Buy A Ticket to the Pennant
at the following retailers:
- Indiebound
- Bookshop
- Powells
- Barnes & Noble
- Random House
- If you’d like a copy signed and shipped, buy from Island Books online and write how you’d like me to sign the book in their comments field. They’ll send it to you. Free shipping!
- 2017 Washington State Book Award Finalist
- Represented Washington State at 2018 National Book Festival
Ticket to the Pennant: A Tale of Baseball in Seattle
By Mark Holtzen
Illustrated by John Skewes
Before the Seattle Mariners, there were the Seattle Rainiers…This nostalgic, historically accurate picture book follows Huey through the Seattle of 1955 exploring a diverse and charming neighborhood surrounding the baseball stadium. Featuring the vibrant retro illustrations of Larry Gets Lost creator John Skewes, this is a story of baseball, civic pride, and how baseball unites communities.
Why do I write?
Why do we do anything when blessed with a choice? Don’t we all want to create experiences for ourselves that are fun, interesting, or satisfying? We crave stories, in all forms, for that reason.
I am not sure why I find capturing moments with words so gratifying. Over the years various people, unprompted, complimented the way I communicated something: a letter, an essay, an e-mail. Those comments, like little sparks, have grown into a full, glowing campfire.
Once an idea embeds itself into my head I find myself waking early, before work, before the house stirs, to try and expand that idea into an experience. I’m driven to tinker with it until it’s pleasing. I want it to sing—at least for me. Hopefully, once it sings for me it might sing for someone else.
I’m humbled every day with the challenge of writing well. Communicating an idea clearly is a struggle. When it works, when it finally comes together, and I give a reader the feeling they’ve experienced another human being’s world in an authentic way I find it immensely satisfying.