Promotional Information

BLADs available for BEA, early access copies available in August
Endorsements (potential): John Hodgman, David Rees, Maira Kalman, Lawrence Weschler, Joe Meno, Paul Madonna, Chuck Klosterman
Potential introduction by Alec Soth
Promotion: ALA Annual, BookExpo America, Twin Cities Book Festival, Heartland Fall Forum, AWP
Targeted pitches: Wits (MPR, syndicated nationally), This American Life, Twin Cities media including Channel Two’s Almanac, MN Originals, Star Tribune, MinnPost, City Pages, the Walker Art Center’s Magazine, Mpls./St. Paul
First and second serials: Thirty-Two, Guernica, The Awl, This Recording, Rain Taxi
Promotion targeting: museum stores and specialty and gift retailers
Promotion to coincide with Sturdevant’s solo show at the Minneapolis Institute of Art
Promotion via strolls (artist-curated group walking tours) in tour cities
Promotion on Coffee House Press e-newsletter, website, and social media channels
Promotion on the author’s websites: www.andysturdevant.com, southtwelfth.tumblr.com
Possible Midwest Connections pick
Trailer by Minneapolis design collective Works Progress

About the Author

Andy Sturdevant is an artist, writer and arts administrator living in south Minneapolis. He has written about art, history and culture for a variety of Twin Cities-based publications and websites, including mnartists.org, Rain Taxi, Art Review

and Preview!, Mpls. St. Paul, and heavytable.com. His essays have also appeared in publications of the Walker Art Center and the Jerome Foundation, and he writes a weekly column on arts and visual culture in Minneapolis-St. Paul for MinnPost. His work has been exhibited at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and The Soap Factory. Andy was born in Ohio, raised in Kentucky and has lived in Minneapolis since 2005.

Reviews

"Potluck Supper With Meeting to Follow feels like a long ambulatory conversation with an exceptionally interesting friend. Sturdevant's voice -- inquisitive, witty and intelligent -- invites us in at every turn. The book's material presence reinforces that invitation; it's a lovely artifact, beautifully designed and charmingly illustrated. It would make a great gift for anyone interested in visual culture, Minnesota, the Midwest, Minneapolis, art, good writing, offbeat information ... oh, heck, why not just say everyone? And get a copy for yourself while you're at it." --Star Tribune "Artist and writer Sturdevant takes the reader on an oddball tour of the arts and culture of the Twin Cities in this endearing collection... Sturdevant captures Minneapolis eccentricity, a place 'where the drama queens and burnouts and weirdos and misfits of the rural and suburban Upper Midwest wind up' and proves himself a capable and clever writer on many other topics." --Publisher's Weekly "Andy Sturdevant offers up lively essays concerning the contemporary Midwest, Buffalo Wild Wings and futuristic birdhouses, among other curious topics." --Barnes & Noble Review "Sturdevant knows what he's doing. He riffs on everything from being at Matt's Bar in Minneapolis during a blizzard to a secretive art gallery called Farm... [He] comes across as a guy you'd like to get to know." --Pioneer Press "A guidebook to the Twin Cities spaces, art, and culture, Potluck Supper is a smart and quirky read, giving love to many local gems." --City Pages, "Year in Review 2013: Literature" "Whether you're new to the Twin Cities or you've lived here your whole life, Sturdevant always finds a way to pique residents' curiosity and extract infinite details from a region that deserves a second--and third, and fourth--look." --Vita.Mn "I'd probably anticipated (though would never admit so publicly) that this would be a 'regional' read when I first opened it. I love the Twin Cities, so that wouldn't have been an issue, but Sturdevant's narrative voice challenged my assumptions from the first line of his acknowledgments page: 'This book is named Potluck Supper with Meeting to Follow for an agenda item in a Maoist newsletter published on the West Bank of Minneapolis in the seventies...'" --Shelf Awareness, "Robert Gray: Potluck Supper with Author Event to Follow" "Andy Sturdevant has established himself as the preeminent wit, flaneur and psycho-historian of the Twin Cities." --Modern Midwest "Andy Sturdevant captures [Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Midwest] with clear-eyes and a compelling, conversational pen... I dare you to find someone who can't connect to something in this book." --Hazel & Wren "Andy's book both in content and design is my favorite non-fiction book of the past five years." --Hans Weyandt, Micawber's Books "It's a book that feels like the first book about my Minnesota--not the Duluth I knew as a child or the St. Paul I knew as a teen and visiting collegiate, but the Minnesota I've lived in since 2007, a Minnesota in which one can make a happy life because it contains multitudes." --Twin Cities Daily Planet "In reading, in criticism, the critic should breathe new life into his subject, put on display his subjectivity, a perspective that is one of a kind. In Potluck Supper with Meeting to Follow, Andy Sturdevant offers just such a unique outlook ... His subject is Minnesota, and more often than not, the Twin Cities, and over the course of this collection of essays, he deconstructs and recreates them, praising and lampooning them though always with hope for what the place could be." --Bookslut "Coffee House Press has been putting out great books for over 20 years, and its profile has been rising in recent years with books like Ben Lerner's highly acclaimed Leaving the Atocha Station. Potluck Supper with Meeting to Follow is a collection of essays that contain photographs and drawings in the margins by the author." --Buzzfeed "[Sturdevant's] writings about place are thoughtful, observant, and appreciative, as he explores a landscape defined by interesting old neighborhoods, many-storied buildings, characters that make this place memorable and the artistic legacy Minnesotans have left in many medium." --MinnPost "Sturdevant's dryly witty writing and spare, charming illustrations combine to make an irresistible riptide of droll entertainment that any lover of humor and/or cultural history will enjoy struggling helplessly against." --Heavy Table, "2013 Heavy Table Local Gift Guide" "[A] superb collection of essays by Minneapolis writer Andy Sturdevant." --Metrotimes "Hotdish Heaven: The wild, wild Midwest" --Minnesota Monthly "Once you finish reading [Potluck Supper], you can't help but feel homesick for the Midwest whether you're from there or not. Sturdevant taps into the magic from in and around Minneapolis, and spins it into gold." --Vol.1 Brooklyn "[F]unny, authentic, and completely original... If you are Minnesotan,this book should be required reading, and if you're not Minnesotan, well, you should read it anyways because you just might get an idea of why we all choose to live here despite below-zero temperatures half the year!" --Em's Bookshelves "Andy captures the humor in everyday life and questions the spaces and interactions around us." --Light Grey Art Lab Podcast "Potluck Supper with Meeting to Follow is a marvel, deftly examining the connections between art and everyday life. Andy Sturdevant's lively, unique inquiries into trust fund kids, co-opted flags, gubernatorial portraits, art in second-tier cities, and Upper Midwestern esoterica, brim with both wit and humor." --Joe Meno