Every now and then, I'm reminded of how important tone is in writing, even in e-mails and news releases.

Case in point: Recently, a colleague forwarded to me an e-mail he received promoting a book about the Virginia Tech shooting. You'll recall that in that horrific carnage, 32 students and faculty were gunned down by a mentally ill student.

The book, titled April 16th: Virginia Tech Remembers (Plume, $14), will be released Aug. 28, "just a week after students begin another school year," according to the press release.

I'm not sure anyone wants to contemplate the implications of that statement. (It's always great to send the kiddies off while envisioning them dodging gunfire between classes.) But then comes the even more egregious transgression in tone:

"This is the FIRST book on the worst school shooting in history!" the news release says.

Ouch.

That's a misplaced exclamation point, if ever there was one. It's nice to be first, but let's not glory in it when talking about a tragedy of such magnitude. Instead of fair bragging rights, it only reads like the most crass exploitation.

Ah well. We've no doubt all committed tone missteps of our own, and the book still is worthy of note.

It's written by Virginia Tech journalism professor Roland Lazenby and his students, who, the news release informs us, "lived through the massacre, were in lockdown and still managed to keep the public informed during the horrific event."

Lazenby's students are to be commended for their "citizen journalism" amid unspeakable horror - and for their generosity: Royalties from the book will be donated to scholarship and victims' funds, and other charities.

Now that's a news item worthy of an exclamation point.

A BIG BITE

If you skipped over today's Q&A with author Stephenie Meyer, you might want to take another look. This week, The Wall Street Journal notes that Meyer's new young adult vampire book, Eclipse, sold 150,000 copies its first day out - pushing that little-known title Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows out of the No. 1 slot on the Barnes & Noble best-seller list. The WSJ story noted that a novel in an established YA series usually sells only 5,000 copies in its first day.

"I've been in the business for 20 years, and I've never seen anything like this," Eclipse publisher Megan Tingley told the Journal.

Let's just say, you'll be hearing more from Meyer - unless some new author emerges to drive a stake through her success. That's not likely anytime soon.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

In the next few weeks, the Mercury Cafe will host several interesting reading events. In addition to the Ludlow evening noted on today's lead book item, the cafe will hold two events featuring the recently announced finalists of the 2007 Colorado Book Awards.

? Tonight you can hear poetry finalists David Keplinger (The Prayers of Others), Jeffrey Ethan Lee (identity papers) and Maureen Owen (Erosion's Pull).

And finalists for anthologies and collections: Matt Hudson (Please Stay on the Trail: A Collection of Colorado Fiction), WC Jameson (Hot Coffee and Cold Truth: Living and Writing the West) and Sonya Unrein (Open Windows 2006).

? Aug. 24 will feature honorees in the fiction category: Janet Bland (Fish Full of River), Teague Bohlen (The Pull of the Earth), Kent Nelson (The Touching That Lasts) and Patrice St. Onge (Threads).

Both events begin at 7:30 p.m. Information: 303-294-9240.

AND WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER FINALISTS?

Their names haven't been announced yet. The sponsor of the book awards, the Colorado Humanities and Center for the Book, promises to release the list of its children's lit, creative nonfiction, history/biography, nonfiction, pictorial and young adult honorees soon.