We’re thrilled for the citizens of New Canaan, Connecticut, as the NEW New Canaan Library has its grand opening on Valentine’s Day! We worked with the library’s executive team and consultants as they were planning for the launch of this world-class new library campus, a decade in the making. The new library will connect people, perspectives, and information to help build a more engaged, inclusive, and empathetic world.

Our author client Brett Ashley Kaplan has been selected as a featured author for this year’s Texas Book Festival, a pretty big deal for a first-time novelist, for her book Rare Stuff.

We were the PR firm for the Festival for five years, one of many literary organizations we’ve worked with, including the Texas Library Association, the largest of its kind in the country. Brenda Thompson was named a city council appointee to the Library Commission in the years that Austin’s incredible new library was being planned.

We were engaged by the Westlake Hills library to manage the media around the opening of the first library in the nation to be named for First Lady Laura Bush. A few years later we got to have an event at the Bush’s home in Dallas to announce the roster for that year’s Texas Book Festival. The former First Lady was a founder of TBF and later of the National Book Festival, held in Washington D.C.

Kaplan’s debut novel, just published August 1, has been well-received by readers, reviewers, and book clubs across the nation. Rare Stuff takes readers on a mysterious journey through a series of interlocking clues, with an intriguing search for a missing person moving through real and magically real universes in New York, Chicago, and glass houses under the sea constructed by Yiddish-speaking whales desperate to save our endangered planet. You can find Rare Stuff wherever books are sold, or, if you can, come to the Texas Book Festival Nov. 4 and 5 and hear from Brett and nearly 300 other incredible authors in person!

Rare Stuff by Brett Ashley Kaplan will be published August 1, 2022.

In a big win for a first-time fiction author, client Brett Ashley Kaplan scored a Kirkus Review of her debut novel Rare Stuff.  

“Yiddish-speaking whales, a suitcase packed with secrets, and one young woman’s desperate attempt to find answers. The novel alternates among Sid’s perspective, the long-suffering André’s perspective, and chapters from Aaron’s unpublished manuscript featuring Yiddish-speaking whales trying to save the world from environmental collapse. Kaplan packs a lot into her novel and while the novel’s ambitious scope could easily have been its downfall, it’s saved by descriptions of tender longing for connection and purpose, particularly realized in André’s chapters, as well as a soft, magical tone. A dreamy story with surprising emotional resonance.” –Kirkus Reviews published online 5-11-22 and in the June 1 issue of the print magazine.

Rare Stuff is available for pre-order on Amazon, Bookshop, and Barnes & Noble and will be available Aug. 1.

Thundercloud for Austin Monthly Magazine
Drew Anthony Smith

We’ve been lucky to work with some quintessential Austin brands over the years. One of these is ThunderCloud Subs, a local chain of sub sandwich shops that is one of the most-loved businesses in the city.

In 10 years as ThunderCloud’s PR agency, this article more than any other gets the vibe and culture that make ThunderCloud unique.

“As much as Austin has changed over ThunderCloud’s 47 years in operation, walking into one of their shops still feels like stepping back in time. And a big part of that classic vibe has to do with the employees, many of whom to this day still fit the city’s legendary slacker archetype, clocking out to head straight to band practice.”

Thanks to writer Dan Gentile for the extensive research and interviews, and really capturing ThunderCloud.