Book Launch + Boxing = Championship Week for Morgan Campbell

The six weeks away from this platform weren’t planned. I don’t have enough control over my time to schedule a sabbatical from anything. Any disappearance from an app or social network signals a temporary shift in priorities.

So to the extent that I have a day job, May kept me busy with it. I wrote this opus for the CBC about the Enhanced Games, that infomercial for prescription steroids dressed up as a sports event. And then I penned this column about the ways that non-doped athletes undermined the event’s premise, and how lacklustre performances obscured the reality that PEDs actually do work. Very well.

Meanwhile, book promotion is a job unto itself, and I spent the remainder of May preparing for the paperback re-launch of my debut memoir. Awards juries loved the hardcover but the market barely noticed it, so I devoted the winter and early spring to finding ways to close that gap.

Then I looked up and June had arrived, and I have engagements slated for every Thursday of the month. That’s an absolute blessing for a self-employed author/journalist/media pro.

If you had asked teenage Morgan to construct a way to make a living, he’d have built something like June 2026. I’m talking boxing half the time and promoting my book with the other half. Back then, my dreams involved selling a lot more books, but I’m grateful for every reader so far. Plus, the path to the bestsellers list, or at least a modest royalty payment, starts somewhere, so I might as well begin here, with Championship Week.

Before we proceed, take a second to scan my current list of Don’t Call it A Book Tour dates:

I’ll detail each of those events as they approach, but the bigger point is that I’m spending the next few months getting out into the real world with my book. Yes, I understand the importance of online promotion and engagement. And, like every other creative in 2026, I’m beholden to the algorithms that determine how many of my social media followers see my posts, and where my book appears on INSERT SALES SITE HERE… ANY SITE… DOESN’T MATTER.

But I can’t control the algorithm, and the nerds who understand it well enough to manipulate it are making big money elsewhere. I couldn’t afford to hire somebody to seduce the algorithm even if I wanted to, so I’m hustling this book in real life instead. If I have to organize an event on my own, I will. And if you can read this paragraph, you’re invited.

I’m already making the book podcast rounds — last Friday I sat down with the awesome Sean Polidore to talk books and writing, and sports and Black American culture.

As for this week… when I’m not talking books, I’m talking boxing. Wednesday morning I fly to Montreal, where I’m on the mic for a banger of a boxing card that’ll culminate in a showdown between Albert Ramirez and Lerrone Richards. If you want to see me do the other thing I do best, join us Thursday night at PunchingGrace.com.

If you’ve never seen Ramirez fight before, it’s a treat. Graceful, strong, explosive athlete, a calculating boxer and an accurate, powerful puncher. He’s from Venezuela, where baseball is the national passion, and in the ring he’s a certified home run hitter. He’s also the WBA’s interim light-heavyweight champion, trying to position himself for a shot at the tippy-top of the division, where David Benavidez looks fearsome, and Dmitry Bivol is back in form after a long layoff due to injury.

But Ramirez just turned 34, so he doesn’t have five more years to build toward big-money fights. He’s well-preserved, and presumably still in his prime, so his time is right now. If any year is *his* year, it might as well be this one.

As for me?

The morning after that main event, I’m flying right back home for more book promo and boxing research. I’m a little older than Ramirez — and by “a little” I mean a lot — but I’m on a similar mission. Last year I proved to myself that age, by itself, isn’t the barrier we imagine it is. If you don’t think an *Emerging Writer* can have a breakthrough as they close in on 50, my trophy case would beg to differ.

This year is another year, so here’s the question I’m asking myself during paperback publishing season:

Why not make it my best one?

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