David Abrams's Blog, page 174

My First Time: Cinthia Ritchie

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 Cinthia Ritchie, author of the new novel Dolls Behaving Badly .  An Alaska resident, she is a former journalist with the Anchorage Daily News and a Pushcart Prize nominee.  Her work can be found at New York Times Magazine, Sport Literate,...

Judging a Book: I Want to Show You More by Jamie Quatro

Aluminum foil was invented in 1910, but it wasn't until this year that it found its true calling: a spot-on perfect design element on the cover of I Want To Show You More , the debut short story collection by Jamie Quatro coming from Grove/Atlantic in March.


I've just started reading Quatro's stories and they are eyebrow-raisingly good. The first, "Caught Up," is a short-short about a married woman standing on the precipice of commiting carnal adultery (she's already been having phone sex with...

Friday Freebie: A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash and Dolls Behaving Badly by Cinthia Ritchie

Congratulations to Carl Scott, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: The Book of Jonas by Stephen Dau, Black Flower by Young-ha Kim, and The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell.

This week's book giveaway is another plural prize offering.  One lucky reader will win copies of A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash and Dolls Behaving Badly by Cinthia Ritchie.

I've been touting the excellence of A Land More Kind Than Home quite a bit here at the blog.  There's a reason for that: it's excellent. ...

No More Rainbowfarts or Sparklepoop: Why Unicorn Drinks by C. W. Moss

Thanks to C. W. Moss, unicorns are no longer the snow-white beasts of our youth who prance through forests and fart rainbows.

If, like me, you're still scarred from watching the horrid, horrid animated version of Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn , in which the titular beast was voiced by Mia Farrow, then the outrageously insulting Why Unicorn Drinks is the book for you.  Among other things, Moss' pathetically-funny Unicorn is an alcoholic, a porn addict, and a murderer.


As he did in...

Trailer Park Tuesday: Big Sur

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday , a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.  Unless their last name is Grisham or King, authors will probably never see their trailers on the big screen at the local cineplex.  And that's a shame because a lot of hard work goes into producing these short marriages between book and video.  So, if you like what you see, please spread the word and help these videos go viral.





I've mentioned before how I first...

My First Time: Jan Richman

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 novelist and poet Jan Richman whose book, Thrill-Bent was recently published by Tupelo Press .  Her poetry collection Because the Brain Can Be Talked into Anything (LSU Press, 1995) was chosen by Robert Pinsky for the Walt Whitman Award from th...

Look What I Found: Heaven Can Wait by Leonore Fleischer

Look What I Found is an occasional series on books I've hunted-and-gathered at garage sales, used bookstores, estate sales, and the occasional pilfering from a friend's bookshelf when his back is turned.  I have a particular fondness for U.S. novels written between 1896 and 1931.  If I sniff a book and it makes me sneeze, I'm bound to fall in love.

To this day, if you say the words "liver-and-whey shake," I'm bound to get a little choked up.  Or if I hear plaintive notes coming...

Friday Freebie: The Book of Jonas by Stephen Dau, Black Flower by Young-ha Kim, The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell

Congratulations to Laura Hatfield, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: Thrill-Bent by Jan Richman.

This week's book give-away is another Friday "Threebie."  One lucky reader will have the chance to win a trio of terrific novels: The Book of Jonas by Stephen Dau (out in paperback at the end of this month), Black Flower by Young-ha Kim, and The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell.

Stephen Dau's debut novel The Book of Jonas has been called "a literary tour de force" by Kirkus Reviews; it also...

On the Road Again

After taking a breather from the flurry of bookstore readings and literary festival appearances last Fall, I'll be heading back out on the road for another round of events in support of Fobbit and Fire and Forget: Short Stories from the Long War , the anthology of short stories about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan coming from Da Capo Press .  I haven't said too much about Fire and Forget here at the blog (I'll have a longer post about it in the future), but I urge you to pre-order it or...

The Ones We Lost

For the length of a season, it seemed like we were losing all the good ones.  They say death comes in threes, but halfway into 2012, it felt more like sixes and sevens.  Each time we opened the paper to the obituary section or logged on to Twitter, it seemed like another legendary writer had passed on to that Final Draft in the Sky.

Bradbury.  Sendak.  Fuentes.

Every week, it seemed like another pillar of the literary community was crumbling.  Some of the deaths we'd se...