My book Nontraditional: Life Lessons from a Community College is coming out tomorrow, right on the heels of the Coronavirus, so I’m sorry to say that my book release probably will be eclipsed in the wake of a global pandemic. We’ve all learned a lot from this situation: new behavior patterns, like handwashing and toilet paper buying, and new words, like pandemic, zoonotic, and social distancing.
The last new phrase, social distancing, is linked to lots of other words we do know: incubation, quarantine, and cancellation. Cancellation: as in colleges cancelling face-to-face classes for the rest of the semester and going online only, much to the chagrin of faculty who refused to become familiar with their online learning management system. As in states like California cancelling any public gathering with more than 250 people in attendance. As in March Madness NCAA tournaments being played without fans watching (if they’re played at all). As in book tours and festivals being cancelled.
One New York Times best-selling author I follow had a new book released on March 10, and within three days, she had to cancel her book tour that had already sold out tickets in a number of larger US cities. She was disappointed, but what she did with that disappointment is amazing. She tweeted this: “Feeling for all the authors launching books this week…we try to plan for everything but a global pandemic is a toughie. Post your books here. I’m ordering all of them. All. We’ll get through this together. Respect and Love.”
So I posted the link to my book as a reply (even though it wasn’t officially being released for another three weeks), and she tweeted back: “YES, NAN! Congrats!!! Ordering!” And suddenly, the cancellations, the quarantines, and the social distancing didn’t seem quite so bad. Will she actually read my book? I don’t know. But what I do know is that she encouraged a lot of people by recognizing that social distancing doesn’t mean we focus only on ourselves or stop caring about how others are impacted by the pandemic. Like the empath she is, this author reached beyond her own disappointment to lift others up. Social distancing might mean we don’t rub shoulders in the stands, but we still find ways to encourage each other.