writer – Valerie Dimino

This is a big month for Jessica and me and for our book. The Man Behind the Curtain: A Memoir is officially 1 year old!

And what a year it’s been:

My favorite local bookstore, Lift Bridge Book Shop in Brockport, New York, hosted our launch party. As I spoke to that room filled with loved ones, including several of my grad school professors who helped me form the earliest drafts of this book, I was overwhelmed with emotion and the surreal realization that We made it. This is really happening!

I wrote about takeaways from that first author event in a guest blog post for New Shelves, gurus of the publishing industry.

We also held author events with three libraries, a book club, and Writers & Books, a fabulous literary arts center in Rochester, New York.

We’ve been grateful to get on the shelves at so many wonderful shops and libraries. I’ve started a #shopsmall list here! If you don’t find us at your local library or book shop, please put us in contact or ask them to order the book through Ingram.

We’ve consistently remained among Amazon’s best sellers in the Teen & Young Adult Nonfiction on Sexual Abuse category, alongside names like Laurie Halse Anderson, Aly Raisman, and Chessy Prout, whom I revere and learned so much from in my research.

I was a guest on the Normal Lies podcast, which “challenges beliefs you thought were true about you and your world.” Host Linda Heeler was so compassionate with her questions and feedback.

I hosted a Zoom conversation called Trauma, Reclamation, & Healing with my friend Katie Baptist, a brilliant social worker, sex therapist, feminist, and fellow writer. We talked about what we’ve learned through our work and took questions from the audience. It was an inspiring conversation about silencing, speaking up, shame, and self-discovery.

Jessica and I were on air with WGNS Radio in Tennessee to talk about the book, the long-term effects of abuse (especially from childhood), tips for healing and for helping, the importance of delving into difficult conversations, and so much more. We’re grateful to host Scott Walker for his thoughtful discussion.

I launched my email newsletter, “Letting the Words Out,” sharing news about author events and other ways to get involved, plus highlights from the blog, my social media, life on the farm, and more. I’m looking forward to sharing some new writing-life updates there soon. You can subscribe here.

I’ve savored the growth of this blog, enjoying the creative outlet and opportunities for connection it provides. I appreciated the full-circle moment of blogging about the book’s publication and readers’ reactions, after having earlier introduced you to Jessica and posting a Q&A with her as we neared publication. This blog has been a part of the journey each step of the way.

Inspired by a friend’s generous suggestion, we launched a book donation campaign, asking you to consider purchasing a copy of The Man Behind the Curtain to donate to a place in your community where a new reader can discover it — a library, little free library, school, community center, nonprofit organization, etc. If you get in touch to let me know you’re interested, I’ll mail you a bookplate sticker to include in your donated copy!

We’ve appreciated powerful reviews from readers. If you’ve read the book (thank you!), please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads as to how it impacted you. We love to hear from our readers, and that word of mouth is immensely helpful in connecting us with more readers!

Throughout all of this, the most amazing part has been the countless inspiring conversations we’ve had with fellow victims and allies. To know that this book is sparking conversation and helping others to feel understood, inspired, and hopeful — that’s exactly what we aimed to do in writing it.

As incredible as this journey has already been, there is so much more to come. It’s exciting to think of this book continuing to find its way into the world and into new readers’ hands.

We’re just getting started.

Many of these opportunities have required continuing to find new ways to challenge myself and step farther outside of my comfort zone. As a debut author and a self-published one to boot, I have to be willing to put myself out there.

But public speaking — the events in person, on Zoom, on the radio, on the podcast — made me nervous beforehand (and a little bit during).

And they left me buzzing with adrenaline and gratitude afterward.

While I’m not typically one to seek out the spotlight, I am one to seek out opportunities to generate discussion around the important (and admittedly difficult) themes our book addresses: abuse, victim shaming, the long-term effects of trauma — and how Jessica’s story is a shining example of the possibilities of rising above it all.

It’s no coincidence that our book’s birthday month is also Sexual Assault Awareness Month as well as National Child Abuse Prevention Month. While we wish there wasn’t still such a pressing need for these kinds of conversations, we’re honored to be a part of them and help further the cause however we can.

As we work to continue these discussions, Jessica and I humbly ask that you consider your contacts and help us make some new connections.

Who do you know who…

works with a school, library, bookstore, or nonprofit?
is part of a book club?
has a podcast or blog?
reviews books on Instagram, TikTok, or elsewhere?
writes for a magazine, journal, newspaper, or website?
has celebrity connections?
also speaks about triumph over trauma?
has some other literary or newsy interest?

We want to chat with them! Please comment here, send me their contact info, or send them mine, and I’ll be grateful to have a conversation about possibilities.

Sincere thanks to all of you who have helped make this year amazing and have helped this book spread its little wings and fly.

Thank you for continuing to help us pull back the curtain.

I’ve written before about the mixed emotions I feel as I near the end of a good book: there’s excitement to find out how it will end, a little worry as to whether I’ll be satisfied with that ending, and also a particular sort of sadness, deep in my rib cage, about parting ways with it. When I’m immersed in a great read, it can be so absorbing that I can’t help but leave part of my mind in the book’s world as I’m moving about in my own; the characters’ voices and predicaments continue to play out as if on a TV screen in the corner. I find myself wondering about them — how they’re feeling, what will happen to them. The haze of that other realm, the texture of the language, follow me around and beckon me to come back soon.

This is often true of TV shows and movies, too. While I enjoy creating my own vision in my head while I’m reading, the provided visuals and audio of the screen add so many more crevices to explore and cozy up with: the costumes, the sets, the actors’ vocal inflections and facial expressions, the music… (The music is utterly essential — I’m planning another post soon about the infinite ways music is tied to emotion and memory. Stay tuned!) Friends, The Office, Community, Gilmore Girls — I came to care about those characters and their worlds so deeply that I felt as if I truly knew them.

One of the things I’ve missed most during the pandemic is going to the movies. In recent years, I became a proponent of going to the movie theater alone. It’s the best way to allow yourself to become fully transported into the story. This is how I experienced some of my favorite films of the past few years: A Star Is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman (no coincidence about the run of music movies!), and my second viewing of Greta Gerwig’s Little Women (which I found mostly to be lovely but in many ways to fall short of the 1994 version, which happens to be my favorite movie of all time). I’m excited to say I recently ventured out to resurrect this tradition and see In the Heights. (Highly recommend.) As the opening musical number swelled and reverberated through the room, I was buzzing with adrenaline and such profound gratitude. I would argue that going to see a movie alone is nearly on par with attending a live concert in terms of savoring a fully immersive consumption of entertainment. And it’s a consumption of content — as a writer, it always comes back to that for me. Someone else has created this piece — these words, notes, visuals, etc. — and, in sharing it, has added content to my life. They have imparted an experience.

The ability of words on a page (or acted out on a screen, as the case may be) to make us laugh or cry or gasp is what solidified my dream of being a writer. I read a sappy Lurlene McDaniel novel in junior high and remember crying actual, full-fledged tears when one of the main characters died — and immediately afterward feeling a full-bodied awe at the fact that those tears were brought about by symbols on paper. I’d always been an avid reader and enjoyed making up poems and stories of my own, but that was the moment I knew: I want to do THIS.

We invest so much of ourselves in all of these types of content that it’s only natural to have such high demands of them — we invest not just time but emotion: hope, curiosity, vulnerability, the expectation of some sort of escape. We don’t want to be let down by the writers, the characters, the actors; we feel appreciative when they come through for us and impart an impactful experience.

The other side of that coin is that when we finish good content of any type, there is a mourning period of sorts. We emerge from that other world we’ve inhabited for however many hours and have to adjust to being back in our own familiar surroundings, often with a pang of longing — something, already, like nostalgia — for the friends and atmosphere we’d come to know.

For me, though, the most exciting part of finishing a book is picking out which one I’ll read next. I’m a bit of a book hoarder. My multiple bookshelves are stuffed with favorites I hope to reread someday (or simply feel I must own, even if they don’t get reread in their entirety) and many, many books that I haven’t yet read. A small sampling — maybe 20 or so — are promoted to my bedside shelf as a sort of holding area for what’s to be read soon. There’s a pressure of sorts, an eagerness that borders on anxiety, as to picking the next read. What about all those others still waiting? Is this the one I’m ready for next? Choosing the next show or movie to cross off my to-watch list is a similar struggle. The thrill and uncertainty of these decisions, every time, speaks to the power that quality content has over us.

What great reads or binge-watches have you gotten lost in lately? Share your favorites with me — so I can add them to my ever-overflowing queues, calling to me as they wait in the wings.