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!!!

Review: Shampoo Horns

Read 8/21/12 - 8/22/12
4 Stars - Strongly Recommended to readers who remember what it REALLY was like to be a pre-teen kid
Pgs: 55
Publisher: Rose Metal Press

Show me a kid who never disobeyed their parents and I'll show you a liar. Sneaking out the bedroom window, or sneaking someone in in the middle of the night, hopping up on the roof of the house to steal a few puffs on a cigarette, breaking into old abandoned trailer homes and filling them with all the things you "lifted" from your neighbors or strangers... Any of this stuff sound familiar? I'm willing to bet that if you look deep enough and think back hard enough, you have a few good stories to share with us, don't you?

Aaron Teel, through a well balanced mix of fact and fiction, hits us over the head with the reality of coming of age in a Texas trailer park community with his award winning chapbook Shampoo Horns. We are introduced to Cherry Tree, an easily influenced twelve year old boy who would prefer nothing more than spending the entire day running around in his home-made superhero costume - red skivvies and a towel tied around his neck. He kills time reading comics with best friend Tater Tot and keeps his nose relatively clean. That is, until his troubled, older half-brother moves in and knocks Cherry's boyish little world straight down onto its ass.

Shampoo Horns is cleverly fierce, unexpectedly sweet, and for one horrifying moment, utterly disgusting (there's a nipple clipping, people! Someone loses a fucking NIPPLE!). It's got the rough-and-tumble bloody and bruised innocent bordeom of the prepubescent with the added confusion of sex and girls and the threatening maturity that comes along with it all.

Reading these interconnected flash fiction stories reminded me of my own good girl - bad girl struggles growing up. Hanging out under the piers in Florida with my dope-smoking friends, cracking open coconuts watching the sunset; sneaking out of the house after my father went to bed to hang out under the bridges with friends, or sneaking the boys in; and yes, a group of friends and I laid claim to an abandoned trailer that still had some furniture and running water, though sadly, the electricity had been cut by then. It's amazing what boredom and a whole lot of freedom will lead you to do!

Grab yourself a copy if you're in the mood to (1) jump into the way-back machine on a journey down memory lane, (2) vicariously live the life you wish you had when you were that age, or (3) want to experience a powerful, emotional firestorm of teenage angst and curiosity. You won't regret it. And you can thank me later.

Review: Big Ray

Read 8/21/12
5 Stars - Highly Recommended / The Next Best Book
Pgs: 182
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Release Date: Sept 2012

In a completely unplanned Year of Grief in literature, I fall head over heels for Michael Kimball's Big Ray.

If Michael's books were record albums, I imagine they'd sound like Hayden with a dash of Midlake and a big ole heap of Great Lake Swimmers - that  lo-fi, slow indie rock sound - sweetly depressing, all enveloping, emotionally charged music that somehow makes you feel good as it talks about feeling bad.

I've yet to discover a Kimball novel that doesn't address death in one form or another. His Dear Everybody was a beautifully crafted collage of life gathered after one man's suicide. Us dealt with a husband's heart-wrenching attempt to refuse and then accept his wife's impending death. And now he gives us Big Ray, a son's tender, honest look back at the life and death of his abusive father and the impact it has had on his life.

You'd think that books about death would be sad and depressing, but not when they are created by Michael's hands. With each novel, he invents new ways of looking at death and dying and his unique approach to grief and loss leaves me breathless every single time.

The story of Big Ray is not an easy one for our narrator to tell. Initially relieved to hear of his father's passing, Daniel seems stunned by the lasting affect the death continues to have on him. Through a series of over five hundred short entries, Daniels feeds us snippets of his relationship with his dad growing up; the shame and humiliation he felt while Ray was alive, the physical and verbal abuse he, his sister, and his mom put up with;  his father's struggle with obesity and the impact that had on his health and temper over the years; the nearly obsessive thoughts he's entertained over the years about the cause of his father's death and the way in which his father's body was found; and how he's handling life as a man with a dead dad.

Big Ray is a microscopic look at how the things we do and say scar a person's soul, leaving permanent reminders of us, for better or worse, long after we are gone. But it's not entirely morose. Michael's thrown in some dark humor and "yo daddy's so fat" jokes to lighten the mood a bit, and because, well, it's human nature to find the funny in the face of death. If we can't find something to laugh at, we'll only end up crying.

Where Writers Write - Jeff Somers

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 Jeff Somers. He was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and regrets nothing. He wrote his first novel at age 11 and was crushed when he learned manuscripts completely devoid of punctuation marks were unsellable, and vowed revenge on the publishing industry. After becoming an Eagle Scout, graduating from St. Peter's Preparatory School, and a summer spent working manual labor, he attended Rutger University and earned an English degree, having nothing better to do. In 1995 he published the first issue of his zine The Inner Swine, which saw its 60th issue hit the streets in 2011. In 1999 he sold his first novel, Lifers, to a small California-based publisher for a case of beer and some kind words; despite a favorable review in The New York Times copies of the book remain largely concentrated in his crawlspace. In 2004, he sold the first Avery Cates novel, The Electric Church. The fifth novel in the series, The Final Evolution, was released in 2011.

Jeff has also published a few dozen short stories. His story “Ringing the Changes”, which appeared in the anthology Danger City in 2006, was chosen for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories 2006, edited by Otto Penzler with guest Editor Scott Turow, and his story “Sift, Almost Invisible, Through” appeared in the anthology Crimes by Moonlight edited by Charlaine Harris, in 2010.

He drinks, has many cats, is married, and does not understand why pants are required attired at all social occasions. And now, he shows us where the writing happens:

Where Jeff Somers Writes

Check back next week and see where Jennifer Spiegel gets her writing on!

The Audio Series: Caleb J Ross

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 A.M. Harte read from her short story When Passion Fails. Check it out if you missed it.


Today, Caleb J Ross reads his very first published story for us. His fiction and nonfiction has appeared widely, both online and in print. He is the author of Charactered Pieces: stories, Stranger Will: a novel, I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin: a novel, Murmurs: Gathered Stories Vol. One, and As a Machine and Parts. He is an editor at Outsider Writers Collective and moderates The Velvet Podcast, which gathers writers for round table discussions on literature. 

Click here to experience Petty Injuries read by Caleb J Ross. 


Are you hungry for more? Caleb's novel I Didn't Mean to Be Kevin is up for grabs, for free, until 8/28. Go and get it. And then develop an unhealthy relationship with him at www.calebjross.com. Stalk him on Twitter. Pester him on Facebook. Circle him at Google+. 

Review: The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving

Read 8/14/12 - 8/20/12
5 Stars - Highly Recommended / The Next Best Book for ALL THE REASONS
Pgs: 276
Publisher: Algonquin
Release Date: August 28, 2012

Can I just say "Fucking Awesome! Go Buy It" and call it a day? Do you really need me to go into all the reasons why I want you to experience Jonathan Evison's The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving for yourself? Because I will. Oh, you can bet I will.

For starters, it features some of the coolest man-speak I have ever come across in literary fiction. Hell, in ANY fiction:  "Turd-Cutters", "Gorilla Masks", "German Knuckle Cakes", "Moroccan Meatballs", and Disappearing Pandas", just to name a FEW. Never mind the fact that I have no clue what those all mean. And please don't take that as an invitation to leave a comment and tell me, because I had too much fun imagining them for myself, and knowing what they really mean (or worse, that they don't really exist) would crush my already-fragile soul. You don't want to be responsible for crushing my soul, do you?!

And second, Jonathan Evison knows relationships. Wait, let me rephrase that. Jonathan Evison knows dysfunction and specializes in making it parade itself around as a relationship. In TRFoC, we have what should be a cry-fest of a novel from the moment you crack the cover to the snot-covered fingering of the final pages. But does Evison take the easy way out and write sappy, heart broken, woe-is-me characters that would feel at home in the middle of a Lifetime Movie set? Oh hell no! He takes the things that should have left them broken and beaten and, instead, he gives them the strength to deal with their individual grief and tragedies as a group through huge heaps of laughter and sarcasm. He knows how to manage his characters through awkward and sometimes humiliating circumstances without making us bat an eye. And he makes it all seem so natural, so possible, so... familiar. He brings the characters to you and places each one of them inside your heart where you will carry them around with you wherever you go. You will want to protect them all, from anything that might cause them pain or sadness.

Which leads to the third: Evison's novel is such a great demonstration of human resilience. Whether it's Ben learning to forgive himself for the death of his children, or Trev finding the courage to overcome his body's crippling limitations to kiss a girl for the first time, TRFoC dissects what it's like to simply be. To step outside of your routine. To plan and pack and check and double check and then how to just give in when the plans give out. To remove the safety net and suddenly realize that you never really needed it to begin with.

In conclusion, (and here's the big sell...) it's a road trip story. It's a coming-into-your-own story. It's a you-can-never-be-prepared-for-whats-just-around-the-corner story. It's a taking-the-rulebook-and-throwing-it-out-the-fucking-window-at-sixty-miles-an-hour story. It's a it-might-not-be-a-bad-idea-to-have-a-tissue-laying-around-somewhere-within-reach-but-I-swear-it's-not-an-ugly-cry story. And yes, it's a I've-got-to-tell-everyone-I-know-to-run-out-and-read-this-book-right-now story.

Let me leave you with this: If my review didn't just seal the deal, this adorable book trailer MOST DEFINITELY will!!

The Revised Fundamentals Of Caregiving from gerard donaghy on Vimeo.

Exterminating Angel Press (EAP) On "Being Indie"

On "Being Indie" is a monthly feature hosted here on TNBBC. We will meet a wide variety of independent authors, publishers, and booksellers as they discuss what being indie means to them. 

Tod Davies is the editor/publisher of Exterminating Angel Press, as well as the author of Jam Today: A Diary of Cooking with What You've Got, and The History of Arcadia books: Snotty Saves the Day, and the upcoming Lily the Silent (Oct. 2012). She believes everybody needs to get out on the prairie and run free once in awhile.

Exterminating Angel Press - tell me you don't insta-crush that name? - took its name from the classic film by Luis Buñuel. According to their website, they value the everyday over the transcendent, mutuality over hierarchy, equity over power, the search for truth together over the scramble for victory apart, and jam today over jam tomorrow. Here's Tod, sharing her thoughts on what Being Indie means to her....

I can never shake one particular image that seems to me to perfectly express what I feel about being an indie publisher…or indeed, an indie anything. And that is of a mustang on the prairie, tough, wary, determined to survive on its own terms, always moving…and, I must add joyful, with the kind of joy that only comes with calling one’s life one’s own, and living on equal terms with even the most powerful forces that surround one.

That’s not a bad place to be, that prairie. The forage might be hard to find at times (damn hard, especially at certain unfavorable seasons), the predators canny and numerous…and you might, many days and particularly many nights, look enviously at the sleek, well-fed, well-cared for thoroughbreds in their comfortable stables with their regular meals. But in the end, it’s a matter of temperament and desire. Who are you? What do you want most? If who you are is an animal that most wants to be free to explore the terrain, and maybe tap out what you’ve found to your fellows, there really is no other truly satisfying road.

There’s a border, too, between the prairie and the well-kept paddocks, and maybe that’s where the most interesting communications happen between the wild independent mustang and (if you don’t mind me going on with my analogy) the well-bred stable horse. Those fences where the two can meet, and, if not frightened of each other, can exchange information…feelings, ways of doing, meanings. Needs. Those points may be the most interesting of all.

A world that has anything going for it needs different forms of life. To be an indie…to be out there on the prairie…is to live the life that risks disasters of all kinds, and gains insights that aren’t available to the more circumscribed round in the stables of the towns. Insights born, frequently, of the necessity of looking for answers to feed you where none have been looked for before…and of facing realities that might be hidden from those living an easier, glossier, more celebrated life. Insights that might help on a dark night, when the storm comes up, and the hungry cougars are on the prowl. Which is more likely to survive a night like that? A rosette studded thoroughbred with a pedigree an arm long? Or a tough little mustang that’s made it this far down the road? One who probably knows a thing or two about battling hungry cougars.

They’ve certainly both got their place. But before you jump to conclude that the thoroughbred’s life is the better one, you might want to stop and think that the little prairie mustang’s life may have benefits and joys and downright wallowings in truths that aren’t available to the lovely horses that live in the well-irrigated, well-fenced, well-kept towns. There’s something to be said for a free race across prairies and mountains in all kinds of weather, even if that freedom comes at the cost of things like gopher holes and snakes and snow three foot deep on the ground. There’s something to be said for that kind of freedom, after all.

Review: The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets

Read 8/3/12 - 8/14/12
4 Stars - Strongly Recommended to readers who like their fictitious families shaken, not stirred
Pgs: 242
Publisher: Other Press
Release Date: Sept 2012

"Family" is a complicated concept. By definition, we are told a family is a group of people who live together; people of common ancestry; people united by certain convictions; a unit of crime syndicate operating under one geographical area (I'm throwing this one in for fun!)

It's no wonder, then, that the characters we come to know and love in Kathleen Alcott's debut novel The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets are as confused as we are about what family is. Ida, James, and Jackson - fiercely attached at the hips since infancy - have never known life without each other. Everything they've ever experienced has been experienced together. And so Alcott, by muddying the waters and confusing familial lines, sets the stage for a story about discovery, disappointment, and the severing of limbs you thought you would never be able to survive without.

When the novel begins, Ida - who grew up an only child and neighbor to brothers James and Jackson  - is struggling to deal with her father's ailing health and Jackson's absence, who we realize has recently ended their near-life-long relationship. As she shares stories from their childhood, listing every sweet and painful secret, we delve deep into a world where lines that were once crossed refuse to uncross completely.

How do you let go of someone who has become a physical part of you? Who do you talk to when the only people you've ever confided in leave you? Is it even possible to move on?

Alcott addresses love and loss and the terrifying reality of letting go as she seamlessly moves us through past and present day, through memories and back again. Her writing, which takes some time to get used to, sits uncomfortably on the tongue yet blossoms beautifully across the page.

As the story of Ida and James and Jackson unravels, the title of the book seems to become more of a question for the reader. Were Ida and Jackson meant to be together, as close to one another as their initials sit in the alphabet? Was there a shared magnetism simply due to their proximity - proximity of age, location, children of single parents? Would they have lived the same lives had their names/proximity to one another been different?

Where Writers Write: Margaret Atwood

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.

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction. There's a good chance you may have read A Handmaid's Tale, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake, or The Year of the Flood. But did you know her work has been published in more than forty languages - including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian?

As I'm sure you are aware, Margaret is an ever-present voice of reason and support within the literary community, engaging her fans through social media sites like Twitter or interactive formats such as iDoLVine and Fanado. Her passion for the written word is truly endless and all-encompassing. Use TNBBC as an example.....

Last week, Margaret took a moment to respond to a tweet I sent out, hoping to secure some additional participants for this series:

True to her "tweet", the following afternoon on my lunch break, Margaret posted the following photo of her work space. In lieu of an essay, I share this tweet:

Many thanks to Margaret Atwood for taking a moment to contribute to our Writers series, and for her undying love and support of all things literary... no matter how great or small!!