I have been up to my elbows in alligators keeping up with If Not the Whole Truth as it flies out into the world, and I promise a better blog post soon in the near future, but meanwhile, I thought you'd like to read the article about the book launch, Burning Convictions, that ran in today's Indiana Daily Student. Take a look too at the book-themed images that ran during the event at the end of the article

Bloomington authors celebrate publication of their novels

Claire Arbogast (left) and Shana Ritter (right) answer questions about their novels Sept. 15, 2024, at Backspace Gallery in Bonne Fête. The books feature resilient women in times of pivotal societal change. Photo by Natalia Nelson / The Indiana Daily Student

By Natalia Nelson
Sep 17, 2024

IU alumna Claire Arbogast and former IU staff member Shana Ritter read at a double book release party for their novels, “If Not the Whole Truth” and “In the Time of Leaving,” on Sunday at the Backspace Gallery in Bonne Fete.

Arbogast graduated from IU in 1980 with a degree in journalism despite being a single parent while in school. Before attending university, she had been a line cook.

“My whole life changed because of my journalism degree,” Arbogast said. “I had a work-study job [at IU]... my daughter came to work with me all the time. She roller skated up and down the hallways of Ernie Pyle Hall.”

She later worked in marketing and advertising, but said her degree gave her the “ability to hunt and find the story and to seek out the truth behind things,” which influenced her later writing career.

“It stayed with me all of those years,” she said.

Her new novel, released Sept. 10, is set in the late 1960s and features Connie Borders, a strong-willed woman who leaves her hometown to protest the Vietnam War and is taken on whirlwind adventures as she tries to find her place while pushing for societal change. The book has been eight years in the making and blossomed when she realized today's social unrest mirrored that of the ’60s.

“It was like the ‘60s, in some ways, was the Pandora’s box that opened unvetted information and the obligation that people feel to call out other people,” Arbogast said. “I started researching all of that… this isn’t something that just happened in the ‘60s. It’s something that’s happened over and over and over again.”

She said it was a repeating cycle, stating that today’s protests and those in her novel retained similarities to the movements for women’s suffrage and birth control.

Ritter, whose novel reflected on the plight of a Jewish mother and daughter forced to either leave or convert to Catholicism during Spain’s 1492 Edict of Expulsion, added that the past had to be understood for society to be able to move forward.

“Until you explore as an individual, as a movement, as a nation, until you explore from many angles, not just those written down, what the past is, and how that past has influenced the way we think now,” Ritter said. “We can’t free ourselves from repeating, again and again, the same places where we trip.”  

Arbogast and Ritter knew each other from sharing writing groups over the years, and Arbogast invited Ritter to read at her book release to celebrate Ritter’s new edition of “In the Time of Leaving,” which was originally published in 2019. Arbogast’s next reading of “If Not the Whole Truth” will be at Morgenstern’s Bookstore on Sept. 30. They will both attend the first-ever Writer’s Guild Local Authors Book Fair, along with several other Bloomington writers, at the Monroe County History Center on Nov. 2.

In the wayback machine, almost ten years ago, the Library Journal gave a super nice review to my memoir, Leave the Dogs at Home, thanks to the efforts of Indiana University Press to get the book on the Journal's radar.
     Wellllll, fast forward to the now.
     My new novel, If Not the Whole Truth, is being published by my own micro-publishing house, Margin Key, and all the thousands of details about book design and promotions are up to little 'ol me. Some of this is fun. Like getting to choose my book designer and being involved in the creative process of cover design and book composition. I love typography, I love art, but the responsibility for the correctness of the files and all the details of publishing sits squarely in my lap, and it's a little scary.
     Also in my lap is the effort to get advance reviews from recognizable places to encourage sales. Places like the Library Journal. From my perspective, a review from them is important because that's how you get your book in front of librarians. It's how your book gets ordered by libraries. As an aside, did you know the Library Journal was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey?
     There's no guarantee they'll review the novel; they review several hundred each month. I can’t find any info about how one is notified if the book is reviewed. And, if I'm lucky enough to get a review, it could be positive and/or negative, and they will recommend for or against purchase. But I have faith in my book, and I want to hear what the Library Journal thinks this round. (I’m pleased to report Kirkus Reviews said this: “Historically rich, with … searing contemporary relevance. OUR VERDICT: GET IT.”)
     First, you've got to ask months and months in advance. My novel is not coming out until September and it's already a little late for asking for reviews from the LJ. But this is where I'm at because even though we started on the book final final final edit and design in early March, I didn't have an electronic file to send until last week. (Be watching for a cover reveal coming soon!)
   Getting the file to the LJ is an exercise in hyper-detailed instruction following. Have to request to set up an account. Then, if approved, download a spreadsheet that must be filled in just so and not structurally modified in anyway. Then the book PDF and the completed spreadsheet have to be uploaded on a special webpage in just the right order. Then, you wait to hear if the files were “successfully processed into our book room.”
     I uploaded on Sunday, got my success email this afternoon. All of that is due to my careful planning and execution. I knocked, the door opened. And closed. And now If Not the Whole Truth is on its own behind the mysterious Library Journal doors. Will it survive?