A Bittersweet Celebration

launching my memoir at a difficult time

Jun 14, 2026

This past spring was the hardest and kindest of my life. My dad passed away in March and my memoir was published in April. Bittersweet, if ever.

When I first found out the publication date of my memoir, I made a plan. The launch date was April 23^rd, 2026, so I decided I would begin promoting it in December 2025, giving me five months to send it out to reviewers, podcast hosts, advanced readers. I researched which ones would be a good fit, started drafting personalized letters, made lists. When December came around, I was kind of ready. And then my 84-year-old dad was diagnosed with advanced metastatic cancer. I can usually compartmentalize quite efficiently, but this was too big. On every level.

Arranging and taking him to doctors’ appointments, scans, blood tests, was the easy part. My mum has dementia and dad was her sole carer. They also lived outside Athens, a 90-minute drive away. My sister and I arranged for them to move near us, which was no easy feat, as dad had been a bit of a hoarder. The logistics of the situation were challenging enough, but the worst part was having to put him through so much change when he was feeling so vulnerable, that we had little precious time to spend with him and most of it was spent attending to practical matters.

Mum & Dad on February 19th.

At times it felt as though time had stopped, at others that it was moving at lightning speed; that it was running out. Meanwhile, my publication date was approaching and I was doing nothing about it. It might seem shallow that I was even thinking about my memoir at this time, but I felt I owed it to the wonderful team at Vine Leaves Press who had taken me on, who took a chance on an unusual memoir written by an unknown writer about a difficult subject. I wanted so badly to make an effort, to give my memoir a chance to reach as many readers as possible, give something back to the people who had been so supportive, but also reach those who might find comfort in it.

But I just couldn’t. I sent out some ARCs, contacted a couple of reviewers, looked at the lists I’d made months earlier, but I just couldn’t follow through. I was feeling too raw emotionally to engage in the kind of formulaic communication the process required and life kept crashing in and taking over. As it should, I eventually realized. For a while, I just focused on dad. Then one day at the end of February, after he had been admitted to hospital, I decided that the one thing I would try to organize was a book launch. I’d spoken to the owners of a wonderful independent bookshop in Athens a few months earlier and went to meet them. They were lovely, kind and friendly, and had an enormous Calico cat called Miko who would have blended in so perfectly with the books, she would have been impossible to spot had her purr not been so stentorian. I knew I’d found the right place and we agreed on May 15^th for the launch.

The first ever copy of ‘I am Twig, Bone, Feather’ to appear in a bookshop window.

It felt so strange to be planning ahead at such a time, when so much was unknown, but we all needed something positive to think about, something that pulled us out of the present moment; something in the near future that we could look forward to, other than the something we were dreading. Sending invitations to friends and acquaintances felt easier than trying to promote the memoir to strangers, but I couldn’t get myself to do it. Dad’s health was deteriorating fast, but there was no knowing, no real understanding of what that meant. How could I invite people to an event I wasn’t sure would take place? What would life look like on May 15^th? Would dad still be with us? And if he wasn’t, however would I host a book launch? How would I do anything at all?

I was to find out the answers to these questions sooner than I wished. Dad passed away on March 8^th and I felt his absence profoundly a mere few weeks later in the hours before the launch. He was the one who’d instilled in me a love of books, language and writing, so not having him there felt wrong. But as evening fell on the pedestrian street the bookshop was on and people began to gather from all corners of my life and the world, I felt his presence in the most beautiful way.

Mum, Miko and me.

Dad was a Greek Egyptiot, born in Cairo to a family whose circle of friends was wonderfully varied and whose homes were always filled with people from all over the world, people of different faiths, ethnicities, languages, professions and backgrounds. When I stood up to welcome everyone, I felt as though I was once again at one of my family’s gatherings all those years ago in Cairo, the past and present merging into one.

There was Andrew, my dad’s childhood friend. Hannan, my dad’s cousin, and James, who both flew over from Cairo that day for the launch. Sophia, a dear friend, who flew over from London just over a month after flying over to be with us at dad’s funeral. Pam, one of my dear poet friends, who at 84 flew over from Canada. Pamela and Emmie, my other poet friends, who flew over from the Uk. Joyce and Fabrizio, the final poet of my online writing group and her husband, who flew over from Italy. Two of my students, who turned up with their mothers and asked the most insightful questions at the end of the reading, making me feel so proud. My guitar teacher and all my wonderful park friends, whom I know from walking our dogs every morning, and who until recently had no idea I was a writer. Friends I’ve known since my childhood turned up with their parents, and friends of friends turned up even though they hardly knew me. Valia, one of my lovely step-daughters, who made sure she came early in case I needed support. My dear friend Anastasia, who I only met two years ago, but who introduced me and my memoir as though she’d known me forever. My sister Marina and my brother-in-law Christo. It seems strange to mention them, that of course they would be there, but it had been a hard month for us all and it felt poignant and beautiful to share such a special moment with those with whom I was still sharing grief. Liz, my mum, who sat right at the front and even joined me at the table for the book signing. When I asked her what she was doing at the table, she turned around to me and said, quite simply, ‘I’m your mother, Angie, where else would I sit?’ :-). My publisher Jessica, who sat quietly at the back, and, only spoke once when asked about her design of my beautiful cover. And, of course, my dear husband, Pericles, who made sure everyone had a seat and a glass of wine. And others, some of whom happened to be walking past the bookshop and were drawn in by the wonderful motley gathering and stayed until the very end.

So, despite everything, the memoir was launched. It wasn’t a huge gathering compared to other book launches, but it was beautiful. There was so much love in that space for those few hours, so many different people who had come just to show their support, that it felt like everything had turned out just the way it was always meant to. For those few hours, and ever since that evening, it has felt like everything will be ok. That while grief can at times feel like water we might drown in, love is like a coloured dye that turns that same grief into something beautiful, something that can hold, carry, even buoy.

And Miko the cat took centre stage for the entirety of the evening, sprawled out on the table next to my book and notes as though she knew she had to stand in for a very special absent friend. Dad would have loved that.