FT Launch Event Tonight!

It’s here—tonight Fellow Traveler is officially launched! What a long time from its original inception in October 2000 to this happy occasion; what a terribly accomplished feeling to get this particular book into print. Twenty-seven years since my first Grateful Dead concert, and 17 since Jerry Garcia died, I now have a measure of closure to my Deadhead experience that I never quite felt, not until the day I held this volume in my hand.

How do I feel about the work now that it’s published? Well, as the old saw goes, one never ‘finishes’ editing, instead one quits, so there could always be something done differently and perhaps better, but much of that is too subjective to lose any sleep over, and for a writer like me with another four manuscripts in the can (two of which are polished and ready to shop), in a personal creative sense it’s simply time to move on from Fellow Traveler.

Readers of the book will find additional edification and cut material—the book was once twice as long as its finished form—at my website jamesdmccallister.com, but for now, please enjoy the story, and maybe turn over in the mind what I tried to say in this novel, which I’ll spoil for you in a small thematic way: there is no past nor any future, the only time is right now—embrace the moment.