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Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No, to bird.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we need without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and welcome.

This is Bookworm.

Today I'm very pleased and excited.

My favorite thing on Bookworm is when I'm talking to a first novelist,

and it's someone whose work I have not previously known. My guest on the show today is

Elizabeth Wetmore, Beth Wetmore. Her book is called Valentine. It's published by

Harper, and it's a novel. Beth Wetmore is 53 years old, and this is her first book.

She's published many short stories in many of the best literary journals,

the Kenyan Review, the Colorado Review,

but this is her first time in hardcover.

Tell me, Beth, what did it feel like to finally see the book in hardcover?

Well, it's all been a little unreal, honestly. I worked on the book for a long time, and I was ready

to, you know, have the editor sort of wrestle it out of my hands. Honestly, I think if

if she hadn't wrestled it out of my hands, I'd probably still be tinkering with it to tell you

the truth. And even now, I occasionally spot a sentence or a paragraph that I think, oh, I'd like to

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