David Abrams's Blog, page 149

Friday Freebie: The Hunter and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett

Congratulations to Sharon Nakagawa and Christine Norris, winners of last week's Friday Freebie: If I'd Known You Were Coming by Kate Milliken.

This week's book giveaway is sure to appeal to hard-boiled mystery fans.  I've got a copy of The Hunter and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett to put into one lucky reader's hands.  The collection--"Call this volume Hammett Unplugged," co-editor Richard Layman says in his introduction--will be published by The Mysterious Press next month and it...

Trailer Park Tuesday: Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail by Kelly Luce

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





"The year we lived in Japan, the volcano at the edge of town hiccuped, covering everything in six inches of heavy, golden dust.  No one could remember anything like it.  Children poured outside to play wearing bathing suits and surgical masks.  Housewives vacuumed the street." That's the first, but not the last, of the surreal images from Kelly Luce's Three Sce...

My First Time: Susanna Sonnenberg

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 Susanna Sonnenberg, author of She Matters: A Life in Friendships and Her Last Death: A Memoir .  Elizabeth Gilbert had this to say about She Matters: “Yes, I have always said that I wished somebody would write a book just exactly like this—yet...

Sunday Sentence: The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer

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


He came to me, the little boy, on tiny sheep-white socks.  He threw himself into my arms, and I was overcome by the softness of him, the scent of sour milk and jam, the slight crackle of his ironed green romper, embroidered in a wigwam pattern across the front, with its stiff white collar and sleeves so that he was Pilgrim and Indian all in one.

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells b...

Friday Freebie: If I'd Known You Were Coming by Kate Milliken

Congratulations to Susan Warner, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: The Fountain of St. James Court by Sena Jeter Naslund.

This week, I have two copies of the new short story collection If I'd Known You Were Coming by Kate Milliken to put in two lucky readers' hands.  I spotlighted Milliken's fiction in the latest installment of the Front Porch Books feature ( click here to read the opening lines of the collection's first story), and here's more about what you'll find between the covers...

The Craft of the Story: An Interview with Gregory Spatz

Interview by Lisa Sumner

Gregory Spatz is the author of a new story collection Half as Happy , published by Engine Books.  Half as Happy is smart, spooky, surprising, and so good that the writing is almost invisible.  The stories in Half as Happy don’t offer up easy epiphanies, but they do move into the space made when the characters’ lives get torn open in one way or another; the writing is precise, and eerily good.  Spatz has published three novels ( Inukshuk , Fiddler’s Dream ,...

My First Time: Colin Fleming

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 Colin Fleming, author of Dark March , a collection of short stories which I recently spotlighted here at The Quivering Pen's Front Porch Books feature .  Fleming writes for The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Slate, The Boston Globe, and The New Criter...

Friday Freebie: The Fountain of St. James Court by Sena Jeter Naslund

Congratulations to Jim Simpson, winner of last week's book giveaway: Rivers by Michael Farris Smith and Archangel by Andrea Barrett.

This week's Friday* Freebie is The Fountain of St. James Court by Sena Jeter Naslund (author of Ahab's Wife and many other novels).  Subtitled "Or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman," Naslund's new novel (just released by William Morrow) features a novel-within-a-novel and spans two different time periods.  Here's more from the publisher's jacket c...

My Eye Is On the Sparrow: Meditations on a Trapped Bird

Not too long ago, I saved a bird's life.

If that statement sounds a little dramatic to you--well, that's just the way I think.  My mind is full of marching bands, fireworks, and Hollywood dialogue.

But the sparrow--yeah, I like to think he's back at the nest telling his wife, “This guy?  He saved my life today.”  And then I like to think of Mrs. Bird saying, “Well, that’s nice.  But when are you going to clean up that pile of eggshells on your side of the nest which you pr...

Trailer Park Tuesday: Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis

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




"Do you wanna die?"
"No, mother."
"Then you will have to kill."
Thus begins the short, riveting trailer for Mindy McGinnis' debut novel Not a Drop to Drink .  Mindy is a fellow member of my Book Pregnant group--a couple dozen debut writers who were "pregnant" with "book babies" around the same time.  The rest of us in Book Pregnant have already given birth to our nove...