Features
Michelle Hoover’s Midwest Tour
On Sunday, Michelle Hoover begins the Midwest leg of her tour for The Quickening in her hometown of Ames, IA. Between July 26 and August 6, she’ll be doing twelve events in eleven cities, in five states. She’ll be road-tripping the whole way, driving from Ames to Oskaloosa, Des Moines to Minneapolis, Oconomowoc to Chicago, through the vast plains and endless fields she describes so evocatively in her book.
What was originally going to be a five-city tour evolved—very quickly—into what is now a full twenty-city tour. The momentum for The Quickening started building as early as last fall, when the first booksellers started reading and falling in love with this debut novel set in Depression-era Iowa. The blurbs started coming in—from Charles Baxter, Ted Kooser, Amy Green, and many others. Michelle came to San Jose for Wi5 and had her first opportunity to meet booksellers face to face.
Then in February, we learned that the Midwest Booksellers Association had chosen The Quickening as a Midwest Connections Pick, and Michelle was invited to their spring meeting in Minneapolis. The conference itself was great—it was held in a hotel that not only was once a massive train depot, but also now holds an ice skating rink and a water park—but even better was a lovely private dinner at Harry’s restaurant just down the street. MBA Executive Director Susan Walker helped us pull together an amazing group of independent booksellers (from left to right): Jennifer Geraedts of Beagle Books; Chris Livingston of The Book Shelf; Lisa Baudoin of Books & Company; Susan Walker; Carl Wichman of NDSU Bookstore; Nancy Simpson-Bryce of Book Vault; Michelle; and Sally Wizik Wills from Sister Wolf Books. 
Now that Michelle is heading back to the Midwest—this time with book in hand—we’d like to thank those booksellers who rallied behind the book from the beginning. Many of those stores will be hosting Michelle in the coming weeks (her full schedule is here), so we hope you’ll come out to support Michelle and your local indie bookseller.
