Indie Spotlight: A.J. Scudiere

Where my audio-fans at? Ever wish your audiobooks had a little something extra to them? Would you consider listening to an audiobook that sounded like it came right off the movie screen?

A few months ago, Marissa DeCuir of JKSCommuincations began talking to me about one of her authors, A.J. Scudiere,  and the AudioMovies she was releasing. Intrigued, and wanting to hear more about them, I decided this was the perfect opportunity for a little spotlighting. Here's Marissa herself, with an intro....



A.J. Scudiere is all about pushing boundaries and finding new stories to tell - and just as fun for us readers - new ways to tell those stories.

Before you check out her guest post below (thank you Lori for having us today!), there's something you should know about the award-winning suspense author. Yes, her novels are awesome. Yes, you can buy them in print and ebook format. But what is so cool and unique about A.J. is that she's on the cutting edge of the AudioMovie industry.

Now I love regular audiobooks, but A.J.'s AudioMovies are so much more than a story being read aloud. I'm talking full on movies with sound effects, actors, a score - and they remain unabridged!

You can buy her AudioMovies at iTunes, Audible.com and her website www.AJsAudioMovies.com, where you can not only find them on CD and digital download, but also USB. Check out the special edition USB swords (Vengeance) and bracelets (Resonance) - and the adorable Utukku creature (God's Eye).

Enough from me, let's hear from the talented author herself, A.J. Scudiere!

Write what you know?

No, know what you write!

If authors only wrote what they knew, the world would be missing entire genres of literature: such as fantasy and sci-fi and possibly even romance. So, clearly, we cannot use the old adage as a rote rule. The whole point of writing fiction is to move beyond the boundaries of what we see in our everyday lives. In order to put the first word on the page we have to believe in something beyond what we know.

Still, there’s far more than a grain of truth to it. The best sci-fi often comes from writers with an earthly scientific background and great fantasy reaches out to other worlds but maintains relatable characters and conflicts. But what happens when you need a relatively ‘real’ reality, but don’t know facts behind what you’re writing about? Well, get some advisors and go research!

With my first novel, Resonance, I read every polar shift theory I could find and incorporated my years of college science. For Vengeance, though I did not go out and murder anyone (thank goodness it doesn’t have to go that far!) I did practice shooting two-handed until I could put a perfect hole in a windpipe or a kidney. I consulted with a gun shop owner and a martial artist and I broke into my own home numerous times. I made sure all the feats Lee and Cyn accomplished were plausible. For God’s Eye, I re-read Dante’s Inferno, studied texts of ancient demon and angel myths and started learning Latin.

It was during this research that I suddenly hit a wall I hadn’t hit before: I discovered that I couldn’t learn enough Latin in the time frame I had for writing the book.

I’m a huge believer in another old adage: Ask and so shall ye receive. You can find anything if you ask around, but you have to keep asking. (Evidence: it took me five months to find a Fire Department that would let me do a ride-along in preparation for my fourth book, Phoenix, but I found an amazing one. Thank you South Columbia Fire and Rescue!) And it took a while to find my Latin scholar, but I did.

Beau Henson was more than happy to put his fluency in a nearly-dead language to work for my book. He gladly emailed back and forth (and back and forth and . . .), answering all my questions about dual meanings and what to do with certain messages because no language translates directly to another. He corrected the interpretations I gave to my character Margot and even gave me a Latin phrase she could easily misinterpret.

I know there aren’t a lot of people out there critiquing the words of the Angels and the Demons in God’s Eye. But it’s important to get it right for the readers who DO understand it. I love when a fan comes up and says “So Margot is equivalent to the ancient Shaman character in the journey myths?” and I can say, “Yes, she is”. I smile if someone tells me they don’t think Lee (from Vengeance) can shoot two-handed with that kind of accuracy. I respond with “Actually, I’m pretty close. And that’s with just two months of practice.” I’m a firm believer that a person could use Vermonttechnique to get as good as Lee.

So you don’t have to write what you know; fiction should be limited only by the writer’s imagination. But those dreams in the clouds need foundations under them. The best writers learn. And by the time that first word goes down, they know what they write . . .

Author Bio: 

For A.J., texture reigns supreme.  Whether it’s air or blood or virus, it can be felt and smelled.  School is a privilege and two science degrees (a BA and MS) are mere pats on the back compared to the prize of knowledge.  Teaching is something done for fun (and the illusion of a regular paycheck) and is rewarding at all levels, grade school through college.  No stranger to awards and national recognition for outstanding work as a teacher, trainer and curriculum writer, like most true teachers, the real joy for A.J. is in the “oh!” - the moment when the student sees the connection and it all makes sense.

A.J. has lived in Florida and Los Angeles among a handful of other places.  Recent whims have brought the dark writer to Tennessee, where home is a deceptively normal looking neighborhood just outside Nashville. Follow A.J. on Twitter: @ajscudiere or at Facebook.com/ajscudiere. Find a sample of the audiomovie for God's Eye here .

The Immortal Re-Release & Giveaway

Happy Release Day, Immortal!
You've got a second lease on life.....

I am delighted to announce the re-release of Gene Doucette's debut novel Immortal. It's not every day that an author gets the opportunity to see his book through a second edit, outfitted with a new cover, and released under a new publisher - The Writer's Coffee Shop! Dare I say that Immortal is truly... immortal now?

Gene and I had the pleasure of a face to face meeting (the details of which can be found below in Gene's guest post) this past fall at the Indie Book Event. Prior to this, I had read and reviewed - and was even blurbed in - the first edition of Immortal. Prior to that, Gene was given a good ole fashioned TNBBC schooling in the do's and don'ts of pitching your novel on Goodreads. Oh how far we've come, huh Gene?

Today, to start things off with a BANG!, I thought I would have Gene talk to you about the pros and cons of indie publishing. Consider this an On "Being Indie" Special Second Release edition....

Take it away, Gene....

Why Indie

So for this, the first leg of the Immortal (second edition) blog tour, Lori asked me to write a guest blog post on any of the following subjects: What being an Indie published author means to me; why I publish Indies; why people should read and support Indies; what the partnership between an Indie publisher and an author looks like.

This is, of course, a trap.

Lori and I met face-to-face this summer for the Indie Book Event in New York City at a time when I was trying to interest people in buying the first edition of Immortal and she was trying to act like a charming and informative book reviewer / blogger.  Only one of us succeeded. 

At this event I was asked to take the microphone for a while and discuss my experiences as an Indie author, which was a tremendous mistake for all involved, as I proceeded to articulate the following point: Why in the hell would anybody willingly choose to publish Indie?  I then spent the next twenty minutes depressing everyone in earshot in what turned out to be a droning monotone that resulted in my being nicknamed Eeyore for the remainder of the day.

Anyway.  I had a point that day that was unfortunately lost in the dark pit of despair I brought to the stage with me.

But first, here are some truths about Indie publishing as compared to the larger publishing houses:

·         You will likely have more input and creative control over the packaging of your book and how it is marketed

·         You are more likely in general to find someone willing to publish your book

·         Slow sales will not doom you

·         Your book will probably only go out of print if the publisher ceases to exist

These are all good things.  Here are some bad things:

·         Creative control over the marketing of your book may mean you’re the one doing all of the actual marketing

·         Niche/small market publishers go out of business all the time

·         You will have to live with limited distribution, and get used to saying, “no you can’t find it in the bookstore, but it’s available online”

·         You won’t, in all likelihood, be quitting that day job

About Immortal

Another question Lori asked me to consider fielding was, “why a second release of Immortal?” and the answer to this question might give you a better idea of where I’m coming from.

As you might know, Immortal was originally released in October of 2010.  That first edition was with a brand-new publishing company consisting of one full time employee and one unnamed financier.  The understanding was that additional employees would soon be added to help sell, market, edit, web design, and all of the other things a publishing company is supposed to be able to do.

A year later, there was still only one employee.  What marketing had been done for Immortal was handled by me entirely, as was the ebook formatting for both Amazon and Smashwords editions.  The cover was designed by an artist I had found, the press releases were commissioned by me, the only media page on the Internet for the book was on my website because the publisher had never put up a site.  And so on. 

And after that year, it was time for me to roll out the second book (Hellenic Immortal) before the people who’d read the first forgot about me entirely.  But it was clear my publisher wasn’t going to be able to follow through on any of the promises—staff, marketing, etc.—to handle the next book.

So I found another publisher for Hellenic Immortal, and then notified the publisher of Immortal, and asked: “would it be possible to re-obtain the rights to Immortal so my new publisher can release it as well?”  After all, the best way to sell a book is to sell the next book, and I wanted one company to be able to promote both.  I was expecting a cost quote in response.  What I got instead was, “the rights are yours.”

And that’s how we got here, with a new edition rolling out next week.

Back to my point

When I questioned why anybody would willingly choose publishing Indie given the option of instead going with a large house, I was speaking with the weight of a year’s worth of rescinded promises and urgent, exhausting self-promotion on my shoulders.  And maybe that was unfair to Indie publishing in general, because mine was an experience not likely to be recreated.

That said, I stand by the basic assertion that no new author I can think of would turn down a contract with, say, Random House, to go with the niche company down the street.  But this point obscures the more pertinent one: most Indie authors aren’t going to get published by a Random House because they don’t write things Random House would want to publish.

This is neither a dig on the big houses nor a commentary on your writing, or mine.  It’s simply that the more money there is at stake, the more important a “sure thing” becomes.  For any publisher, it’s not enough that a book is well written; it has to be sellable.  In other words, a large publisher devoting significant funds and resources to selling a book has more to lose than an independent publisher with limited funds and fewer resources.

So if you’ve put together a novel that has genre problems, as I did, the publisher that’s most likely to say, “it’s well written; we’ll figure out how to sell it later” is going to be an Indie publisher.  And if the publisher that said that had instead been one of the larger houses?  I would have jumped at it.  And I think so would you.

Now for the fun part!

To celebrate it's re-release

We are giving away one copy of  the Immortal eBook.

Simply comment below to be considered.

Giveaway ends March 14th.

Bio:

In addition to ghost writing for an immortal man, Gene Doucette has been published as a humorist with Beating Up Daddy: A Year in the Life of an Amateur Father and The Other Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: A Parody. He is also a screenwriter and a playwright. Gene lives in Cambridge, MA with his wife and two children.

It's Avatar Madness, I Tell You...

Avatar: An embodiment or personification, as of a principal, attitude, or view of life.

             A graphical image that represents a person, as on the internet.

Say hello to the newest TNBBC Avatar! Ain't he a cutie?

This little guy comes to us courtesy of author Goodloe Byron. After checking out sketches similar to these on his Facebook page, I was instantly curious to see how he would depict TNBBC and figured I'd never know unless I asked. So ask I did. And within a day, he posted this dashingly bookish young man to my Facebook page. I love how our name is the pedestal from which he's giving the thumbs up to an obviously amazing book - reminiscent of those newspaper boys who stood on egg crates at the corners of the NYC streets back in the day, calling out to the crowds "Newspaper! Get yer newpaper here!"

I decided to temporarily retire my tried and true avi (the little handmade stick figure sitting on the bench with his nose in a book) from Twitter and proudly parade this guy around Twittertown for a bit. I hope you like him as much as I do. 

You may also have noticed this cool new TNBBC header, which we whipped out when our Facebook page switched over to the timeline format. This one comes to us from the incredibly talented Ryan W Bradley - author, poet, small press publisher. There is nothing this guy can't design. He's got a whole line of prints that I greedily wish I owned, but I ended up settling for this one - his redesign of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. You can find the rest of his stuff over at Aesthetically Declined Design. Whoa, I totally just turned myself into a RWB whore for a moment there. I digress! 

This cool header design came compliments of Ryan one night when we were chatting over Twitter. I've actually got a couple more from him, but I'm planning to release them into the wild oh-so-very-slowly... so you'll just have to keep following us around...

We are always grateful to those who willingly and lovingly show their appreciation and devotion to us through amazingly designed and incredibly free avatars and headers 

(coughcoughThisIsTotallyAHintcoughcough)

which we promise to display in some way, shape, or form on our blog, goodreads group, twitter account, or Tumblr page. Just sayin'. 

Indie Book Buzz: Artistically Declined Press

It's a great day for some Indie Book Buzz here at TNBBC. Over the next few weeks, we will be inviting members of the indie publishing houses to share which of their upcoming 2012 releases they are most excited about!

This week's pick come from Ryan Bradley,

Co-Founder and Publisher for Artistically Declined Press

Temporary Yes by Kat Dixon

(Feb 2012)

First up for 2012 we have Kat Dixon's debut full-length poetry collection, Temporary Yes, released on February 21. I can't fully explain the effect that Kat's writing has on me, but I think the biggest compliment I can pay her as a writer is to say that whenever I read her work I am compelled to write. Not too many writers have that effect on me with the consistency she does. I didn't know anything about Kat or her writing when I first started reading her work online, but I was instantly hooked and am honored to have gotten to know her over time. So I am pleased as punch to be able to bring Temporary Yes to print. It is full of beautiful words, whimsy, surrealism, confession. It is everything poetry should strive to be.

Lucky Man by Ben Tanzer

(March 2012)

Our second release of the year comes hot on the heels of Dixon's book, because it will mark a special occasion. That occasion, March 15, is the 5th anniversary of the publication of Ben Tanzer's debut novel, Lucky Man. This re-release will also introduce the first of two new imprints. Antler Editions will focus on anthologies and career-spanning/celebrating releases, such as reprints, collected works and more. 

The Recliner Anthology of Poetry

While we are still shoring up the rest of the 2012 catalog, I can say we've got some surprises. We are working on two anthologies, both of which are still being built in terms of contributors and content. The Recliner Anthology of Poetry, which already includes stellar poets such as Molly Brodak, Shaindel Beers, b.l. pawelek, and Abby E. Murray. And for which I've included the first peek at the cover! We are also working on a very exciting, currently untitled anthology of fiction edited by Tanzer. I don't want to give too much away about this one, but I will say it's unlike anything offered by other small presses. We are hopeful that both these anthologies will release late in the year. 

Twin Antlers Imprint

There's also a book of collaborative poetry in the works that will launch the second of our of two imprints we're working on. The Twin Antlers imprint will be devoted solely to collaborative works, and the first title will appear this summer. And we also hope to do our second "Pop Up Release," but in the nature of that project we can't really talk about it. 

Bio: 

Ryan W. Bradley has pumped gas, fronted a punk band, done construction in the Arctic Circle, managed an independent children's bookstore, and now splits his time between opening boxes and designing book covers. He is the author of two chapbooks, AQUARIUM (Thunderclap! Press, 2010), MILE ZERO (Maverick Duck Press, 2011), and a story collection, PRIZE WINNERS (Artistically Declined Press, 2011). His debut novel, CODE FOR FAILURE is due from Black Coffee Press, March 27, 2012. He received his MFA from Pacific University and lives in Oregon with his wife and two sons.




So what do you think guys? See anything that catches your eye? Which of these things are you most excited to see release? Help TNBBC and Artistically Declined Press spread the buzz about these books by sharing this post with others!

Tell Me A Story: Jesse Jordan

Welcome to another addition of TNBBC's Tell Me A Story. 

Tell Me a Story is a monthly series that features previously unpublished short stories from debut and Indie authors. The request was simple: Stories can be any format, any genre, and any length. And many amazing writers signed up for the challenge.


This month's story comes from Jesse Jordan. Jesse is a writer and editor currently living in the suburbs of Chicago. He is an MFA graduate of Columbia College and a member of Chicago’s “Reading Under the Influence.” His short stories have appeared in numerous publications and Gospel Hollowis his first novel.


Gospel Hollow is "set during five days of a punishing Chicago blizzard, Gospel Hollow follows the clumsy and desperate investigation of Tommy Hull as he digs through the lies and silence of his remaining family to get the answer to the most pressing question of his life: what happened to Alice Hull on that cool September night fourteen years ago?" *goodreads


Today, Jesse shares an excerpt from  Gospel Hollow .....

Everett’s a cop—a detective, I think—and a regular at Mary’s, the bar I work at. He’s a steady drinker, one of those four-nights-a-week guys with perfectly shined shoes and crisp lines in their suits. A sharp, quick guy with a quiet, dry sense of humor. He’s always seemed too substantial and discerning to be downing drinks in a dive like Mary’s, but maybe he knows something I don’t. I’m not complaining, you understand, I’m happy to have him. I can see him balancing cocktails and Marlboro Lights while he lectures me on nanotechnology or film noir or the problems with marrying a redhead.

I remember him looking at me that night.

Everett, Everett, Everett.

Everett was the one who gave me the idea. He set this whole thing in motion. One night, about four months ago—it was a weeknight, I remember that—he came in. He was all off that night, all wrong. His hair was askew and hanging partially over his face, its usual lines corrupted by stray eruptions. His suit looked wrinkled, his tie loosened, and his off-white shirt appeared to have three small drops of blood just right of center on his belly. His perpetual cool energy was gone, all blips and blaps like he was wearing a suit of my anxiety, and instead of his normal Jack and Coke he ordered two shots of Jack and a Heineken upon collapsing on his stool down at the end of the bar by the Cold War-era fridge.

For a while that was it. He was drinking hard and fidgeting, tearing up coasters and checking his watch. He called his wife and told her he’d be working all night, and after an hour or so he made another call, and though he seemed to come back noticeably more at ease, he continued to drink like a newly freed man. Every few drinks I put one on the house and he smiled and acknowledged it, but beyond that we didn’t talk at all.

By one thirty that morning Mary’s was empty but for Everett. I pulled my stool up across the bar from him, not sure how to broach the subject of leaving. Everett wasn’t the kind of guy you had to kick out.

“Tommy, I almost got fucked tonight.” I looked at him but he was just staring down into his empty shot glass. His words were thick and slow. “Whole fucking career, kid. Just—goddamn I was sure of it.” And then he was quiet again, still looking at that empty glass.

“What happened?”

He looked up, eyes unfocused and blinking, and he smiled. “Everything worked out, that’s what happened.” I nodded. I wasn’t going to press it. “You know what, Tommy? Here, I’ll tell ya. Get me another shot, okay?” I poured it and pushed it over and he raised it up over his head with a stiff, wobbly arm. I raised my beer and waited for his toast. “To,” he began, pausing to let a small burp out the side of his mouth, “Detective Steve Pittman, a fucking first-class genius. Saved my goddamn ass.”

“Detective Pittman,” I said, and he smiled and we drank. It was then, slamming down the empty glass and coming up smiling, that he told me.

“Okay,” he began. “I’m going to tell you about this, but you can’t tell anyone, okay? You can’t say a word, Tommy. Frankly, I can’t really tell you most of it anyway, but, still, not a word, okay?” I nodded. “Alright. So, me and four other guys have been working a detail for the last six months and there’s a specific target, do you know what I mean? A guy or a group, we’ll just call ’em ‘The Target,’ okay? So, we’re not headquartered out of regular police station now, we’re off on this site in an industrial complex, couple blowed-out old buildings. Now, recently we made some big discoveries, you know, recordings, seizures, it doesn’t matter what it is, just evidence. We’ll just call it ‘evidence,’ okay? Now we got enough and we make the pitch to the DA and he green lights it and the next day we start making arrests. That night we go back to the building we’ve been using and a big chunk of the evidence is gone. Just fucking gone. Do you get it, Tommy? We are fucked. These guys are going to be arraigned in the morning and we’re going to have to go to the DA and tell him, we got nothing. Let ’em go. I mean, this is setting fire to your career shit. We’re all freaking out, we’re yelling at each other and then, then Detective Steve Pittman,” and here he raises his beer, and again I mirror the gesture, “he gets everyone quiet and he says that we know it was here this morning. We know that, okay? So, he says, we’re all going to sit here and we’re going to tell every part of our day today, everything we remember. We’re going to recreate the day, you see? We’re pissed off and losing it, everyone blaming everyone else, but he calms it all down and makes us do this. So we started, and about an hour in, one of the guys mentions that he saw a CI outside again, and the guy whose CI it was started freaking out like this CI shouldn’t know where we’re based out of. Does this make sense? See, one of the guys had a CI he’d been working with on this case, but he always met him somewhere else, and he’d never told him about this makeshift headquarters. The other guy, he’d seen the CI around twice, once a couple weeks ago, and then again this morning, and he never thought anything of it because he always figured the other guy was meeting him there. So these two, they starting talking about could it be a coincidence, could it be this or that, but me and Pittman, we know. So the five of us saddle up and we start hitting the pads this douchebag usually flops at, but we get nothing. Finally, Castro—that’s the guy who’s been handling the CI—he says that sometimes he crashes over at his sister’s place.” Everett tapped his glass and I poured it full again, and I was trying to pay attention to what he was saying but all I could think about was Pittman’s idea. Get them all together. Recreate the day.

“We find this fucking guy nodded out in front of _The Lion King_ at his sister’s place, a duffel bag with our shit right there next to him. I mean, to talk to this guy you’d swear he’s retarded, but he figured out who we were after, and he followed Castro back one time and came up with this whole plan. He was going to sell it back to, uh, to the Target.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Fuck yeah,” he said.

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.” We were both nodding and we sat there in silence, lost in our own minds. Him in the absurdity and good fortune of his night, and me in this plan, this idea of finding out what actually happened that night Mom disappeared. I don’t know how long we remained like that. Eventually he slapped a couple twenties on the bar and I jumped at the sound. He nodded once before standing up on virgin legs, teetering before finding a handhold on the bar. He pulled his suit coat back on and walked to the door with deliberate steps, waving over his shoulder as he disappeared. I locked the door. Then I just stood there. The bar was empty and small and dim, and the only sound was the hum of the old fridge and the meager traffic outside. That was it. It was that simple and the idea, seemingly fully formed, took over everything at that moment.

I had to get everyone together. I had to make them do this. I could actually see answers for once. I couldn’t see what they were, you understand, but I could see that they existed, way off in the distance. I began researching interview methods and found references to this kind of group recollection. Apparently it had been used in the aftermath of the My Lai Massacre to determine a timeline. With each discovery I felt the structure of my certainty building, felt the ground beneath my feet grow strong and sure.

That was the night I decided that I would be the one to pick up my brother from prison this morning.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I want to thank Jesse for participating in TNBBC's Tell Me a Story. If you like what you've read, please support Jesse by checking out his book.  Help spread the word by sharing this post through your blog, tumblr page, twitter and facebook accounts. Every link counts! And be sure to check back with us next month for the next installment....

If you are interested in submitting your short story for consideration for this series, please contact me mescorn@ptd.net.

Book Giveaway: The Baker's Daughter

TNBBC is proud to be partnering with Author Sarah McCoy

for next month's Author/Reader Discussion!

In April, we will be featuring her second novel

The Baker's Daughter

In order to stimulate discussion, 

we will be giving away 10 domestic copies of the novel

(many thanks to Crown Publishing!)

Here's the Goodreads description:

"In 1945, Elsie Schmidt was a naïve teenager, as eager for her first sip of champagne as she was for her first kiss. But in the waning days of the Nazi empire, with food scarce and fears of sedition mounting, even the private yearnings of teenage girls were subject to suspicion and suppression. Elsie’s courtship by Josef Hub, a rising star in the Army of the Third Reich, has insulated her and her family from the terror and desperation overtaking her country. So when an escaped Jewish boy arrives on Elsie’s doorstep in the dead of night on Christmas Eve, Elsie understands that opening the door puts all she loves in danger. 

Sixty years later, in El Paso, Texas, Reba Adams is trying to file a feel-good Christmas piece for the local magazine. Reba is a rolling stone, perpetually on the run from memories of a turbulent childhood, but she’s been in El Paso long enough to get a full-time job and a full-time fiancé, Riki Chavez. Riki, an agent with the U.S. Border Patrol, finds comfort in strict rules and regulations, whereas Reba knows that in every good story, lines will be blurred. 

Reba's latest assignment has brought her to the shop of an elderly baker across town. The interview should take a few hours at most, but the owner of Elsie's German Bakery is no easy subject. Elsie keeps turning the tables on Reba, and Reba finds herself returning to the bakery again and again, anxious to find the heart of the story. For Elsie, Reba's questions have been a stinging reminder of darker times: her life in Germany during that last bleak year of WWII. And as Elsie, Reba, and Riki's lives become more intertwined, all are forced to confront the uncomfortable truths of the past and seek out the courage to forgive."

This contest will run through March 9th.

Winners will be announced here and via email on March 10th.

Here's how to enter:

 1 - Leave a comment stating why you would like to win a copy.

2 - State that you agree to participate in the group read book discussion that will run from April 15th through the end of the month. Sarah McCoy has agreed to participate in the discussion and will be available to answer any questions you may have for her. 

 *If you are chosen as a winner, by accepting the copy you are agreeing to read the book and join the group discussion at TNBBC on Goodreads (the thread for the discussion will be emailed to you before March 1st). 

 3 - You must leave me a way to contact you (email is preferred). AND you must be a resident of the US!!!!

Good luck!

Audioreview: Castle

Listened 2/16/12 - 2/23/12
3 Stars - Recommended to readers who don't mind the spooky stuff turning out to be not-so-spooky
Audio Download (approx 10 hrs)
Publisher: Iambik / Graywolf Press
Narrator: Mark Douglas Nelson

I dig suspense as much as the next guy. Gimme a book with some creepy old farmhouse full of strange noises at night, surrounded by over 600 acres of dense dark woods, and you've got yourself one happy little reader. The only thing that could ruin a book like this would be if it failed to live up to its own hype, right?

Ooh Castle, how you built me up only to bring me down, slowly and angrily, to beat my fists against the muddy humus beneath my knees...

J. Robert Lennon's Castle initially came to me as a review copy, among others, from the lovely ladies at Graywolf Press. Somehow, it fell to the wayside and began to get buried beneath the other, newer review copies that were arriving... and I've always felt horrible about that.

A few months ago, however, I ran across the audiobook on Iambik's website and realized that this was my chance to finally get it read. Much, much sooner than I would ever get to it in print copy, too! And so it became my commuting companion for the entire week.

It all begins with Eric Loesch, an apparently unstable and irritable man, and his purchase of an old abandoned farmhouse upon returning to his hometown. As he peruses the deed to the property, he discovers a small portion of land, deep within his woods, that does not belong to him. Bent on uncovering the identity of the person who has gone to great lengths to hide their ownership of whatever lies hidden back there in the forest, Eric displays unusual suspicion towards the townspeople, many of whom seem to remember him - though he does not appear to remember them. Callous and cold, he seems to harbor a strong dislike for unnecessary human contact and will go to great extremes to protect his privacy when he feels someone may be placing it in jeopardy.

While seeking out whatever information he can about the mysteriously blackened out name on the house papers, Eric begins to renovate the farmhouse. He appears to be suspended in a state of constant unease whenever he is in and around his house, suffering from a strange, unexplained fear of the basement and waking in the night to the sounds of crying or keening, or whistling?

As the home renovations come to an end, Eric rewards himself with a little trek through his woods to the large outcropping of rock that's visible from his bedroom window. Priding himself on his flawless sense of direction, he makes slow and aggravating headway through the thick and gloomy forest, eventually losing track of time and getting himself lost. Just as panic is threatening to grip his heart, suddenly - out of nowhere - a white deer appears and leads him out of the woods safely. (Though he is not sure why, he feels a connection to what he calls his deer.) On his second attempt, he successfully reaches the rock outcropping but manages to lose his backpack which contains all of his supplies and a change of clothes. Yet what bothers him more is what he finds on the other side of that large, slick boulder. It's a miniature castle, just as dilapidated as the farmhouse he brought back to life, and he immediately understands that this impenetrable fortress does not belong to him.

Sounds like a good set up so far, doesn't it? You have to give props to Lennon for not showing his hand too early... the man knows how to draw out the suspense. Throughout the first half of the book, as you get to know Eric, as the little nuances of his personality come to light - how quick to anger he is, how he holds everyone around him in such contempt, how much more intelligent he believes himself to be, his incredible sense of entitlement - you begin to wonder just how much Eric knows... about himself. I mean, is it really possible for this guy to be such a crass, volatile person? What is it about his fellow humans that he finds so disgusting?

Over the course of the second half of the book - without giving too much away - he begins to recall the shitty, abusive childhood he suffered at the hands of his indifferent parents and a wacky, loose-cannon sort of psychologist;  and about his career in the military and the reason he headed back to his hometown, and things start to come into focus for us. Sadly, the more we learn about Eric and his motives, the less spooky or supernatural the whole first half of the book starts to seem. Towards the end, I got the feeling that the author just sort of ran out of steam and settled with a hum-drum ending just to get the whole thing over with. To say the ending was depressing and a let-down would be an understatement.

To be honest, as the end of the book was drawing near and I was still struggling to make heads or tales of what was going on, I thought up at least two other directions the author could have chosen to take that would have kept me happy and maintained the overall creepy/uncertain theme he had going on.

The narrator that Iambik chose for this audiobook threw me off quite a bit. Mark Douglas Nelson's voice sounds like that of a much older man, causing me to assume Eric Loesch was a man in his late 50's or early 60's, when in reality he may have been closer to 30 or 40. Though, as booksexyreview and I discussed the audio in detail, during the week that we were listening to it (she was always a few chapters ahead of me) she pointed out that the things that bothered me about Mark - his long drawn out but's... and his extremely proper pronunciations - were actually quite a good fit for the strange and awkward Eric. At the time, I found it difficult to agree with her because it was all quite distracting to me. But now that I have put some space between me and the book, I think I can see where she was coming from.

So, a mediocre review for a middle of the road sort of book. While nothing to write home about, it might be worth a flip through on a slow, rainy afternoon when you've got some time to kill and no expectations to kill it with.

Indie Spotlight: Patrick James O'Connor

Sometimes you happen upon an author by sheer accident. Such is the story of TNBBC and Patrick James O'Connor. While searching for book reviewers to host portions of a blog tour I was managing, I stumbled across The Literate Man, and dropped them a line. Their's is a book blog for men, and mine was a man's man book, and it seemed like a match made in heaven. 


Patrick was an awesome sport, throwing his blog into the bunch to support an indie author, and now I have the opportunity to return the favor. 


Patrick is the author of The Last Will and Testament of Lemuel Higgins, a "haunting account of shattered dreams and the quest for impossible redemption" *goodreads that was released by Blackbriar Press back in December. I was interested in finding out a bit more about how and why his debut novel came to be.  Patrick shared the following:

While much of the material for my novel, TheLast Will and Testament of Lemuel Higgins, arises out of the many years that I spent working on a dairy farm in Western New York, the voice of Lem Higgins evolved out of a short story, entitled "Midwinter's Harvest," that I wrote in 2007. In that story, the protagonist describes in purely colloquial language the shock and sadness of revisiting a former employer after the unexpected loss of the employer's child. The strength of Lem's voice was impossible to ignore, and I grew very fond of the rhythm with which the story was told.  I soon realized that, in addition to telling the story of the Danner family, Lem had his own story to tell.

I chose to tell the story from Lem's perspective, in the first-person, because I find it the best way to create a sympathetic connection between reader and character. For much the same reason, I like the epistolary form (Lem's will is really just one long letter to Sarah), because it allows the reader to delve into the protagonist's most intimate thoughts. There's a very strong connection that arises when a reader is allowed to eavesdrop on a conversation between individuals that share an intimacy and a history such as Lem and Sarah.

Though the book is fiction and none of the characters are representative of any particular person, I believe it to be generally indicative of my own adolescence and the experience of my friends and acquaintances, insofar as it describes childhood dreams and some of the obstacles (both self- and other-made) that we encountered as we entered adulthood.  I would like to think that it remains indicative of small-town life in America as, in a certain sense, the basic experience of growing up in a small town is only marginally affected by the changing times.

  

In the end, it was both the strength of Lem's voice and the familiarity of the circumstances that he was describing that motivated me to put it all on paper, which took me four years or so.  I would like to think that my writing shows the influence of some of my favorite authors, including James Joyce and Ken Kesey, both of whom take significant risks with language, while respecting the essential connection between author and audience.  In the end, more than simply telling an interesting story, I hope that I have produced one that connects with readers on an emotional level.       

About the Author:

Patrick James O’Connor was born and raised in farming country south of Buffalo, New York, where he worked variously as a horse trainer, farmhand, park ranger, waiter, septic tank cleaner, and social worker. In 1993, he worked as a congressional aide in the Washington, DC offices of New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. After studying English Literature at the University of Richmond, he spent a season hiking the Appalachian Trailbefore pursuing a degree in law. Then, while studying at GeorgetownUniversity LawCenter, he joined a fact-finding expedition to Guatemala, where he spent several years climbing volcanoes with his dog, Jonah, and working on indigenous rights and environmental issues. He is currently a partner at the Miami law firm, Harper Meyer LLP, where he practices international law and, among other projects, works to procure the return of stolen Mayan artifacts to Guatemala. The Last Will and Testament of Lemuel Higgins is his first novel. For more information, visit www.PatrickJamesOConnor.com

Indie Book Buzz: Graywolf Press

It's a great day for some Indie Book Buzz here at TNBBC. Over the next few weeks, we will be inviting members of the indie publishing houses to share which of their upcoming 2012 releases they are most excited about!

This week's pick come from Erin Kottke,

Publicity Director at Graywolf Press

CITY OF BOHANE byKevin Barry 
(March 13, 2012)

“It’s hard for me to heap praise on Kevin Barry’s City of Bohane when the pre-publication reviews that have come in have already done it so well. From Library Journal’s “Books for Dudes” column: “[A] wild-ass ripsnorter . . . a bravura, Nabokovian mind-blower.” And this, from Kirkus: “Roll up Joyce, Dickens, Anthony Burgess and Marty Scorsese, sprinkle with a dash of Terry Gilliam, and smoke up. That’s roughly the literary experience to be had from ingesting this marvelously mashed-up creation.”

So I’ll just call it what it is: a damn near perfect debut novel. Set roughly forty years in the future in a fictional town on the west coast of Ireland, City of Bohane is electric, gritty, and violent, but it’s not without heart. It’s a tale of dynastic upheaval, revenge, nostalgia and regret, and love lost and found. And the language! My God, the language. Kevin Barry has created this futuristic Irish slang that’s so completely engrossing that you’ll wish you could take a course in how to speak Bohanian. For now, this video of Kevin Barry reading from the book will have to suffice.”

Kevin Barry reading from City of Bohane from Transmission Arts on Vimeo.

Leave it to the lovely Erin to get me pining over another Graywolf Press book! Doesn't this thing sound amazing??!! So what do you think guys? Help TNBBC and Graywolf Press spread the buzz about these books by sharing this post with others!

Bio:

Erin Kottke is the publicity director at Graywolf Press, where she has had the honor of working with Per Petterson, Ander Monson, Tiphanie Yanique, Tony Hoagland, and others. Some of her favorite non-Graywolf books include No Great Mischief by Alistair McLeod, Straight Man by Richard Russo, Ordinary Victories by Manu Larcenet, Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes, and The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon.  She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and their three-year old son, Linus, with baby #2 due to arrive in the next month or so. You can find her on Twitter at @eekottke and @graywolfpress.

Review: The Drought

Read 2/22/12
4.5 Stars - Highly Recommended
Pgs: 36 (eBook)
Publisher: The Lit Pub
Release Date: March 1, 2012

The Drought is an extremely short and compelling chapbook that The Lit Pub will be releasing next week during AWP. And if you're smart, you'll run to their booth and snatch up a copy before they sell out. You can thank me later.

How Miles Harvey manages to stuff a complete novels-worth-of-content into a 36 page story, I'll never know. The sparse language, his attention to what's important, and the incredibly tight pacing all work together to pull you quickly and roughly into this nameless small town that is literally dying of thirst.

Stuck in a strange, stalled high pressure front, the town has not seen rain in over 2 years. Creek beds have dried up, farms and fields are useless, wildfires are still smoldering and flaring up unexpectedly, buildings are half buried beneath shifting dirt and dust... and the townspeople have raised their newly bearded weatherman to prophetic heights. But is he worthy of their reverence?

Unbeknownst to them, as he attempts to fan the flames of hope and discover how to bring about the end of the drought, he secretly strikes up an affair with the barber's wife. And we all know that in small towns like this one, where you can't go anywhere without bumping into an ex or a neighbor or coworker, keeping secrets is a difficult thing to do.

The Drought is a thing of beauty and was my first Lit Pub experience. I can't wait to get my hands on more of their stuff!

Review: Temporary Yes

Read 2/21/12
3 Stars - Recommended to poetry fans
Pgs: 70
Publisher: Artistically Declined Press

Happy publication day to Kat Dixon and her newest collection of poetry, Temporary Yes, which sports what is quite possibly THE loveliest book cover I have ever laid eyes on. 


In it, Kat masterfully manipulates the English language, creating confusing and beautiful verses that surge through innumerable emotional boundaries.

Her words acted like a visual trigger, invoking an image. When you read this line - "fingers surgically laced through someone else's fingers"... - it's nearly impossible not to visualize it, right? What do you see? (I picture two people, so desperate for one another that they have their clasped hands stitched together, finger to finger, grinning madly through the pain as the needle and thread join them to one another, permanently and irrevocably...)

Other times, I found her words produced a more visceral reaction. I felt this line -  "when morning comes, I'll be there sewn into the neck of your undershirt. Breathing"... - like a punch in the kidneys. It made me draw a breath. It made me feel something. Sure, you could visualize that line as well, but I definitely felt it first.

There's a comfortable repetition that weaves its way in and out of her poetry - themes or words that she returns to, like the two verses I've just discussed both mentioning "stitching" - and it's interesting to note how such similar things can cause such diverse reactions.

Yet, more times than not, I'm afraid that I wasn't clear on the message or the meaning behind the poems. This meant that the visceral and visual responses were less immediate or sometimes not there at all. Certainly, her poetry revolves around love and the crazy feelings it can stir within us and I found quite a few verses that simply drew my breath away and left me stunned... but I fear that a lot of what Kat was trying to say was lost on me.

Sometimes the strange word combinations threw me off and brought to mind those poetry refrigerator magnets that contained a variety of odd words that wouldn't normally be found together in a sentence. For example - "Who would whisper anything but inaccuracies in the yellow of an undoing?" and "Without pulling up the kitchen tiles to stow away the excess organs, something is bound to lose its polka dots." A lover of poetry, I am. Skilled in the art of deciphering, I am not.

But don't let my review get in the way of you getting to know Kat and her poetry. View this as a challenge. Go out and read it, experience it for yourself. Then come back so we can compare lines like this one... "and each goodbye is another way of falling asleep" and this one... "every shape of my mouth is something stolen"... because they contain so much within them that must be brought out.