About a year ago, Glory Anne Plata, senior publicist at Riverhead Books, came up with an idea that married her passion for books and her passion for food in a way she thought would add to the conversation about Riverhead books and involve in a collaborative way the publisher's authors and friends from the literary and culinary worlds. Called Riverhead Table, the inaugural event took place last winter at the New York City home of a Riverhead staffer: a dinner inspired by and designed to celebrate The Paying Guest by Sarah Waters.
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Dinner guests: (l.-r.) radio host Michael Krasny; Books Inc's Michael Tucker; author T.J. Stiles; Book Passage's Elaine Petrocelli; author of the evening Janis Cook Newman; and the host, novelist Scott James. |
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"Since then, our monthly gatherings have flourished to include the participation of our authors--including Marlon James, Meg Wolitzer and Emma Straub--plus exciting partnerships with local restaurants," Plata said. Riverhead posts pictures from the Riverhead Table events--including the book-inspired menus--on its social media platforms.
When Janis Cooke Newman, whose novel A Master Plan for Rescue was published in paperback in May, heard about Riverhead Table, she immediately asked her publisher if she could bring the event west to the San Francisco Bay Area. (They had been almost exclusively held in New York.) Riverhead said yes.
Like many people in the Bay Area book community, Newman wears several literary hats--novelist, founding coordinator of Litquake's Lit Camp for aspiring writers and a member of the Castro Writers Cooperative, a group of writers who share working space. Her association with the Co-op helped Newman find a venue--the newly renovated home of Co-op cofounder and novelist Scott James (aka Kemble Scott) and his husband, Jerry Cain (a Silicon Valley figure long associated with Facebook).
A Master Plan for Rescue focuses on the unlikely intersection of an 11-year-old New York City boy who loses most of his sight after his mother’s death, which coincides with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and a tragic love story set in war-torn Berlin. Newman planned the menu around Rebecca's dream of escaping Berlin--the kind of meal that could have been served in a Paris bistro.
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Newman is all smiles as she serves. |
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The 26 dinner guests included bookstore owners Elaine and Bill Petrocelli (Book Passage) and Margie and Michael Tucker (Books Inc.); Calvin Crosby and Ann Seaton from the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association; authors Frances Dinkelspiel (Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and Arson in the Vineyards of California), Cristina Garcia (King of Cuba), Michelle Richmond (Golden State) and T.J. Stiles (who just won his second Pulitzer, for Custer's Trials); and members of the media Jane Ciabattari (NBCC and LitHub), Evan Karp (San Francisco Chronicle) and Michael Krasny (host of KQED's Forum and author of the forthcoming Let There Be Laughter: A Treasury of Great Jewish Humor and What It Means).
No stranger to author dinners, Michael Tucker noted that Riverhead Table, which allows the author to choose the culinary fashion that best suits it, puts a new spin on the all-important "one-on-one" that helps get booksellers excited about a book. "There's nothing like it," he said, adding that the event reaffirms how the quality of a book is nicely digested in talking with others about it.
For Newman, who has already seen a boost via her guests' social media posts, the event presented an unusual way to "promote a book without feeling like a book promotion." --Bridget Kinsella