With her novel completed five years ago, but delayed by the pandemic, a Chatham author is excited to have finally released her debut effort.
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Karen Green’s Yellow Birds is a story that began on her Greyhound bus trip to see the Grateful Dead for the first time in 1991.
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It is billed as a “bohemian road-tripping adventure of a love story,” based on Green’s own experiences following the legendary band as a teen in the 1990s.
It focuses on a group of young people who travel with a fictional band to each tour stop, creating a community of “cast-outs, cast-offs and misfit toys” as they go.
“I think a lot of people are peripherally familiar with Deadheads, fan culture and a world that revolves around this strange closed society,” Green said in a release, “But I really wanted to pull the curtain back and show that there’s so much more to this scene than just chaotic hippies traveling in a van.”
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Toronto-based publisher RE:Books released the novel this month.
Green, an already widely published writer of poetry, essays and short fiction, credited a move to Chatham 12 years ago for giving her the time to complete the book.
Originally from Toronto, she came here with her husband, a Chatham native, and their two young children. She left her job as a record company writer and transitioned to freelance work, so she could schedule around family and creative pursuits.
Though Yellow Birds was completed in 2019 and the submission process was underway, the pandemic ultimately halted publication.
“I just stopped hearing from people. We were all adjusting to so much, so I put the manuscript away in a metaphorical drawer and didn’t think it would ever see the light of day,” Green said.
But in early 2023, she got an email that her book was “rescued from the slush pile – it’s such a rare thing that I almost didn’t believe it.”
The publisher said it was in such good shape that the production turnaround to publication could be less than a year away, she added.
There was a Toronto launch, but Green also wanted an event for her Chatham friends and family, so a release party and book signing will take place March 19 at Sons of Kent from 6 to 8:30 pm
“Of course I wanted to celebrate with everyone here,” she said. “This is my home now.”
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