March 8, 2012 • Category: Blog, Excerpts, Guest Authors
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Since The Earth Moved was published in 2004, I have received:
- Two paintings of earthworms, one more abstract and one in a more photorealist style.
- A handpainted greeting card, suitable for framing, of a mass of wriggling worms creating using paint pens and gold glitter.
- A dried, dissected earthworm pinned to a specimen board, framed behind glass, with neatly-typed labels indicating the anatomical features.
- A dead nightcrawler encased in lucite, intended as a paperweight,
- Two collections of earthworm-inspired poetry.
- A coffee mug sporting the worm-shaped logo of a company that makes earthworm bins.
- A pink, plush, stuffed earthworm.
- Countless gummy earthworms, including some that are disturbingly realistic.
- An offer of a business partnership involving the use of worms to clean polluted waste sites.
- Dozens of requests for advice from aspirational worm farmers.
- Dozens of photographs of strange worms, with requests for assistance with identification.
- An earthworm-themed board game, sent by its creator, who was looking for a distributor and hoped I could help.
- An earthworm jigsaw puzzle.
These unsolicited gifts continue to arrive, years after the book’s publication. I can’t explain it, really. No other book I have written has inspired such an outpouring of gifts, handmade crafts, and business offers. I wrote a book about the flower industry, and do you think bouquets arrived on my doorstep? I’m at work now on a book about cocktails, due out next year, and I have yet to receive a single bottle of free booze. But the earthworms? They keep showing up, like nightcrawlers on the sidewalk after the rain.
–Amy Stewart
And now we’d like to give something back to you! We are excited to be giving away three copies of The Earth Moved. Have you ever received anything odd in the mail? Let us know with a comment on this post and we will choose three people at random to receive a copy of the book.
Read an Excerpt of The Earth Moved
Tags: Amy Stewart, earthworms, The Earth Moved, Worms
Allison says...
The strangest thing I have ever received in the mail was an invitation to start working at a new company to the area that sold knives. In order to work there, you had to buy everything from the company and then hope to be able to sell it all back to people.
March 9, 2012@ 2:58 AMBarbara says...
I received through the mail a Murder Mystery Tea Party game based on the Flavia De Luce mystery series by Alan Bradley. It was a cool game, but I have no idea why I received it.
March 8, 2012@ 5:46 PMSue Schwartz says...
My mother, who was in NC, mailed a 50lb burlap bag of raw peanuts to me in Ohio about 40 yrs ago. I was feeling homesick for parched peanuts..that’s what we called roasted peanuts in my childhood.
March 8, 2012@ 3:48 PMrhonda says...
A package. Full of salamis and hotdogs sent regular mail,I can still smell it.
March 8, 2012@ 2:51 PMBrooke says...
A friend sent me pumpkin muffins, but she didn’t wrap them up air tight. So I got a box of ants eating my pumpkin cookies. Slightly less exciting than worms!
March 8, 2012@ 2:17 PMJennifer Kelley says...
So, we were just talking about books about earthworms and this shows up on my facebook page!
March 8, 2012@ 2:01 PMPam S. says...
People are so funny
March 8, 2012@ 1:52 PMRobert says...
I’m going to check my mailbox now for something odd.
March 8, 2012@ 1:27 PMStephanie says...
Lately I have been getting Similac. I haven’t had any children and none on the way so not sure why it keeps showing up. My favorite was the one specially formulated for fussiness and gas!
March 8, 2012@ 1:16 PMMyron McVeigh says...
The strangest thing I’ve gotten in the mail would have to me a used eye pillow. I had ordered a Cd from a band and this came along with it.
March 8, 2012@ 1:07 PM