Tour T-Shirt Ideas: I Need Your Votes!

I'm heading out on tour in September as the warm-up act for best-selling Donald Miller, who's out to promote his latest book, "A Million Miles In A Thousand Years." While there's little upfront money, it will pay off in book sales, not to mention the chance to tour with a terrific, well-known author.

Don wants me to make some dough and asked if I had a DVD to sell. I don't yet. But I've had some ideas for T-shirts. What do you think of these slogans? Would you buy them on a T-shirt? Some of these my manager doesn't think I could get away with selling them in a church foyer.

Which would you buy? In a church lobby or elsewhere?





























































































Here are some with logos from the book.































Leave your preferences in the comments. Thanks so much!!

Rotisserie Chicken Gospel

Larry just informed me that Christianity Today's interview with me just got posted. Here's the link.

The Rotisserie Chicken Gospel: Author Susan Isaacs on comedy, church hopping, and having a 'middle-class white girl's Dark Night of the Soul.'

In the meantime, here is a pic of my trip to Zurich.






















My sister Nancy, Sister in Law AnnKatrin, brother James, niece Emily
My brother is one lucky dawg. AK is terrific! The only downside is, they're going to live in Switzerland so I won't get to see enough of her. Upside: Euro travel just got easier!

Finally, Angry Convos on CNN

Finally I was able to procure a copy of my CNN interview about "Angry Conversations With God," thanks to my high school drama teacher who recorded it. It was shown live at 5:45am on the very first day of Daylight Savings, which means only four people saw it.

A car was going to pick me up at 4:45am in time to get me to the CNN bureau in Hollywood. Being the first day of Daylight Savings, I set my clock forward an hour. But my clock had an auto feature on it that jumped ahead anyway. So I woke up at 2am.

The car drove us to Hollywood. A guard led me into a green room, but no one else was to be found! I knew I was going to be on camera at 5:40am. And at 5:35am a PA came in, took me into a booth, put me in front of a camera and gave me an earpiece. The camera was operated robotically from there. Totally surreal.

ACwG at the PATH train bookstore

My friend Kevin Gosa snapped a pic of the display at the PATH train bookstore. (PATH train connects New Jersey with Manhattan) Not sure which stop. But I'm keeping good company!



I wonder if Kevin snuck my book there or the bookseller just put it there. Either way, still a thrill!

Q&A with Author Don Miller

This past weekend Larry and I went to Portland, Oregon. I did a reading at Imago Dei community. Author Don Miller did a Q&A with me afterward. It was a blast! You can listen to the Q&A here.

We hung out afterward, and I finally got to meet my fellow Burnside Writers Collective writer Diane Nienhuis, who I feel liek I already know so well just from emails and skype chats. Penny came down from Seattle, Aaron drove up from Eugene, and Kathy came in from Nashville. Saturday a bunch of BWC writers and readers met for dinner -- people I've known through blogging and faith and circumstance. Larry and I felt like we were really "home:" Home with the kind of people we'd call our tribe. It was a perfect PERFECT weekend. But it was also sunny in Portland. That didn't hurt.

Life won't always be this idyllic. But when it is like this, I'll smile and say "yes please" and "thank you."

Anyway make sure to listen to the Q&A with Don Miller
Or, my radio itnerview with Canadian talk show host Drew Marshall
Or you watch my appearance on ABC's AM Northwest .

Angry Conversations With God hits store shelves today!

Today is the day I've been waiting for, for some time. And it's kinda surreal.

Never while writing did I think I was saying too much, being too open or too vulnerable. I felt like I was just telling the truth. Judging by the way people responded to my writing, or hearing me read/perform, it was a good kind of vulnerable.

But today I'm thinking, "WHAT ON EARTH HAVE I DONE?" I've picked up on one or two stray words of fellows and have second guessed myself.

I think it's probably "opening night jitters."

Anyway, I wrote the book that was in me. And you can get it, starting tomorrow! At a bookstore or website near you.

Actually, there are several dozen bloggers who are blogging about my book, between now and March 20. Many of them are going to give away free copies on their blogs! Check 'em out here...

Matthew Paul Turner • List Of The Day • Eric Metaxas • Victorya Michaels Rogers • Josh Shipp • Mark Joseph • Andrea Askowitz • Billy Ivey • Bryan Allain • Caroline Sprinkel • Christy Tennant • Dan Merchant • Diane Nienhuis • Helton Goins • Jack Legg • Jared Blankenship • Jenifer James Hall • John Fortson • Joy Kennelly • Karen Power • Lisa Milton • Lori Rooney • Matt McKechnie • Penny Carothers • Sally Lloyd-Jones • Sean Gaffney • Spencer Spellman • Wendy Melchior • Amy Kopecky • Michael Meulstee • Charles Roberts

Susan's Radio Interview on 107.1

I just finished my radio interview with "Ian & Margery," on 107.1FM, Minneapolis/St Paul. You can listen to it here.

Susan on CNN, On Radio three times!

So I was on CNN Sunday morning. It came up very quickly, and unfortunately it was live from Atlanta. SO unless you were on the east coast, and up on the first day of daylight savings, you didn't get to see it. I'm trying to procure the footage or at least a link.

Meanwhile, I have two radio interviews scheduled, talking about my book, "Angry Conversations With God." Listen online at these links!

Tuesday March 10
1) WFMP 107.1 Minneapolis, the Ian & Margery Show, Hour 4. Listen at to my segment Here.




Friday March 13
2) Word FM Pittsburgh, the John Hall Afternoon show
4:15 pm Eastern Daylight time (1:15 pacific)
Listen Live Online. Or to John Hall's page and look for "Listen Live" button/

Tuesday March 24

WNIV 5:10pm Eastern Time
Host John Hall

Angry Convos in New York

I hate using "convo" as a contraction for "conversation." But convo is easier to type. So there it is. Last weekend I had the good fortune to present my book as a solo show in New York. Well I am working on a solo show, something i can tour in lieu of just showing up at a book store and signing books and reading a chapter.

My friend Christy Tennant lobbied to have me present at the IAM Encounter in Tribeca. Also in the line up were Nicholas Wolsterstorff, a braniac who teaches on Philosophical Theology and Art at Yale. Billy Collins the erstwhile poet laureate, and Helen Sung, a jazz pianist who's won Kennedy Center awards.

Can you say, Freak OUT! I was pretty freaked out. I would be trying my new material on them. Taking a 65,000 word book and putting it into a 40 minute show was gonna be tough. It's not just paring words; they are two different genres. Like for a solo show, you can't go on for days describing a house. Unless the book is "Gone With The Wind." But no one has done a solo show on Scarlett O'Hara. Uh oh. Now someone is going to do that.

Anyway, the transition between talking narrative to dialog between two characters (and when you re playing them both) ... it feels like you're jumping over a crevasse, and you may just fall down into that ice canyon and never be seen again. Only you do it on stage in front of hundreds of people and you'd wish you cold be unseen.

I had a great audience, the material worked, and I got to teach a class on non-fiction writing the next day. That was blast.

And then Billy Collins read the following evening and pretty much blew everyone away. And he both shamed and inspired me. Shamed me to think what I'd done the evening before approached poetic; and inspired me to feel some kind of lyricism toward the wet quiet streets I passed by on the way home.

Here's a little Billy for you. Oh to write that succinctly and well.

Susan on Asphalt Eden

I'm going back to New York at the end of February to participate in the International Arts Movement conference, called IAM Encounter. I just got interviewed about my experiences at IAM on the blog, Asphalt Eden, which you can read here.

And now, a beautiful photo. The boats are in Huntington Harbour. The mountains are the San Gabriels, 45 miles to the north, through some of the most populated, industrial, grotty area of Los Angeles. The mountains look so close, that's how clear it was today. Makes you understand why people (want to) move here.