Breath, Caught

Rolling into phase two of the American Oasis book tour, plus a publicity roundup.

Hello from the other side of an incredible few weeks of promoting American Oasis! Thought I’d put together a roundup of the fantastic reception the book has gotten from newspapers and broadcast media nationwide, but first wanted to share details about the next, slightly more leisurely phase of the book tour:

This Friday, February 14th, I’ll be at Symposium Books in Providence, RI, at 6pm, talking with my buddy Drew Pendergrass. Drew is the co-author of Half-Earth Socialism as well as a climate scientist doing the vital work of tracking greenhouse gas emissions back to their source. Really looking forward to the chance to have one of our regular chats about the unnerving climate present — but for an audience!

Next month, I’m off to the Tucson Festival of Books for two events on Saturday, March 15th. At 10:00 am, I’ll be joining Richard Grant (A Race to the Bottom of Crazy: Dispatches from Arizona) and Amy Gamerman (The Crazies: The Cattleman, the Wind Prospector, and a War Out West) for “Wild in the West,” a panel held at the University of Arizona’s Integrated Learning Center. Then, at 4:00 pm, Richard and I will head to the U of A Library for “Crazy Iconic” with Yolanda Youngs (Framing Nature: The Creation of an American Icon at the Grand Canyon).

Later in the spring, I’ll be at the San Antonio Book Festival on Saturday, April 12th — more details on that once I’ve got them. That month, I’ll also be joining the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Tempe, namely to co-lead a tour on Thursday, April 24th with NPR’s Sadie Babits titled “Phoenix from the Inside Out: Heat Stress and Housing Discrimination in the Valley of the Sun.” Fellow environmental journos, registration is open now — very much hoping to put some faces to bylines while I’m back in the Valley!

Alrighty then, for those who are interested, here’s my best effort to corral the coverage that American Oasis has gotten during its first month in the world:

Reviews: Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The New Yorker, Arizona Republic, Albuquerque Journal, Associated Press, The Chicago Review of Books, Shelf Awareness, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Library Journal.

Radio and Podcast Interviews: “AirTalk with Larry Mantle” (LAist), “The Show” (KJZZ in Phoenix), “The Roundtable with Joe Donahue” (WAMC in Upstate New York), “Morning Edition” (KUNM in Albuquerque), “The Richard Eeds Show” (KTRC in Santa Fe), “Coffee and Culture with Matthew Chase-Daniel” (also on KTRC), the “First Taste” reading series on Debutiful, and Skipped History with Ben Tumin.

TV: “New Mexico in Focus” with Megan Kamerick (NM PBS / KNME)

I’m also grateful to Zach Webb for interviewing me for The Baffler, as well as to LitHub for publishing a short excerpt of the book. In the coming weeks, look out for another excerpt in The Nation as well as my appearance on the American History Hit podcast. If you’re in Chicago, tune into Lumpen Radio on 105.5 FM at 4:00pm CT on Sunday, February 23rd, to hear my conversation with Julie Wu (which will also streaming live on their website).

That’s all for now! Thanks, as always, for reading and subscribing. As I transition out of full-time book publicity mode, take heart that the K Paoletter will gradually revert back to its status as an occasional font of essayistic nonsense. In the meantime, you can find me crashing into the rest of 2025 like DJ Mustard at the Super Bowl halftime show, which is to say, piecing together a little joy in otherwise miserable times.

Your pal,
Kyle