photos Archives | A.J. O'Connell

I signed books this weekend in the college bookstore where I once bought a lot of books.

Alumni and faculty book signing at Trinity College.

And now from the department of Hey, Guess What I Forgot to Announce:
I was part of a book signing at Trinity College’s Reunion Weekend on Saturday. I loved it, but not gonna lie: it was also very strange. (I never thought I’d be signing books in the store I spent so much money in as an undergrad.)

I’m just posting one photo here, but the rest are over on my Facebook page.

I was there with A.J. Kohlhepp, Todd Coopee, Peter Swanson, Jennifer Prescott, Paul Sullivan, Paul Assaiante, and Lucy Ferriss, Trinity’s writer-in-residence. It was a good mix of veteran writers, new writers, fiction, nonfiction, YA, adult, New York Times best-sellers, self-published and indie writers. You should obviously check them all out.

June 8, 2015/1 Comment/by A.J. O'Connell

Pics from last week’s reading at the Watertown Library

Beware The Hawk

The official photographer* has sent me photos from my e-book talk and reading of Beware the Hawk at the Watertown Library last week. I’m only going to share a few shots with you here because there are something like 20 very high-res photos and, also, I know all of the people in the photos, so reading the captions for all of them would read like a trip down memory lane. But here are a few shots. Let me know if you can find the hawk circling outside the window. I’m told it was there, but I can’t find one in the photo.

Deborah Weinberger, president of the Watertown Library Association, speaks about the library's new collection of e-books and provides the introduction. Note the "e-book" balloons to the right and left.

I speak about e-books, clutching my index cards as if I could absorb all the information written on them through the skin of my fingers.

Me with one of my parents' neighbors during the book signing. I used to get in all sorts of trouble in her yard. I fell out of one of her trees, I accidentally injured her daughter's bunny, I contributed to the decay of shrubs on her property by building a fort in the hedge... In fact, now that I think about it, it's a wonder she came out to the reading.

This is Mr. Fava, formerly of Watertown High School. I was assigned to his study hall as a freshman. I did no homework in this study hall. Instead I wrote novels. I am proud to say that you will never, ever see any of those novels.

And that's my grandmother.

UPDATE & CONFESSION: I misused an apostrophe in the original title of this post; the one that went out to Twitter and Facebook as a status update. I wrote “weeks'” instead of “week’s.” I know. Not a big deal. Still, I’ve posted about apostrophe abuse so often that I feel I must own up to all apostrophe crimes. Feel free to report me to Strunk & White.

* My dad.

April 4, 2012/1 Comment/by A.J. O'Connell

Scavenger hunt, day 10; An impressive tattoo.

Beware The Hawk

We’re in the home stretch. Today is the tenth and final day of the scavenger hunt. Tomorrow, Beware the Hawk becomes available at Vagabondage Press and tomorrow I will announce the winners of the hunt!

But that is tomorrow. Today, I am looking for one more item from you scavengers – a photo of a tattoo. The protagonist in my book has a, shall we say, all-encompassing tattoo. You don’t have to take a photo of a full body tat, but take/find a photo of an impressive tattoo. You know the drill by now, folks: Tweet the photo with the hashtag #bewarethehawk or post it to my Facebook author page.

Now, let’s talk about pain. Yesterday – in honor of my protagonist’s cover-to-cover ankle injury – I asked you to tell me about a time when you had to live with an injury.

Mary-Jo Bates wrote this on my Facebook wall: “Being the fat kid, I made the best tug-of-war anchor. Unfortunately, being able to stand is a function of that post. Back in middle school, the class bully showed an odd moment of insight, whipping the giant jute rope around, catching my ankle, and twisting it something fierce. Still bitter my team lost on that field day.”

What a jerk that kid was. I hope s/he got a detention or a time-out. Or at least a dressing-down from the teacher.

Alena Dillon tweeted this: “I burned myself on the oven last weekend. That’s what I get for cooking. On the bright side, the scar is pretty badass.”

That must have been one hell of an oven burn to leave a badass scar. Hope it’s healing.

Lastly, Tamela Ritter made my day by walking by – and photographing – the Chinatown gate in D.C., which I’ve never seen before. Feast your eyes. It puts Boston’s gate to shame:

March 19, 2012/0 Comments/by A.J. O'Connell

Winter post

The BPT

The sun is finally out, we have something like two feet of snow outside, and there are meter-long icicles hanging from our roof. The city of Bridgeport (which made a big fuss about us all moving our cars to let the snow plow through) has, in a time-honored tradition, not plowed our street.

The blizzard has left some of the U.B. students who live on our block dumbstruck. Most of our neighbors are international students, and some of them have never seen this much snow before. It’s pretty incredible to watch them emerge from their apartments and stand on sidewalk, just looking at the snow. Some of them ran around like kids. A couple of snowball fights broke out.

Since I have a lot of writing to do today, I’m not going to spend too much time writing this post. But I thought I would post some winter pictures from this morning.