Change the World Tour, Fall 2009 Edition

As promised, I thought I'd give you a few details about my upcoming 2-month tour this fall. Before you get excited, nothing is really concrete yet, so I won't be posting any actual dates or specifics.

THE MAZE RUNNER is due on September 15th. We then hope to visit as many cities and schools as possible between then and mid-November, after which we'll be rewarded with a 2-week family trip back home to Georgia. Yippee! (I really shouldn't use that word. Makes me look like a sissy. Yeah, that'll be the last time.)

Of course, to be able to do that, I can't have one of those pesky day jobs. I don't think I've ever talked much about my day job, and I think some of you probably thought I didn't HAVE a day job. (I wonder how many times I can use the words "day job" in one paragraph....)

Well, I'm a CPA, which is a shameful and embarrassing secret about me. I wish I could say I was a CIA spook, a welder, or a starter for the Falcons. But alas, I'm an accounting nerd.

For 3 more weeks, anyway. Boo yah!

Then I'm finally taking the leap. I will officially be a full-time author as of August 9th, 2008. This has been a dream of mine for a very long time, and it still seems too good to be true. But here it is.

It's been a pain figuring out health insurance, life insurance, retirement, blah blah blah. But we're almost there. The thing I'm most excited about? I'm actually going to let another CPA do my taxes. I hereby declare to the world that I hope to never count anything or add up anything again for the rest of my life. I studied accounting because I'm practical and wanted to get a job out of college. But I must say, as much as I've loved the people I've worked with, I never, never, never liked the work. Bleck.

Anyway, back to the tour.

Shadow Mountain has given us a certain budget, and my wife is helping the very awesome Roberta there in coordinating the tour. We know I'm going to New Hampshire, Idaho, Houston, San Francisco, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Carolina, Atlanta, and Phoenix. We'll fill in a lot of the blanks with schools in Utah.

If you're interested in having me visit your school or town, please contact us at: the13threality AT gmail DOT com. If it doesn't work out for this fall, we'll also be doing a lot next winter and spring, especially when Book 2 comes out in March.

You'll have a much better chance if you can organize a cluster of schools that would last 2 or 3 days (3 or 4 schools a day), preferably near a major chain bookstore. Or, if your school has a decent budget for that kind of thing, I can come to a school for an entire day.

Anyway, email us and we can work out the details. Your first choice is probably Rick Riordan, who charges $2,500 a day and is booked out for 2 years. Well, if that doesn't work out for you, give me a shot. :-)

I'll post definitive dates once we have them.