MILK EGGS VODKA [By Bill Keaggy]

A hearty and heartfelt congratulations to Laura (who needs bleach and eggs) and Amber (who shops for Cosmo, chocolate donuts and pads, but only “once a month”). Laura and Amber were the winners of the “Milk Eggs Vodka” book giveaway. Thanks to everyone who entered the contest (I’ll probably do another soon!). Take a look at the sampling of the community grocery list y’all created:

British Mars bar
salami
cheeses
olives
dried vegetables
Hershey’s Special dark chocolate bar
5-grain bread from the bakery
shredded cheese
alcohol
ice cream
milk
avocado
black rice
dried figs
chocolate covered peanuts
bleach
eggs
toilet paper
peanut butter M&Ms
Cosmo
chocolate doughnuts
pads
lowfat sour cream
saltine crackers (store brand)

“Milk Eggs Vodka” is for sale at your neighborhood Borders and is usually filed in the “Humor” section (right next to Garrison Keillor’s titles!). But should you visit Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon (and you should), you’ll see that my book stands proudly in the “Cooking oddities” section. How cool is that? I didn’t even know such a category existed!

Every month I give away free books over at The Grocery List Collection and this month I’m giving away my book! Find out how to win one at www.grocerylists.org (the deadline is May 31!).

Of course, if you can’t wait please feel free to head over to your local bookseller or Amazon to pick up a copy of the book right now!

Yep, that’s the ISBN of my first book. The idea was hatched in January 2006, I started working on it in April, I finished it in August, I proofed the pages in October and got my first actual copy of it in March 2007. Tomorrow, May 2, it’s available to everyone, though it already started shipping on Amazon.

This blog will document the rest of the journey: Release, promotion, sales, reviews, etc. The good, the bad, the fun, the fruitless, everything (I guess I like to put things up on the web). You can see the web site that was the genesis for the project here: grocerylists.org.

Grocery lists? Yes. The book is about found grocery lists. Funny ones, sad ones, healthy ones, unhealthy ones, short ones, ones with notes, ones for parties, ones by old folks, and on and on… In fact, on and on for 240 pages. In full color. with a hardcover! And it’s all thanks to HOW Books. Thanks, HOW Books!

It’s a weird thing putting a book out with your name on it. I’ve been publishing in a variety of ways since 1988. ‘Zines, magazines, newspapers, music, web sites. And although I’ve been a contributor to or subject of a number of books — this is my first book. It’s all mine, so I figure I ought to keep track of what happens.