The Renfrow Story

One of the most enthusiastic supporters of this project, my friend Paula, has reminded me that it was just about a year ago that I first shared this dream with the Grinnell College alumni community in this post to the alumni Facebook group:

It was through this post that I connected with Erica, the incredibly talented illustrator of the book, who is a friend of an alumni. And within weeks I was feeling like I might actually be able to make this work. And if you’ve been following the project you know about the rest of the journey (and if you haven’t, just read the earlier posts on this page because I’ve chronicled every step of the way in the book blog).

So next Wednesday or so (you know I’ll be checking the tracking info daily, it says it was loaded on the truck in California this morning) I’ll get a call from a truck driver to confirm details of the delivery. I’ll direct him to the alley behind my house where my fabulous husband, Craig, has cleared space in his work-from-home office/shop. I envision a pallet of shrink wrapped boxes (I think there will be about 60 boxes total). According to UPS there is 730 pounds of books (isn’t that fun to know?!). I’ve taken the afternoon off as we’ll need to unpack the pallet in the alley and move the boxes one at a time into the garage. I welcome your prayers for good weather that day 🙂

We’ll put 500 of the 2000 copies directly into our vehicle so they can be taken to the Pioneer Bookstore and the Grinnell College Alumni Office (I wonder if this will take more than one trip?). The staff at the bookstore has been awesome. I talked to Sonya today and she said she should be able to have the books out and ready for sale the day after I get them to her. She’s got all of the advance orders recorded and will start getting them mailed out as soon as possible to people who are out of town. And locals will be able to pick them up anytime that’s convenient during store hours.

There are 123 individuals who donated to the book project last spring and helped make this book possible. Each of them has an envelope with their name on it just waiting for the book to be slipped inside. So 120 copies will come into the house right away to go into those envelopes (the biggest donors got one of those advance copies a couple of weeks ago).

Another 500 copies will be set aside to donate to libraries. These were also funded by the Kickstarter project backers. My preliminary numbers are that around 100 of them will go to public libraries in Iowa, around 100 to public libraries in Chicago, and the other 300 to school libraries in Iowa. My dear friend, Dawn, is helping me connect with the AEAs to get them into the schools, which will be a huge help.

For the donor copies (if that’s you, thanks again for making this possible), most people indicated they would pick them up at the designated delivery spot in Grinnell. For those people I am planning three pickup options: Sunday, Jan. 14 at Grinnell UMC between 9am-10am (I’m an active member of the church and lots of the supporters are church friends); Saturday, Jan. 20 from 10am-1pm at Saints Rest Coffee Shop; and Saturday, Jan. 27 from 10am-1pm at the Pioneer Bookstore. You might wonder why I’m not doing the bookstore earlier. I have an obligation on Jan 13th and the bookstore will be swamped with students getting books for classes on the weekend of the 23rd. So we’re working around those things. But if you would like to buy a copy and have it signed, you are welcome to pick it up at the bookstore and bring it to me at any of these events.

Paula has also been wonderful at reminding me that I am wearing many hats in this project – author, publisher, distributor, marketing and PR. No wonder I feel like my head is spinning! But knowing that there are so many others who are anxiously awaiting the book delivery and excited to share this story certainly helps make it all worth while.

A year ago this was just a dream and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. This project is definitely something I feel was directed by a higher power. Somehow that higher power and a little Edith magic helped me figure out each step and conquer each hurdle. And now, almost exactly a year from sharing the dream with others, it is becoming reality.

We have less than a week to wait!