A Letter from Camp

Dear Friend,

It’s been a long time. How are you? What have you been up to?

Things here have been busy. The end of the school year was tough; my mom’s been sick and was in the hospital for a while, the girls had events constantly, and I’ve been drowning in work for my day job. Oh - and I have a new book coming out this summer, so I’ve been trying to promote that, too. But you know me. I’m terrible at promoting things. I’m bad at social media and I’m inconsistent with my newsletter. I find it all to be pretty embarrassing, the marketing stuff. But I really want to one day be a writer full time, so I try to suck it up.

I am genuinely excited for the new book, though. It’s actually not all that new… do you remember back when I was in grad school I wrote a book based on my old sleepaway camp? This is that book. It went through several iterations over the past few years, and this year I decided I had to release it. The reason why is kind of sad, actually. The camp - DPF 4H Camp in Riverhead, Long Island - is probably going to close after this season. Or, if it doesn’t close, it’s going to change in a major way. Julie goes there - did you know that? Haley went last summer, too, but she didn’t fall in love with it the way that I did. But Julie… this place was meant for her. And, yeah - there’s this whole thing with the land, an issue that dates back over a hundred years (literally!) that’s finally catching up to us. The camp is set on 140 pristine acres of the North Fork with a private beach and everything, and even though it’s out east on Long Island, it’s actually always been owned by Nassau County. Our camp had a wildly long - like 80 year - lease on it. Can you imagine?

Well, long story short, at the beginning of this month, Nassau County sold (I think?) the land to the town of Riverhead and Suffolk County with the Peconic Land Trust overseeing the acquisition. The good news is, they’ll more than likely keep most of it preserved as open space. The bad news is they’re definitely going to subdivide it and parts (more than likely the parts where I grew up) will soon become something very different.

I wanted to put the book out this summer to memorialize one of the most special places in the world to me. It’s my version of grief management, really. Some people take a photograph and hold that as a keepsake for a memory. Some people listen to a particular song. I wrote a story. Hopefully my words will make camp live on forever, in addition to the stacks of photographs and playlists loaded with songs that we all already cherish.

After all, fiction is just the truth, hiding in plain sight.

Anyway, I’ve been doing some things a bit differently for the launch of this book. I’m having a hometown launch party - this time at Northport Books - and I hope you’ll come out and join me if you’re local. It’s on July 28th at 7pm. I mixed a scent for it at a candle store in Riverhead, so everyone who comes will get a mini camp-scented candle. I also created character art, something I’ve never done before. I love to draw… so I drew my own character art. I also designed the cover of this book. I’m so proud of it. Camp was one of the first places I realized how much I loved art in all its forms: dance, drawing, painting, even writing. I owe so much of who I am to camp.

I’m really sad to see it change like this.

Anyway, Friend. I hope you’ll come to the party. Help me celebrate this place that once was. That still is - at least for now.

And I hope you’ll read the book. I’m not chasing a title with this one. I don’t want to hit any lists. I don’t need a big book tour.

I just want to honor the place that raised me.

Sending you big hugs. I hope the summer is treating you well so far! Write back soon!

Love,

KJ

Above: Character art that I drew! Matt (on the left) and Taylor (on the right).