party. We’d planned it for months. We had an amazing venue, incredible musical guests, a fantastic response to our social media invite, and so many special surprises and cool things planned. We fully realize that people have suffered and continue to suffer far greater and unspeakable tragedies during this horrendous pandemic, and we know that our little party is of very little significance in the grand scheme of things, but it still sucks a big one.
We decided to take the event-exclusive sale prices that we’d planned to offer everyone who attended the party and run those same prices on DeadStarPress.com until the end of August. We wanted to make sure everyone had an opportunity to get the books at the great prices we were going to offer and, hopefully, we can make up for some of the big losses our small business suffered. We’re fortunate to have such great supporters in Erie and many other places. We hope you all take advantage of the offers and know how insanely appreciative we are of all of you.
Joseph D. Newcomer 