David Abrams's Blog, page 95

Friday Freebie: The Daylight Marriage by Heidi Pitlor

Congratulations to Charity Duprat, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: The Turner House by Angela Flournoy.

This week's book giveaway is The Daylight Marriage , the new novel by Heidi Pitlor (author of The Birthdays ). Read on for more information about The Daylight Marriage...

She still had time before work. She could go food shopping. She could fold the kids’ laundry and get the car washed and return some library books. Or Hannah could do something else. She could do something that she had...

Watchlist Countdown, Day 5: “The Relive Box” by T. Coraghessan Boyle

     Most people, when they got their first Relive Box, went straight for sex, which was only natural. In fact, it was a selling point in the TV ads, which featured shimmering adolescents walking hand in hand along a generic strip of beach or leaning in for a tender kiss over the ball return at the bowling alley. Who wouldn't want to go back there? Who wouldn't want to relive innocence, the nascent stirrings of love and desire, or the first time you removed her clothes and she...

Watchlist Countdown, Day 4: “California” by Sean Bernard

      We go with slick refilled glasses of wine into the living room, we sit on sofas and chairs, on the floor like children. The lights dim. A screen is pulled. Tape flaps, a fan whirs, a soundtrack clears its throat, and we watch film from an old projector. The projector reminds us of moments we’ve seen in movies, a nostalgia for a time we never knew.

       from “California” by Sean Bernard

Sean Bernard’s contribution to the Watchlist anthology is such a go...

Watchlist Countdown, Day 3: “Testimony of Malik, Israeli Agent, Prisoner #287690” by Randa Jarrar

They think I'm a spy. Me. A Kestrel. A very small falcon.
       from “Testimony of Malik, Israeli Agent, Prisoner #287690”  by Randa Jarrar

In her short story, Randa Jarrar (author of A Map of Home ) writes about a literal eye in the sky, a kestrel wheeling in circles through the clouds above the Mediterranean and the Middle East.  It's a good life, chasing moths and falling in love with a seagull, until the bird is captured and put in a small metal...

Watchlist Countdown, Day 2: “Nighttime of the City” by Robert Coover

She drifts through the bleak nighttime of the city like an image loosely astir in a sleeping head, disturbing its rest, destined for the violent surreality of dreams.
       from “Nighttime of the City” by Robert Coover

This short story which opens Watchlist is Grade A noir from one of our most interesting writers of short fiction.  Fans of Robert Coover ( Pricksongs & Descants: Fictions , The Origin of the Brunists , etc.) will find much to love here; those new t...

Watchlist Countdown, Day One: “The Taxidermist” by David Abrams, and an Introduction by editor Bryan Hurt

      "A blue-eyed elk would serve the son of a gun right for getting lucky his first time out," Tucker said aloud in the dead silence of his workshop. His voice was muffled by the feathers piled in soft mounds, the furs folded and stacked like blankets and the naked styrofoam mannequins stored in a jumble along the west wall.
       At forty-eight, Tucker Pluid was no longer embarrassed by the sound of his spoken thoughts. He'd worked alone in the drafty ply...

Sunday Sentence: I'd Walk With My Friends If I Could Find Them by Jesse Goolsby

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


His war is his rifle in his hands, gunpowder in his nose, a girl in the road.  How could he tell that story?  Why would he want to?

I'd Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them by Jesse Goolsby
(due out in June--pre-order now)

Friday Freebie: The Turner House by Angela Flournoy

This week's Friday Freebie book giveaway is the acclaimed debut novel by Angela Flournoy, The Turner House .  Read on for more information about the book...

The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years.  Their house has seen thirteen children grown and gone—and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit’s East Side, and the loss of a father.  The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shi...

The Return of The Quivering Pen (aka Son of Blog, aka QP 2.0), plus: A Sneak Peek at the Next Novel

Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth.  Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!”
      John 11:43-44

As it turns out, this blog was not dead, merely dormant.  Or, in the words of The Princess Bride, it was only mostly dead.


The Last Word , exclaimed with the bell-clapper bang of decisive finality was--well, it would appear to have been The Next-to-Last Word.  ...

The Last Word.

After more than four years of blogging about books, the publishing industry and writers' lives, I have decided to lay down my quivering pen in order to more fully concentrate on writing my own books.

This is not an easy decision to make because creating The Quivering Pen in May 2010 and sustaining it over the years has been a central and (mostly) enjoyable part of my life.

And that's the problem.  The Quivering Pen became a little too central to my daily writing routine as I found myself...