📚 Week 17: Launch Update & Acknowledgments
Dear all,
Happy new year! I hope that your holidays were filled with festivities and cheer, and I hope that you are all staying safe and healthy amidst this new wave of the pandemic. It still hasn’t quite hit me that it’s now 2022…especially since it feels so much like 2020 so far with regards to the current state of health and panic and whatnot. But in other (more positive) news, now that January (publishing month) has arrived, I’ve got a few short but important updates for you all!
📣 Launch Update
We’ve got a date, folks! The book will be officially launching on…
SUNDAY JANUARY 23, 2022
On this day, the book will be available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and my website, among several other places where you buy books online. Additionally, for all of you that have preordered a copy of the eBook and/or paperback, I will be sending your eBook copy to your email inbox on this day as well.
As for the physical paperback copies, my publisher has just informed me that I should be receiving them around January 17. After receiving and signing each of the books and including some book merch items, I will ship the books out to you all. If all goes well, your book should arrive at your address by launch day on January 23.
If you pre-ordered a paperback copy back in the summer and your shipping address has since changed, please reply to this email with your new shipping address. Please let me know as soon as you can since I will be printing out shipping labels this week!
I know that a few of you are interested in preordering the book but didn’t have a chance to do so back in the summer. Unfortunately, I will not be doing a second preorder run since we are just two weeks away from launch date. But, you can rest assured that you will be able to purchase a signed copy from me once the book is released! I will send more details about how to do so in the near future.
🙏🏽 Acknowledgments
In Telugu, we have a special word, nammakam, that roughly translates to English as trust/faith/belief/assurance/confidence. You have been a part of my author journey since the beginning, and the nammakam that you have placed in me, in my writing, and in my book’s message means the world to me. In recognition of and gratitude for your support and faith in my work, I’d like to share with you my book’s Acknowledgments. You can read below what I’ve written, or you can feel free to sit this out for now and read it when you receive the book on launch day. Either way, I want you to know how incredibly grateful I am to be a part of this community.
Sincerely,
Snigdha
A Case of Culture is, in many ways, the fruit of several serendipitous accidents. Though I have always loved storytelling, I never thought I could or would write a book. But somehow the stars aligned just right, and so began my journey to becoming an author. For this reason, I must first thank Lord Krishna for blessing me with the strength and opportunities to pursue this endeavor.
To my family, thank you for being there by my side at every step of this journey. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t get sick of me FaceTiming you each day with endless book updates. Amma, I would never have found my love for storytelling if it weren’t for the epic stories and kathalu you shared with us in our childhood. This book is in large part the fruit of your undying passion for our culture, language, and heritage. I hope I did it justice. Daddy, you have always taught me to work hard for work’s sake and not for the fruits of my work. Your words have helped me get through some of the toughest parts of this journey, and I have no doubt they will continue to guide me in my future endeavors. Sujan, you are the bestest brother and friend anyone could ever ask for. I could always count on you to cheer me up and make me laugh when I was at my lowest. Ammamma and Tatayya, you have instilled within me a deep appreciation for our culture and our traditional ways. Thank you for letting me share your story with the world. I hope it will inspire others as much as it inspired me.
Thank you to my incredible interviewees, Hasan Gokal, Pellegrino Riccardi, Rob and Melodie Adams, Donya Tserendolgor, Priya Jaisinghani, Chinmaya Sharma, Prithvi Mavuri, Sirisha Narayana, Neelima and Brian Chu, Jacqueline Melecio, Sulagna Roy, Ryoko Chernomaz, Titi Mabogunje, Rao Kolusu, Karen Sun, Pamela Tipler, Janu Kanneganti, Shvetali Thatte, Raga Ramachandran, and all of the people whose stories and insights I share in my book. Your strength and vulnerability is unparalleled, and I know that so many of us have and will continue to be inspired by your stories.
A special thank you to Eric Koester, who first told me that if I put my whole heart into it, I really could write a book. Thank you for believing in me. To my editors, Paloma Wrisley and Katherine Mazoyer, thank you for helping bring my book’s vision to life. Your patience, guidance, and wisdom has been instrumental in transforming my confused scribbles into a book worth reading. I’d also like to thank Brian Bies, John Saunders, Lisa Patterson, Amanda Brown, Gjorgji Pejkovski, Kierston Stephens, and the incredible team I’ve gotten to work with at the Creator Institute and New Degree Press. You’ve given me memories to last a lifetime.
A huge shoutout to Sumner Leyson and Micia Bonta, my fabulous Beta Readers. Thank you for your valuable feedback and endless encouragement throughout the revisions process. You helped reaffirm exactly how important it is that this book’s message be shared with the world.
I have had many wonderful teachers and professors over the years who have meaningfully impacted my educational journey and taught me life lessons that I will carry with me forever. However, I must give my special thanks to one teacher in particular: my high school English teacher, Mr. Chris Harrington. Thank you, Mr. H, for helping me realize my potential as a thinker and writer.
To my extraordinary work-family at the San Francisco Free Clinic, without your guidance and mentorship, and without the special clinical experiences and patient interactions that SFFC has blessed me with, the inspiration behind this book would not exist.
To my fellow authors, Shysel Granados, Maham Kazmi, Samuel Dillow, Deepu Asok, Satish Shenoy, Jinny Uppal, and Patrick Lin, your companionship has been unlike any other. I am so grateful to have shared this rollercoaster ride with you. And a huge thank you to my fellow authors Shobha Dasari and Navya Janga, who were the first to inform me about this incredible opportunity to write this book with the Creator Institute.
To my amazing friends, thank you for your unconditional love, laughter, and shenanigans. Endless gratitude to my Parker gang, Mancave, Something Extra, the Federalist Party, d218, and Smart People. I’m so grateful that our friendship has remained just as strong despite time and distance. Thank you to my DJ squad for making the kickass mixes that kept me going during those early mornings of writing. And a huge thank you to my Clubhouse friends (shoutout to Telugu Tribe) for listening to my narrations of this book’s early stories and offering much-needed humor and moral support.
Finally, I want to give a BIG thank you to this special group of individuals who pre-ordered a copy of my book and donated to my pre-launch campaign. Thank you for believing in me and my writing. This group includes: Robert & Melodie Adams, Harsh Agarwal, Eash Aggarwal, Joshua Altman, Udaya Amancharla, Lavanya Ande, Camille Arboles, Pilar Asensio, Eugene Auh, Scott Austin, Manaswini Avvari, Poshitha Bandarupalli, Vamsi Bhadriraju, Neha Bhatt, Nagesh Bidhurakanthu, Nerissa Bilar, Michelle Bonta, Matthew Campbell, Sarah Carter, Brian Cashin, Mallikarjunarao & Rajeswari Chalavadi, Ravinder Challa, Ryoko Chernomaz, Neelima & Brian Chu, Mary Chukwu, Madison Cupp-Enyard, Samuel Dillow, Ravi Divvela, Bill Draper, Jill Ann Duehr, Vishnu Duvuuru, David A Evans, Tomeka Frieson, Murali G, Visweswara Ganapathineedi, Patrick R Gaughen, Patricia and Richard Gibbs, Joe Gitchell, Hasan Gokal, Swarajyalakshmi Gollapudi, Raghava Gollapudi, Shysel Granados, Dan Grimm, Esin Gumustekin, Venu & Manjula Gunda, Medha & Vignesh Gunda, Ravi Hande, Canaan Harris, Anthony Hejduk, Hrishikesh, Patricia Hume, Manjeet K Hunjan, Kyle Hutzler, Dinesh Inavolu, Jevin James, Lionel Jin, Raghav Joshi, Ishita Juluru, Nirupam Kanagala, Lokesh Kanagala, Giri Karyamapudi, Sidd Kasi, Srijay Kasturi, Maham Kazmi, Seema Khurana, Sri Kodali, Eric Koester, Udaya Sai Kumar Kollipara, Navya Koppusetty, Prem Kumar, Glover Lawrence, Abbey Levantini, Sumner Leyson, David G Litt, Stephanie Malta, Ravi Meda, Mohith Medasani, Jahnavi Meka, Krishna Mendu, Ferozuddin Mojadedi, Srihari Mupparaju, Krishna Musunuru, Nageswararao & Lokesh Nagineni, Sridhar Namburi, Krishnarao & Madhavi Nandipati, Srinivasa & Sunitha Nandipati, Sujan Venkata Nandipati, Jorge Nunez, Sarah & Amy Ogle, Vijay Parthasarathy, Maryam Chloe Pervaiz, Sricharan Pusala, Fatima Qazi, Sriram Ranga, Raj Rao, Subbarao Ravuri, Meghana Reddy, Nicholas Rogozinski, Edwin Rosete, Ali Rupani, Harinandan Sainath, Anil Sankaramanchi, Kameswara Rao Saripella, Joseph Severini, Swapna Sharma, Sheila, Satish Shenoy, Suraj Srinivasan, Krishnamurthy Srinivasan, Tej Sutariya, Uma Talagadadivi, Praveen Tammana, Belinda Tan, Andreas Towers, Jinny Uppal, Gopikrishna Vadlamudi, Saikrishna Reddy Vanukuri, Satish Vattikuti, Venkat Vempati, Venu Vittaladevuni, Weitai, Dwight Kim & Donna Padgett Wimpey, Joseph Wood, Joanna Wu, Vikas Yadlapalli, Subbarao & Sunitha Yakkala, Sri Yalamanchi, Stacey Zoyiopoulos, and David Zuckerman.
To all of you who have made A Case of Culture possible, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is for you.
📸 This Week’s Instagram Highlights
To kick off the new year, I’ve got an exciting announcement for y’all…
A Case of Culture will be releasing on Sunday, January 23!!! 🤩 (less than 3 weeks away 😱)
Starting on release day, you will be able to purchase the ebook or paperback version via Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other select local bookstores. Stay tuned for more info via my website and newsletter (link in bio).
We are so close!! 🙌
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