Not all stops are going to be in your hometown, but years of touring in a band prepared me for crowds big and, well, not big. The last time I was in Spartanburg, in fact, it was while on tour with Uncle Green. Not to play a show, but to sit vigil for our first Econoline van, which died on the way home.

We left that van behind in Human’s Garage, may its memory be a blessing.

No cars died last night at Hub City. The number of audience members was in the single digits, but this tends to be the default for bookstore events where the writer does not have a local base of friends and/or family members to call on. I was paired with Michael Amos Cody, whose Streets of Nashville came out the same day as King Cal. Michael’s book focuses on a songwriter based in Nashville in the late eighties, and the two books work well together, with their examinations of the writing process and the difficult choices their heroes have to make. Streets also has a suspenseful subplot involving a string of murders, which does put the Chicken Sandwich Crisis of Cal into perspective.

The crowd is just part of these events, though. There’s the chance to meet booksellers, and engaged, book-loving booksellers are a big reason indie bookstores have survived. It's also a chance to see your book on display in another city, to sign copies that the store can sell, and the reward of dinner with whoever is around afterwards. In this case, Michael, his wife, another writer friend, and our PR team all went out for decent-ish pub food. We had several hours of conversation about books, and life, and the joy of Process Stories, be they about British people throwing pots or musicians trying to find some missing words.

Oh, and the store had a very friendly cat, who remained in my lap even as I offered some (no doubt brilliant) insight.

I went for a run in a slight drizzle the next morning. I wish I had been a runner when I was a touring drummer, because an early jog through the streets is a good way to learn something about the place you're visiting. Now I know where the Denny’s Corporate Headquarters is; running by it felt much better than any of the meals I had there, in my previous touring life.

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