'Paper Girl' delivery en route!

It’s five days away from publication of my fifth book, and I have to say: I’ve never been more excited for a launch. My tour duds are stacked next to my tiniest carry-on, and I still haven’t answered that thorniest question: How many pairs of shoes can I wrangle into it?

I’m stoked that the New York Times just this morning published an excerpt from the book. It’s a piece about my coming-of-age and how college essentially saved my life. I tell it through not only my story but also a “young me,” a student I shadowed for two years from my hometown named Silas James, who’s had a tough time of it. It’s about rising inequality and how poor kids today don’t have the same advantages I had because of systemic greed and the purposeful underfunding of education.

I’ll tell more of that story in upcoming interviews on NPR and another excerpt in The Atlantic, both of which land around pub day on Tuesday—about the same time I’ll be worrying whether I packed the right shoes.

My fashion-forward friend Frances has selected my jewelry and outfits, outlawing the Blundstones that rarely leave my feet but OK-ing them for the airplane while also advising me, gently, “I don’t think we’re wearing holey jeans anymore, Beth.”

My crackerjack team at Penguin Books has me in conversation with some of my all-time favorite people, from Miwa Messer in New York City on Oct. 8 to my Appalachian sensei Robert Gipe in Louisville on Oct. 9, to Andrea Pitzer in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 22.

My list of events can be found at my website and are listed below as well.

When we had to cancel the West Coast leg of my tour owing to a surgery I had last month (I’m fine now but still have to watch what I lift), they even arranged a virtual book talk through Book Passage of San Francisco with my all-time favorite newspaper columnist-turned-novelist, Anna Quindlen. That’s right -- the Anna Quindlen.

A funny story about meeting Quindlen at the Hollins University library when she came to speak at my alma mater in 2014: I could not help but fan-girl, explaining that I had taught her work, emulated it as a newspaper columnist, and like her, always sought to center my articles with real people, not people in power.

I was just on the cusp of publishing my first book, Factory Man, and when she asked what it was about, I sheepishly pulled an advanced reader copy of it from my Mary Poppins bag, which I’d packed just for such an opening, and handed it to her. This was almost (but not quite) as bad as the time a stranger handed the novelist Lee Smith a printed-out copy of her unpublished book under the door of a neighboring restroom stall.

By the time Quindlen took the stage that night, she was already talking about the book, raving that it was “the dishiest book I’ve ever read about globalization.” Ever since she has recommended my books often when she speaks. Some people really are as amazing in person as they are in print.

I hope to see you on the Zoom or at one of these stops along the way. As my friend Shelly, a former bookseller, said recently: “You’re off to sell books and love, and that is never not fun.”

• Oct. 5, 2 p.m., in conjunction with the Champaign County Library, Urbana, Ohio, talk at the Gloria Theater, with Lance Jackson and Silas James.

•Oct. 8, 7 p.m., in conversation with Miwa Messer for her Barnes & Noble podcast, Poured Over, at the B&N on the Upper West Side, NYC.

• Oct. 9, 6:30 p.m. Louisville Free Public Library, in conversation with Robert Gipe.

• Oct. 10, 7 p.m., St. Louis Public Libray, with Novel Neighbor, in conversation with Holland Saltsman.

• Oct. 11, 2:30 p.m. Des Moines, Beavercreek Banned Books Festival, in conversation with Douglas Burns.

• Oct. 13, 4 p.m. ET. Zoom with Anna Quindlen, via Book Passage: Register here.

• Oct. 15, 6:30 p.m. Bookmarks Bookstore in Winston-Salem, N.C., in conversation with Lily Skok Bunch.

• Oct. 16, 6 p.m. Fundraiser/book launch in my current hometown to benefit first-generation students at Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke, Va. Charter Hall on the Roanoke City Market. There are still some tickets left (not a lot).

• Oct. 17, 7 p.m., Charlottesville, Va., Paramount Theatre, via UVA’s Karsh Institute of Democracy and Democracy360, fireside chat with Melody Barnes.

• Oct. 18, 4 p.m., Southern Festival of Books, Nashville.

• Oct. 22, 7 p.m., Politics and Prose, Washington, D.C., in conversation with Andrea Pitzer.

• Oct. 23, 7 p.m. Clifton Forge, Va., Historic Masonic Theatre.

• Oct. 28, 7 p.m., Moss Center of Arts, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.

• Nov. 5, 6 p.m., Montgomery County Public Library, Christiansburg, Va.

• Dec. 5, 7 p.m., Winchester Book Gallery, Winchester, Va.

• Dec. 8, 7:30 p.m., Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures.

• Dec. 13, time TBA, Barnes & Noble, Roanoke, Va.