For days, I’ve been telling you to start getting ready for the launch party for my new book, The Making of an Icon: The Dreamers, The Schemers, and The Hard Hats Who Built The Gateway Arch, 2nd Edition. Since you’re like me, you didn’t. It’s time to get out of that chair, grab that wallet, those key and your phone and head to your car. Drive it to Steven Fitzpatrick Smith’s awesome Royale eatery and drinkery at 3132 S. Kingshighway Blvd. You’ll find my launch party in the courtyard from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. this Sunday, June 24.
When you get there, you may want to buy a copy of the book and have me personally inscribe it. If you wish, you also can pick up a copy of my last book, The Colorful Characters of St. Louis. We thought all the copies burned up in that Reedy Press warehouse fire last year. Fortunately, Reedy found some copies of that book.
After that, you’ll probably be hungry and thirsty. Fortunately, the Royale has a solution in a great menu. You’ll find good company among the lovers of the Gateway Arch in attendance. I understand there will be some fun authors there, for Reedy and other publishers. At 3:30 p.m. you can compete for a free copy of one of my books in a trivia contest. Our sources say there is a 90 percent chance that the trivia master will be fellow Reedy Press author Amanda Doyle. She’s penned a slew of tomes about this town, including a children’s book, To the Top! A Gateway Arch Story. She also was one of the characters in The Colorful Characters of St. Louis.
Make sure you stick around and test your knowledge of the Arch. But also just make sure you come. The book contains some amazing history about an amazing St. Louis treasure. It’s time to make some history of your own and show up at the launch party for The Making of an Icon, 2nd Edition.
Jim Merkel the Writer 