The Audio Series: Collin Kelley

Our new audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.   


Last week we listened to M.L. Kennedy read from his novel The Mosquito Song. Click here if you missed it. 


Today, Collin Kelley reads from his newly released eBook exclusive short story collection Kiss Shot. A novelist, poet and playwright from Atlanta, Georgia, Collin's second novel, Remain In Light (Vanilla Heart Publishing), was a finalist for the 2012 Townsend Prize for Fiction and is available in eBook format and trade paperback. His critically acclaimed debut novel, Conquering Venus (Vanilla Heart Publishing), was released in 2009 and an Amazon bestseller. He is co-director of the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, sits on the board of Poetry Atlanta and on the advisory council for Georgia Center for the Book. By day, Kelley is the managing editor for Atlanta Intown newspaper. He has been a journalist for more than 25 years. 

Click here to experience "I Got A Name" read by author Collin Kelley. 

Collin wrote a guest post for TNBBC back in April of 2010 on unconscious connections,  submitted a previously unpublished poem to our Tell Me A Story feature, and shot of video of his writing space for Where Writers Write.  

The word on Kiss Shot:

 [Collin Kelley]... explores his Southern roots with this collection of four short stories set in the town of Cottonwood, Georgia. A devoted maid recalls the hijinks surrounding her employer's death from a brain tumor in "How Fanny Got Her House," while a teenage boy comes to terms with his sexuality during an unexpected game of pool in the title story, "Kiss Shot." A woman escaping an abusive relationship arrives in New Orleans during a rain storm and wanders into the famed "Clover Grill" on Bourbon Street, and "I've Got A Name" follows the trials and tribulations of an overweight woman looking for love at a community theater company.

*lifted from goodreads, with love

TNBBC's First Night Out...

.. at Brooklyn's Book Thug Nation was a bust.

I had started promoting the event a couple months back. I threw together a flyer, designed a cute tri-fold to hand out at the event, special ordered Tshirts for David Maine and me to wear during the reading, and sent out personal invites, mass event invites, and event reminders through Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.

I'm not sure what else I could have done to hype it up. And it's sad-making, because David Maine is an awesome author and I feel like Brooklyn really missed out on something good last night.

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

Yesterday was my first time visiting Book Thug Nation, our host space. It's this teeny little bookstore on N 3rd street in Willamsburg, Brooklyn. Barely larger than my bedroom, it sits beside an antique shop and directly across the street is this great little German bar that David and I slipped into, grabbing a celebratory beer before the reading began.

While sitting in the bar, my cell phone started getting hit with cancellations from the few people I had personally invited and had been really excited to see. Oh No, I thought. This does not bode well. And while it's always wise to be prepared for things like this, I don't think you can ever prepare yourself ENOUGH...

We head back over to Book Thug Nation, help the store associate set up the chairs, and while David grabs a seat in preparation, I scout the sidewalks to see who's coming and talk up the reading to a few of the browsers. One local, Anna, took an interest in hearing more about the book and the three of us chatted for a bit about music and books and mass-consumer-madness. 

Eventually, the store associate asked if anyone else was coming. She was itching to open the store back up to the public before she had to close for the evening. We had an audience of one, and David had no one to read to. Dejected and humiliated, I thanked Anna for hanging out, apologized profusely to David as I helped fold up the empty chairs, and asked for directions to our separate subway lines. 

After David and I said goodbye, I walked down the length of Berry St toward the L running everything through my head. I considered chucking in the towel. I replayed the conversation David and I had on our way to the bookstore earlier that evening - where we discussed the power (or lack thereof) of social media, blogging vs professional newspaper reviews - and how certain I had been that voices matter, no matter how small, so long as there was an audience for them. I thought about how he had tried to prepare me for tonight's event by making sure I had set "low expectations", and I thought that no one could ever their expectations low enough to prepare for a turnout of ZERO people. I felt like a failure. I felt like everything I had ever done up to this point was for shit. For nothing. For no one. Who was I kidding, I had no audience! No one was listening to a fucking thing I was saying! I was talking to empty space. But worst of all, I felt like I had let  David down. And that bothered me the most. 

So, it's the morning after, and while I continue to struggle with feelings of frustration and humiliation and gag on the ginormous heap of humble pie the universe served to me last night, I know that I am going to continue to fight the good fight for exceptional literature. I won't back down and play dead, I won't quiet my voice, I won't give up on spreading the word about the authors I enjoy and the amazing stories they have to tell... because I can't.  

Now excuse me while I burrow back under the covers and continue my pity-party-for-one. I'm not quite done feeling sorry for myself.

Review: Buzz Aldrin, What Happened To You In All The Confusion

Read 8/25/12 - 9/8/12
4 Stars - Strongly Recommended to those who prefer coming in second
Pgs: 471
Publisher: Seven Stories

Johan Harstad's novel had been lingering on my bookshelves for over a year. Though I cannot recall whether it was a copy I requested or one that was simply sent for review from Seven Stories, there it sat, patient, unassuming, and content, waiting for me to find a reason to pick it up.

And a reason found me on August 25th, in the form of tweets that alerted me to the passing of Neil Armstrong. I figured, what better way to remember the first man to step foot on the moon than by reading a book that contains a character who idolized the man who stood in his shadow. And so my love affair with the 471 paged translation began.

This awkwardly titled novel is told in the first person narrative of Mattias, a thirty-something year old gardener whose life goal is to play second fiddle to a world of attention-obsessed people. A loner, a worrier, a daydreamer and supposer, Mattias enjoyed being invisible. Growing up, he took pleasure in being the kid in the class who is easily forgotten. When he made friendships, they were few and fierce. Hell, he chose a career in horticulture because of the peace and quiet it afforded him.

But that all changes when his employer goes out of business, his long term girlfriend breaks up with him, and his best friend Jorn asks him to follow his band over to the Faroe Islands. A creature of habit, and not one to stick his neck out, Mattias deals with these sudden changes as you would expect... not very well at all. On the trip across the ocean, things go from bad to worse, and the next thing Mattias knows, he wakes up stretched out and bloodied on an unknown street in an unknown town in the middle of the night with an envelope of cash stuffed into his pocket and not a clue as to how he got there.

Lost and alone, he wanders the island until he is picked up by a wildly entrancing psychiatrist who delivers Mattias into the arms his crazy-farm (aka The Factory, the re-purposed building where a small group of mentally unstable islanders live and work together in relative peace).

Hang out with head cases and you are sure to become one! Mattias suffers a mental breakdown of sorts at the start of his stay at The Factory, but eventually finds himself taking to this new life:

"...I contemplated how everything had happened so fast. I'd lived through nearly thirty years with barely a couple of friends, I'd avoided other people, I'd snuck away from them or they'd passed me by in silence. And now it seemed new friends were tumbling in, in the pace of just a few hours, two women, and two men, and my unwillingness to talk, my unwillingness to accept them, was ebbing away. I was becoming two open arms." pg.152

This story worked for me in so many ways, and on so many different levels, and I was surprised to read reviews where people whined about it being slow and plodding and boring. Because here is how I saw it: We'd been given a complete backstage-pass to Mattias's brain. He allowed us the freedom to wander through his thoughts and leave no stone unturned and rummaging through someone's personal baggage takes quite a bit of time.

He gives us time to understand his obsession with Buzz Aldrin - the strength of character Mattias places in the ability to stand back and let others led the way, the "gigantic heart" of those who are content to take second place, as if it is a conscious choice, something people willingly strive for. Rather than something people must accept.

He gives us time to understand his subtle obsession with Tuesdays - at the start of the book, he mentions how Tuesdays tend to be the most overlooked day of the week, yet in Mattias's experience, they are the most notable. Watch for them when you the read the book. I found this to be one of the most fascinating hints he dropped for us.

He gives us time to accept him and forgive him and root him on.

Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? is a long, hard, slow look at what it takes to overcome your own manufactured obstacles - those barriers and walls you've constructed around yourself, to protect or cushion yourself from things real or imagined. Rather than put himself out there and risk failure, Mattias successfully built a life where he found comfort in second-place. Until second place, and his creative invisibility, were no longer an option.

It's the anti-hero story. It's the cracking of the shell. It's the caterpillar emerging as the butterfly. It's the realization that people need people, whether you think you do or not. It's awkward and frustrating to watch but at the same time it has utterly captured your attention and refuses to be put down.

Where Writers Write: J.R. Angelella

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where some of TNBBC's favorite authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen.

This is J.R. Angelella. He is the author of the novel Zombie (Soho Press) as well as a forthcoming Southern Gothic supernatural YA series (Sourcebooks/Teen Fire) co-written with his wife, Kate Angelella. Their first book, Cursed, is set to publish in 2012. He is also a contributing author to the murder-mystery anthology Who Done It?(Soho Teen), benefiting the nonprofit organization 826NYC. He teaches creative writing at the Gotham Writers’ Workshop in New York City. His favorite band is the Drive-By Truckers and he doesn’t understand why they aren’t your favorite band too. He was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, and now lives in Brooklyn with his wife and their two flauntingly obese cats, Pacey and Bailey.

Where J.R. Angelella Writes

“What-ism: My Philosophy of Whatever Wherever & Whenever”

I thought that writing about where I write would be an easier assignment than it proved to be. A no-brainer. No big deal. As my mother likes to say, this assignment was going to be “a gimme.” What I realized, however, was that my writing habits are not, well, traditional, so to speak. I am not a writer who is a creature of any kind of habit. I don’t set daily word count goals for myself. I don’t write inside a rigid early-bird routine. I know that so many writers do set word count goals for themselves and write before the sun also rises, but I am just not built that way, or at least not right now.

Allow me to explain.

I do subscribe to a strict writing routine when I am on deadline for an editor or under contract with a publisher. Presumably, most of my creative heavy-lifting has been done at this point, and all that’s left is for me to turn my madman notes into some semblance of discernible prose. For me, it’s getting to that semblance of discernible prose phase that is the issue. I probably spend more time sorting through and organizing my schizophrenic ideas than I should, but working inside a regular writing routine generally make this process slower and more arduous for me. I used to get up at 5am every morning, cranky-crawl to my desk and pushing-and-pull at words until I had to leave for work at 8am. 

The problem was that I found myself spending an embarrassing amount of time deep-sea researching bizarre subjects online, and less time actually writing. To this day, I, quite innocently, clear out my internet browser history after every computer session, so that no one is subjected to whatever insane curiosity has recently piqued my interest. For example, this week I researched: the migration patterns of Mississippi Black Squirrels; the Zen-practice of provoking “great doubt” through the study of koans; how to harvest the Middle Eastern, DEA-classified, Schedule I narcotic catha edulis, better known as “Arabian tea” or “khat;” and how to tell the difference between a male (cob) and female (pen) Mute Swan. My point is this: clearly, my desk is not the best place for this writer to write.

For a while, I tried writing in bed. However, this, too, proved to be a failed experiment as my Maine Coon cat, Pacey, who I’m fairly convinced believes he will one day rule the world, became inappropriately fascinated with me and wholly committed to: knocking the pen out of my hand, sleep-smothering across all of my notebooks, waging a never-ending boxing battle with my computer chord, and not only ruthlessly stealing my headphones, but then refusing to give them back. 

Finally, I embraced my fate as the Goldilocks of writing spaces and opened myself up to the opportunity of unknown environments. There is an Albert Camus quote from his essay on the absurd “The Myth of Sisyphus” that states: “If the world were clear, art would not exist.” With this, my new philosophy took shape and has been my main belief ever-since: “What-ism: My Philosophy of Whatever Wherever & Whenever.” 

Allow me to explain. I write whatever wherever & whenever. For example:

Airport terminals 

 

The New York City Subway R Broadway Local Line – 

every day, back-and-forth between Brooklyn and Manhattan. 

Hell, I even wrote several key scenes of my novel ZOMBIE while an EMT moonlighting as a “sleep tech” prepped me for a sleep study, and hot-glued 22 electrodes to my head, strapped elastic belts around my chest, and fit a pressure transducer up my nose. 

Today I write with a fluid and flexible mindset that allows for the absurdity of everyday life to influence my writing at any turn. Camus, the godfather of “What-ism,” also wrote: “At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.” Again—another personal truthbomb as the absurd has followed me to the following of late: doctors’ offices, dive bars, chain hotels, the Bolt Bus to Baltimore, corporate coffee shops, independent bookstores, multi-national bodegas, every taxi cab in New York and most restaurants.

·         QUESTION: Where is it exactly that you write again?

·         ANSWER:     See definition of what-sim[1]

[1]What-ism –  (pronunced: wət izəm) (noun) the belief that opacity is the mother of art, which is created whatever wherever & whenever possible; also the illegitimate philosophy of the absurd.

There—does that answer your question?

Why yes, J.R., yes it does!!

Check back next week to see where Isaac Marion gets his writing done.

The Audio Series: M.L. Kennedy

Our new audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.  


Last week we listened to Mark David McGraw read from Heart of Scorpio. Click here if you missed it.


Today, M.L. Kennedy reads from his novel The Mosquito Song.  He has contributed to various online publications, including Inside Pulse Movies, Moodspins, Beyond the Threshold, and Diehard GameFAN. He hopes that his work will one day inspire poorly crafted and sexually uncomfortable fan-fiction. Kennedy currently lives in Chicago with his wife, Jen, and their daughter, Thalia.

Click here to experience The Mosquito Song read by author M.L. Kennedy.

The word on The Mosquito Song:

Hunted by amateur assassins, confounded by a mysterious notebook, and vexed by modern technology, a derelict vampire travels west to Chicago for answers. And maybe a little blood.

*lifted from goodreads with love

Indie Spotlight: Bookslinger

Back in November, I happened to stumble across a weekly twitter indie-chat called #indieview, which I still attend rather religiously. It's run by Rachel of Consortium Books and brings independent bookstores, indie publishers, and book bloggers together for 30 minutes of  topic-driven, highly engaging conversation. This network of forward-thinking indie professionals have their fingers on the pulse of the publishing community and they are ready to take things to the next level.

Today, I've asked Rachel to introduce you to Consortium's Bookslinger App, which launched this past April. If you're a fan of short stories, and you're an Apple user, this is a must-have app! Who doesn't want free weekly short stories sent directly on their phone?

If you haven't downloaded the app yet, take a peek at what Rachel has to say about it:

If you’re anything like me, your to-read pile is more like a to-read bookcase…or bookcases. The problem of deciding what to read next definitely isn’t a lack of options! But when you’ve just put down a book and are trying to decide which of the dozens to pick up next, it’s helpful to have something to help guide your decisions. And, as they say – there’s an app for that!

That’s why we created Bookslinger. Designed to help readers discover new short fiction writers, Bookslinger releases a new short story each week to highlight a book or an author that you might not have found otherwise. Right now, it’s available (for FREE) on Apple devices and we hope to expand to Android devices soon.

Check out some of the stories that have been featured in Bookslinger:

Poison Eaters (Small Beer Press): In her debut collection, New York Times best-selling author Holly Black returns to the world of Tithe in two darkly exquisite new tales. Then Black takes readers on a tour of a faerie market and introduces a girl poisonous to the touch and another who challenges the devil to a competitive eating match. Some of these stories have been published in anthologies such as 21 Proms, The Faery Reel, and The Restless Dead, and have been reprinted in many “Best of ” anthologies.

Cradle Book (BOA Editions): Timeless yet timely and hopeful with a dark underbelly, these fables revive a tradition running from Aesop to W.S. Merwin. With a poet’s mastery, Craig Morgan Teicher creates strange worlds populated by animals fated for disaster and the people who interact with them, or simply act like them, including a very sad boy who wishes he had been raised by wolves. There are also a handful of badly behaving gods, a talking tree, and a shape-shifting room.

Los Angeles Stories(City Lights Publishers): Los Angeles Stories is a collection of loosely linked, noir-ish tales that evoke a bygone era in one of America's most iconic cities. In post-World War II Los Angeles, as power was concentrating and fortunes were being made, a do-it-yourself culture of cool cats, outsiders, and oddballs populated the old downtown neighborhoods of Bunker Hill and Chavez Ravine. Ordinary working folks rubbed elbows with petty criminals, grifters, and all sorts of women at foggy end-of-the-line outposts in Venice Beach and Santa Monica. Rich with the essence and character of the times, suffused with the patois of the city's underclass, these are stories about the common people of Los Angeles, “a sunny place for shady people,” and the strange things that happen to them. Musicians, gun shop owners, streetwalkers, tailors, door-to-door salesmen, drifters, housewives, dentists, pornographers, new arrivals, and hard-bitten denizens all intersect in cleverly plotted stories that center around some kind of shadowy activity. This quirky love letter to a lost way of life will appeal to fans of hard-boiled fiction and anyone interested in the city itself.

This Is Not Your City (Sarabande Books): Eleven women confront dramas both everyday and outlandish in Caitlin Horrocks’ This Is Not Your City. In stories as darkly comic as they are unflinching, people isolated by geography, emotion, or circumstance cut imperfect paths to peace—they have no other choice. A Russian mail-order bride in Finland is rendered silent by her dislocation and loss of language, the mother of a severely disabled boy writes him postcards he'll never read on a cruise ship held hostage by pirates, and an Iowa actuary wanders among the reincarnations of those she's known in her 127 lives. Horrocks’ women find no simple escapes, and their acts of faith and acts of imagination in making do are as shrewd as they are surprising.

Elephants in Our Bedroom (Dzanc Books): The debut short story collection from the editor of the Mid-American Review. Michael Czyzniejewski’s writing is both poignant and playful. The collection includes flash and longer fiction and is the antithesis of those collections complained about for having every story too similar to one another.






You can also check out the Bookslinger blog, which lets you know a little about the story that’s featured each week in the app – and sometimes we release free stories there, too!

*Rachel Zugschwert is the marketing manager at Consortium Book Sales & Distribution. She never runs out of something to read next, but has been known to rely on her phone to help her figure it out.

Review: Who I Was

Read 8/23/12 - 8/25/12
3 Stars - Recommended to readers who like to go with the flow
Pgs: 125
Publisher: mdmw books

Les Plesko is one of those authors who I've allowed myself to trust. I trust him to tell his stories in his own way. I trust his simplistic, sparse, poetic language that reads like a beat in your head and in your heart. I trust him to take me beyond the pages, even if I am not certain where he is taking me.

And I had no clue where his second novel, Who I Was, was going . Consisting of a series of moments, we are given lightening-quick glimpses into the life of Moonie, a free spirited girl who attaches herself to the less-spontaneous but charming Addie. Moonie, forever with a book in her backpack and a penchant for the peace of the aquarium. Addie, always a conversation ahead or behind, the Felix to her Oscar.

Though the book is obviously about their relationship, there seemed to be no real plot. No sense of  "start here and end there" to it at all. It was very much like sneaking a read through someone's diary, all tense and personal and lovely and aloof and confusing, as most relationships I've known had a habit of being.

Take the opening sentences, for example: "There I went wobbling down Alden Drive on my junk bicycle with my whole soul flapping. Started a thing, started another thing. Sometimes nobody even found out about them." Definitely a sense of aloofness to this girl, right? Whether it's manufactured or really how she works in the world-at-large is left mostly up to us. But then, at the same time, she seems to throw it all out there. A living contradiction. With Moonie, we know right quick that she is not one to mince words. I think it's interesting that Les wrote her without a filter - what she thinks is exactly what comes out of her mouth, she makes no apologies for who she is.

And her mind moves so quickly from one thought to the next: "Family stories made me sleepy like one wave rolling over the next. Were we supposed to just tell them and hear them? I buried my feet in the sand where the foam washed over it. The sea's going to yank my ankles, I said. I turned, but Addie's hand wasn't there. I could just keep walking in, I said. My socks were rolled like dirty snowballs on the bird-footed sand. Addie's hand was outstretched. The wind blew my hair and the pages of my book. You're always reading, Addie said and I said, Shut up, I'm reading. The wind blew the pages and I lost my places." I got the feeling, as I read, that Moonie has a bit of an attention issue. More specifically, that she has trouble concentrating in environments that contain lots of outside stimuli. Which might explain her infatuation with the quiet, gurgling aquarium that she so often runs away to. A place to shut off all the inner braininess and let the batteries recharge. And while I'm convinced it's a very private alone-space for her, she seems to share it quite willingly with Addie.

And how about that relationship with the mathematical and broody Addie? Sometimes I'm not sure Moonie was even very certain: "I loved him the way you don't really know if you do. Maybe you wanted to. Did my life change completely from him? Or didn't every moment. Those were the thoughts I had. His will and his mind confused mine." Either you're in love with him, or you're not, my dear. Except, we all know that relationships are never that clear-cut and defined, are they? They're flexible, they expand and contract, they bore us and excite us, and most especially confuse the holy fuck out of us. I don't care if you're dating 15 days or married 15 years, it never seems to get easier to be with someone.

All I know is that everyone needs a Moonie in their lives. She's the bright star in an otherwise dark sky. She's the ying to most people's yang. She's the Clementine in a world of Josh's. Or, if you're more like Moonie, go find yourself a sweet, level headed Addie. And then go make memories that will turn into stories that you can tell your grand kids about it, when they're old enough to understand!

Check out the Plesko's book trailer for Who I Was:

Where Writers Write: Jennifer Spiegel

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where some of TNBBC's favorite authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen.

Photo by Anastasia Campos 

This is Jennifer Spiegel. She has an MA in Politics from New York University and an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Arizona State. Also the author of the story collection The Freak Chronicles, She lives in Phoenix with her husband and two children. She reads a lot, tries to buy mostly organic food, and drinks strong coffee with cream. She may stop coloring her hair soon, but there’s no guarantee. Love Slave is her debut novel.

Where Jennifer Spiegel Writes

 Hemingway and Jennifer in Cuba,
where she tried to learn to write on
paper napkins on barstools 

It’s complicated. In a beginning creative writing class, I heard that real writers can write anywhere, at anytime.  I wasn’t supposed to need props or special music to get into the right mood. Paper napkins on barstools or laptops in train stations: I should just write like a mofo.
Really?

coffee, taken by
 Anastasia Campos 

Here’s the deal. I write fiction in cafes. I write nonfiction at home. No music for fiction. Background noise is okay; actually, I like it—unless it’s my own children making the noise. Music is fine for nonfiction. The constant for any writing:  coffee.

 Jennifer's desk at home
(yes, that appears to be an issue
 of Ranger Rick on her desk)  

I’m afraid to say this aloud, but I think I will. I value my fiction more! I need to remove myself from my home and its demands. I can’t know I need to put in a load of laundry or the dishwasher needs to be emptied. I can’t get stuck listening to the lyrics of a Bob Dylan song. If there’s music playing in some café, that’s okay; I just don’t want to think too much about it. In that café, over my coffee and laptop, I am artiste—responsible only to my art!

I love writing nonfiction too. I do. But it comes from somewhere else, somewhere less precious, less pretentious, more responsible. That nonfiction writer may need to change the cat litter soon. She accepts this.

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

Now that you've seen her writing space, get to know her writing!! 

Unbridled Books has generously given us 5 copies

to give away to celebrate its release!!

 (US residents only, sorry guys!)  

                  
What it's about: 

It’s 1995. When she can, Sybil Weatherfield works as an office temp. But in her jobless hours she may be her generation’s Dorothy Parker, writing a confessional column for the alternative weekly, New York Shock. Her friends include a paperpusher for a human rights organization and the lead singer of a local rock band called Glass Half Empty. Together they try to find a path from their own wry inactivity to something real and lasting that can matter to them. Richly funny and wincingly specific, this cunning debut novel is a bittersweet and ironic look at what it means to be enthralled by an idea—by even the most ragged possibility of love.

And check out Unbridled's cool pin board for the book!

Here's how to enter:

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

2 - Your comment must have a way to contact you (email is preferred), and you must be a US resident. 

That's it! No strings attached!

Good Luck!

Giveaway ends September 11th.
Winners notified on September 12th here and via email.

The Audio Series: Mark David McGraw

Our new audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard. 

Last week we listened as Caleb J Ross read to us from his first-ever published short story Petty Injuries. Click here if you missed it. 


Today, Mark David McGraw reads from Heart of Scorpio. He has translated Joseph Avski's El corazón del escorpión, which was originally published in Spanish. After a twenty-year career as a Marine Corps infantry officer that included service in thirty-five countries, Mark David McGraw entered the doctoral program in Hispanic Studies at Texas A&M University in 2009. He has translated poetry, academic articles and literary works from Spanish to English for anthologies, journals and magazines. He currently resides in College Station, Texas with his family.

Click here to experience Heart of Scorpio read by translator Mark David McGraw. 

The word on Heart of Scorpio:

If you, dear reader, prefer books with fairy-tale endings, you would do well to not read this novel. Even in the English translation these Colombian characters and places will sit very close to you. In bursts of fiction and nonfiction, Heart of Scorpio tells the tragic story of ex-champion boxer, Antonio Cervantes (“Kid Pambelé”), using four distinct voices that represent the personal, family, social, and public aspects of the protagonist’s life. When combined these vignettes reveal all the pathos of the human condition, both at the height of brilliant success and in the depths of disastrous failure.

*lifted from goodreads, with love

Indie Spotlight: Steve Piacente

In the ever changing world of publishing, authors are still trying to navigate their way through the wars over print vs. digital and traditional vs. self published books. 

Self published author Steve Piacente, whose upcoming novel Bootlicker (prequel to his 2010 release Bella) drops this month, has strapped on his helmet and laced up his boots to fight the good fight for some good ole "indie" recognition. What he's written here demonstrates just how steep his own personal up-hill battle is.

He discusses pushback from local papers, the stigma that still follows the self published around, and the opportunities technology has offered writers....

Indies Not Wanted

Your book is the wrong color. Keep it out of my neighborhood.

Okay, the rejection wasn’t quite that harsh, but the message was the same. Mainstream newspapers – even struggling, mid-sized papers - look at Indie authors the way cool girls look at members of the badminton club. You’re nice, but really …”

This was different, I thought, because I had been the newspaper’s D.C. reporter for a decade. They knew I wasn’t a hack. And, honestly, I didn’t want special treatment, only a look, and figured my time at the Charleston, S.C. paper would get my self-published novel into the hands of the book editor.

The book did reach the editor, who informed me that the newspaper:

-          Will not consider paperbacks, eBooks, self-published, textbooks, or kids’ books.

-          Only publishes 325 reviews a year, and there are 60,000 hardcovers from “legitimate” publishers released in the U.S. alone each year, plus 250,000 paperbacks.

NOTHING PERSONAL, BUT …

The paper’s reviewers are unpaid volunteers who insist on “legit” hardcovers. The editor said this was not meant to disparage any particular book, but – let’s face it – self-publishing has tended to produce books of “grossly inferior literary quality.”

Imagine if we used such a yardstick, say a scorecard on Congress, to judge politicians.

He added that no book review editor he knew would consider novels by Indie authors. Part of it has to do with dwindling resources at most newspapers. Most of it has to do with lousy books. The only time mainstream papers perk up is when a success story forces them to pay attention, like this one from The Wall Street Journal.

OLD WAYS HAVE GOTTEN RUSTY

I say technology has changed the world, and newspapers clearly haven’t kept pace. The situation in Charleston is not unique. Newspapers everywhere are in trouble, which is why it strikes me as odd that management would cling so hard to old ways that clearly aren’t working.

As Charleston struggles to do more with less, the paper is still being deluged by major publishing houses and their authors. That makes it even easier for reviewers and newspaper execs to dismiss Indie authors.

Declaring every such writer undeserving seems unjust, especially when this sentiment comes from folks who are supposed to help separate worthy from unworthy, whether it’s books, politicians or pro athletes. Take a peek at the Journalists’ Code of Ethics.

ANYONE STILL USING INK?

Back in the Dark Ages (meaning about five years ago), if you wanted to be an author, you’d write a book, cast around for an agent, and, if lucky, get one and sign with a big publisher. That’s how it worked – there was one key to the literary castle. If you didn’t get the key, all you got to write was graffiti on the vacant building in the alley. If you did land an agent, he or she would need snag a publisher. If not, story over.

Technology now provides a direct path to prospective readers. Screw the middleman. Tools like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have enabled writers to find cover artists, illustrators, trailers, editors, web designers, and, most importantly, readers. Sure, we’d like a newspaper review, but that’s just one of many avenues. An entire culture of Indie reviewers is also rising up and getting noticed.

The trick is figuring out how to distinguish your work from the glut competing for people’s attention. It’s true that the good news is the same as the bad news – anyone can publish pretty much anything. My hope is that, as with any other product coming to market, the cream will rise.

As a former journalist, I like this. It’s got a democratic feel to it. There used to be a saying about not arguing with folks who bought ink by the barrel, meaning reporters always got the last word. Perhaps that day has passed. Is anyone still using ink?

Steve Piacente (@wordsprof) has been a professional writer since graduating from American University in 1976. In 2010, he self-published Bella, the story of a widow’s quest to uncover the truth about her husband’s death on an Afghan battlefield. The forthcoming Bootlicker is the prequel. Steve started as a sportswriter at the Naples Daily News, switched to news at the Lakeland Ledger, and returned to D.C. in 1985 as Correspondent for the Tampa Tribune. In 1989, the native New Yorker moved to the same position for the Charleston (SC) Post & Courier.  He is now deputy communications director at a federal agency in Washington, D.C., and teaches journalism classes at American University. 

Contact Steve at steve@getbella.com. Bella is available at http://amzn.to/catchingon 

Book Giveaway: Mad Hope

Since July 2010, TNBBC has been bringing authors and readers together every month to get behind the book! This unique experience wouldn't be possible without the generous donations of the authors and publishers involved.   

I'm excited to be partnering with Coach House Books 

to bring you next month's Author/Reader Discussion book!

We'll be reading and discussing

 Mad Hope with author Heather Birrell

In order to stimulate discussion, 

Coach House has agreed to giveaway 8 copies

 INTERNATIONALLY

Here is the Goodreads description:

In the stories of Mad Hope, Journey Prize winner Heather Birrell finds the heart of her characters and lets them lead us into worlds both recognizable and alarming. A science teacher and former doctor is forced to re-examine the role he played in Ceauşescu’s Romania after a student makes a shocking request; a tragic plane crash becomes the basis for a meditation on motherhood and its discontents; women in an online chat group share (and overshare) their anxieties and personal histories; and a chance encounter in a waiting room tests the ties that bind us.

Using precise, inventive language, Birrell creates astute and empathetic portraits of people we thought we knew – and deftly captures the lovely, maddening mess of being human.

This giveaway will run through September 8th. 

Winners will be notified here and via email on September 9th.

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 October 15th through the end of the month. Heather Birrell 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 the discussion begins). 

 3 - Your comment must have a way to contact you (email is preferred). 

Good luck!!!