Book tour and lady friends

[MariNaomi]

Hi, 

How are you? I'm pretty good. A little overwhelmed to be honest, so I'll keep this short, with just a few announcements:

TURNING JAPANESE BOOK TOUR

It's almost here! My book about working in illegal Japanese hostess bars, in San Jose and Tokyo will be out very soon, and my tour schedule is gathering steam. Some locations and dates where you can see me read and pick up the new book:

Bryn Mawr, PA: 4/12-4/13

Los Angeles, CA: 5/5

San Francisco, CA: 5/10

Toronto, Canada: 5/13-5/15
New York, NY: 5/17-5/18
Philadelphia, PA: 5/20
Washington, DC: 5/21
Chicago, IL: 6/11-6/12
Bethesda, MD: 9/17
Brooklyn, NY: 9/18
Pacific NW: TBD (Fall)

Details are on my website, and I'm still adding locations and dates, so be sure to check in again (or ask me directly) if you don't see your city on the tour schedule.

COMICS ABOUT FRIENDSHIP

I've been working on a lot of comics about friendship lately, especially female friendships. It's a subject that I don't see enough art made about (but we see buddy movies all the time, don't we?), and when we do, the relationships seem to be of the acrimonious variety. So I'm making what I want to see, basically: true stories about true friendships, as messy and beautiful as they are in real life. Hopefully I'm not the only one who wants to see this stuff.

On that note, this NEW COMIC just posted on Buzzfeed a couple hours ago. I hope you like it.

I've also got another book coming out this fall with Retrofit Comics, also on the subject of female friendships, called I Thought You Hated Me. It'll debut at SPX in September if all goes well. You can pre-order it on their Kickstarter, which only has a few days to go. They're a great publisher and they're depending on this Kickstarter to keep them in business (and it looks like they're gonna make it, so yay!). 

I also have two more projects ongoing about friendship, but I'm not talking about those yet. You can see process shots/teasers of one of them if you follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr, though.

As always, feel free to write back and tell me how you're doing.

Your pal,

MariNaomi