David Abrams's Blog, page 184

My First Time: Deni Y. Béchard

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 Deni Y. Béchard, author of Vandal Love (a novel that won the Commonwealth Writers Prize) and Cures for Hunger (a memoir about growing up the son of a French Canadian bank robber).  Béchard was born in British Columbia to French Canadian and Am...

Fobbit Tour: Notes From the South Dakota Festival of Books

"I am sockless in South Dakota."

That's what I tweeted Friday morning when I unpacked my suitcase in my Sioux Falls Holiday Inn hotel room and discovered, heart wilting, that I had neglected to pack anything with which to clothe my feet for the five days in South Dakota and then in Minneapolis.  I'd been so busy working at the Day Job right up until my departure for readings at Montana State University and Elk River Books in Livingston, Montana, that I'd thrown armloads of clothes and toi...

The New York Times Book Review Applauds Fobbit

In case you didn't already see the skywriting, social media boasting, the David Abrams Jumbotron feed, or hear the marching band I hired to play outside your bedroom window, here's the latest news:

Fobbit is reviewed in today's New York Times Book Review.

Let me say that again: my debut novel, a trade paperback original, is reviewed in the Sunday New York Times Book Review.  I never thought I'd type those words in that exact sequence, but here we are, in the Land of Dreams Fulfilled.

Here's...

Fobbit Tour: Elk River Books in Livingston, MT

Walking into Elk River Books in downtown Livingston, Montana, is like walking into a closet.

A closet packed with some of the finest, well-tended literature you'll ever find in a shop its size, that is.  It's a place where you are struck not by expanse, but by intimacy--which, in today's world of plush toys and hissing espresso machines competing for our book-centered attention, is a good thing.  A little cozy quiet focuses us on the matter at hand: buying a book, plain and simp...

Friday Freebie: Panorama City by Antoine Wilson

Congratulations to JoeAnn Hart, the winner of last week's Friday Freebie(s): The Dark Rose by Erin Kelly, Kings of Colorado by David E. Hilton, A Young Wife by Pam Lewis, and Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane.

This week's book giveaway is Panorama City , the new novel by Antoine Wilson from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  Antoine is this week's guest at The Quivering Pen's "My First Time" series and you can click here to read all about what it was like to open a box full of copies...

Here's to Small Fan Clubs, Big Hearts and Bonus Poops: Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend
by Matthew Dicks
St. Martin's Press
Guest review by Jim Thomsen

Matthew Dicks deserves a small audience.

This is a compliment.

We often say that novelists we admire “deserve a wider audience.”  The idea is that more readers equals more appreciators, which, sadly, hasn’t proven to be the case these days for most literary worthies, I suspect.  Often what you get are people who pick up a fifteen-minute-long buzz on somebody, grab one of the author’s books, put...

Trailer Park Tuesday: Tell Everyone I Said Hi by Chad Simpson

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.





More than any book trailer I've s...

My First Time: Antoine Wilson

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 Antoine Wilson, author of Panorama City which arrives in bookstores tomorrow.  It's being published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  His first novel, The Interloper was published by Other Press in 2007.  Wilson was born in Montreal and...

Fobbit Tour: The Tattered Cover in Denver

The last time I was in Denver, I was trying to get a role in a Francis Ford Coppola movie.  It was 1982 and I'd driven down to the Mile High City from Laramie, Wyoming on a lark with a friend of mine after we'd seen an ad for an open cattle-call audition for The Outsiders .  At the time, I was majoring in theater at the University of Wyoming and thought I was pretty hot-shit as an actor.  In fact, my shit was so hot, I was convinced there was no way FFC could deny my potential a...

Friday Freebie: The Dark Rose, Kings of Colorado, A Young Wife and Moonlight Mile

Congratulations to Cindi Hoppes, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: Vandal Love and Cures for Hunger  by Deni Y. Bechard from Milkweed Editions.

Congratulations are also in order for Andrea Peacock, winner of the year's membership in The Nervous Breakdown Book Club .  Andrea will be receiving a book a month from Brad Listi and the good folks at TNB .

Happy Reading to both of you!

This week's book giveaway is informally called "Clear the Shelf of All Those Friday Freebies Which Have Bee...