David Abrams's Blog, page 130

Sunday Sentence: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.


He has a great smile, a cat's smile.  He should cough out yellow Tweety Bird feathers, the way he smiles at me.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The Great Big Roundup of 2014 Short Story Collections

Consider this your (pretty much) exhaustive, pantry-stocking, be-all, end-all list of 2014 short story collections, fortified with 8 essential vitamins and minerals and guaranteed to keep you reading well into 2015--2016, if you're as slow a reader as I am (case in point: I just now got around to reading Anthony Doerr's collections The Shell Collector and Memory Wall which had been on my To-Be-Read list for nearly a decade).

Now that we're halfway through the year, I thought I'd take a look at...

Friday Freebie: Wynne's War by Aaron Gwyn

Congratulations to Kelley Christensen, winner of last week's Friday Freebie contest: Inappropriate Behavior by Murray Farish and Stop Here by Beverly Gologorsky.

This week's book giveaway is Wynne's War by Aaron Gwyn.  I'm so very happy to be offering this novel to readers of The Quivering Pen.  Just listen to what folks are saying about it:

"Wynne’s War combines two of America’s great literary genres, the Western and the war story, brilliantly. This taut, elegant, beautiful novel tak...

Trailer Park Tuesday: Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.




The trailer for Miranda Beverly-Whittemore's new gothic novel Bittersweet opens with a view of a Vermont lake.  The camera, static throughout the whole video, is perched on a knoll overlooking the water, at the head of a wooden staircase leading down the hill.  We see what looks like a dock anchored just off shore.  Sunlight dapples part of the lake while dark c...

My First Time: Sheana Ochoa

My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands.  Today’s guest is Sheana Ochoa, author of Stella! Mother of Modern Acting , the first biography on legendary actor and acting teacher Stella Adler.  Sheana received a Masters in Professional Writing at the University of Southern California.  She has publish...

Sunday Sentence: Darkness Sticks to Everything by Tom Hennen

Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.




          This stone is so inviting
          Everyone wants to walk right into it
          And become a fossil.

"Smelling a Stone in the Middle of Winter"
from Darkness Sticks to Everything by Tom Hennen

Friday Freebie: Inappropriate Behavior by Murray Farish and Stop Here by Beverly Gologorsky

Congratulations to Jane Rainey, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: James Madison: A Life Reconsidered by Lynne Cheney.

This week's book giveaway is another dynamic duo: Inappropriate Behavior: Stories by Murray Farish and Stop Here by Beverly Gologorsky.  One lucky reader will win a copy of both books.

In Murray Farish's debut short story collection, the title story--about a family facing hard times after the husband gets laid off from work--opens with these lines:

George and Miranda Pu...

It's All a Blur: A Field Report from Book Expo America 2014

Book Expo America--the annual circus of publishers, booksellers, authors and readers--buzzed through the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City last week, leaving behind the debris of crumpled nametags, torn bookbags, shoe-scuffed and floor-grimed Advance Reading Copies of less-popular Fall titles, and dried pools of blood near booths where publicists were handing out the more-popular ARCs.

At least I think that's what it looks like.  I wouldn't know.  I wasn't there.  (Cue the...

Trailer Park Tuesday: Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night by Barbara J. Taylor

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.




The true-life story behind Barbara J. Taylor's debut novel, Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night , is so dramatic that I'll just let the author tell it in her own words: "The story takes place in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1913-1914.  That was the time of coal mining, vaudeville, evangelism--so there was a lot happening in Scranton at the time.  I got the idea for my nove...

My First Time: Marian Szczepanski

My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands.  Today’s guest is Marian Szczepanski.  The granddaughter of immigrant coal miners, Marian Szczepanski grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania and lived as a young child in the Jamison Coal Company house where her mother and aunts were raised.  She holds an MF...