Mike Wehner's Blog, page 2

San Francisco Book Review of The Girl Who Can Cook - 4.5/5 stars

The first critical review came back for my book and it was positive. Yay. I'm glad the reviewer liked it. Here's the full review from the San Francisco Book Review:The Girl Who Can Cook By Mike Wehner Progressive Thoth, $15.99, 290 pages, Format: eBookStar Rating: 4.5 / 5What is that saying? Revenge is a dish best served cold? Not in this case. It's served hot as schnitzel right out of the pan. Alex's best friend was shot several times and murdered by his girlfriend, Erin. Alex and Charlie (a mutual friend of Alex and John) vow to kill Erin if she is not convicted of the murder. Sure enough, she is released from custody to go lead her life as chef and owner of the German-style restaurant Essen. As Alex contemplates how he will kill Erin, he ends up becoming too close to her. He teaches himself how to cook, how to use a knife set (something crucial to a chef's success), and goes to interview for a job at Essen even though he is an engineer by trade. The characters in The Girl Who Can Cook all have vivid personalities and characteristics. Alex is a bit of a punk at times and at other times he's sweet and sensitive. He's a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde if you ask me. Charlie reminded me of a frat boy who never grew up, drinking his way into the wee hours of the night, crashing on whoever's couch, and waking up only because he did not asphyxiate on his own sickness during the night. Erin, even though Alex made her out to be a vicious killer, was actually my favorite character because she was so passionate about her job and really very forthcoming. She never seemed to have secrets she was hiding from Alex. Emily and Mike, the side characters, were also very vividly described. Mike being a big guy with a big heart and Emily, Erin's sister, being a lithe blondie who had her sister's back at all times. I liked how John, the dead boyfriend, was described by both Alex and Emily at different times in the book with completely different personality characteristics. This made the reader think, "Which one of them knew the real John?" Another feature of the book that I liked was its organization. The chapters were broken down into both Alex's Grief Journal, Alex's point of view, and Erin's point of view. This made the book read very easily and smoothly. A fantastic read that kept me engaged the whole time.

Audiobook available on Amazon!

The audiobook of my novel is available on Amazon. It was read by me and my wife Kate. The algorithm ignored my typing our names into the "read by" field and credited her as "Catherine". The robot apocalypse is real. =PHere's a link if interested:Amazon Listing

I have an Etsy shop.

I have an ETSY shop. I never had much there but over the last few days I've posted some popular prints and a few original painting and what not so if you'd like to check it out here's the link.https://www.etsy.com/shop/mikewehnerart

To aspiring authors everywhere: a medium thing.

This is a painting of my dog Henry. I almost killed him the other day with stupidity and procrastination and I am sure I'll write a Medium diddy about that when I get some spare time but for today here is a few paragraphs dedicated to motivating aspiring writers, the ones who tell authors about the books they are going to write and not the ones they've started.Link to story on the Writing Cooperative

Weekend Art Markets - Free Comics Drawings for Kids

I love this stupid sketch. I did it to illustrate an essay but I know this is going to be me in forty years. I'll have the elbow patches and everything.Some news for the week! I am going to be exhibiting art on both Saturday and Sunday in town (thankfully). On Saturday we are having our annual fair of the arts and I will be in booth 77, on Kirkwood in front of Chase bank.I've got some new stuff this week, some landscapes and a bunch of tiny animal watercolors because I don't like the looks I get when people hit a huge tuft of visionary art without a little break from the super-bizarre. I like to scare you and challenge you but Jesus I could throw one sunset in, right? Plus it's fun to try new things and learn.I will have a sign up sheet Saturday morning and the first ten kids (with their adults) who ask for a comic drawing will get one done free. I will do AS MANY of these as I possibly can but I am committing to ten. Sign up early and have your superhero ready. For the love of god and for the sake of the other kids, no Spider-Man. The stupid webbing on his outfit takes forever.Sunday I will be on the south side of town in Artisan Alley. It's far more relaxed there so if you want to bring your kid there then I can all but guarantee free art for your kid.As always, buy my book five times over. Tell five people. If you enjoyed it at least. It's come to my attention that this subject matter and strong female lead make for a good book club book. I read by myself but by all means get it in your book club. Someone tell Reese Witherspoon while you're at it, not sure my tweets will convince her to read it. Is that over-confident? Probably but you don't get anything unless you ask. Art is my job. Words are my life. HELP.

Monday, Monday

A few things:1. Thank you to everybody who helped my $.99 sale be a success over the weekend. I sold a lot of books and can't wait to get some feedback.2. The website is going to be undergoing maintenance this week so things make display funny for a few days.3. A heads up for Bloomingtonians: I am going to be doing a reading as part of the Player's Pub spoken word series on July 12th. It's 5 bucks at the door and when it gets closer I will post more details.4. I'm going to be at art fairs and markets all over Indiana this summer selling original art, watch this feed for my location each weekend.

$.99 Sale. Really.

My Kindle countdown deal has started. For the next 40 hours the eBook of my novel will be just $.99 in Amazon. After that it goes up to $1.99 and so on and so forth.You bought the book? Make an Amazon account for your dog and buy it. He might like it, YOU DON'T KNOW.Thank you everyone for the support. I love you all.https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CML6LYZ

Artist / Author or Author / Artist?

I don't know what the hell I am. I have to design a new banner thing for live art and author events and I don't know how to describe myself in a way that doesn't sound stupid and is authentic. I'm too cheap to buy two banners so this is my happy medium. It should say:Mike Wehner: Creative multi-tool, emphasis on tool. But really if you can make stuff up with it he probably does it. He draws, he paints, he plays, he sings, he writes, he rhymes and he gets eight hours of sleep almost every night.This is how I imagine visits to this table will go.Oh, you're selling novels? Yeah, but...Who wrote it?Me.What's this?A painting of a lion on a sand dune.Who painted it?Me.WHAT IS THAT?That's an illustrated poem. Before you ask, I wrote it and drew it. And that's a Wolverine made of ink. And that's a pastel landscape. Those are watercolors for kids. That's a portrait of a dog and that's a portrait of some kid. That's Jim Carrey. That's a gouache study of Hieronymus Bosch because I liked how it sounded. That's a visionary oil painting on paper. I DID IT ALL AND GUESS WHAT THIS ISN'T EVEN WHAT I'M GOOD AT. GO GET ME A GUITAR. I DON'T HAVE KIDS, OK. WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?Then they walk away, not impressed but deeply concerned.

Rip Anthony Bourdain

Spent the morning making this portrait. I'm going to hang it above my desk to remind myself to live as intensely as I can so long as I am lucky enough to be here. I was a huge fan, anyone who has read my book can probably hear the echo of his footsteps in my words. He was an original punk but that ethos will live on in me. Fuck everything that isn't good. Fuck suicide. I'll miss you anyways.I've lost an incredible number of personal heroes to suicide. I'll spend the rest of the day thinking about that.

Being Silly

Here's a silly poem called "A poem for those that think evolution isn’t a thing."https://medium.com/interesting-sh-t/a-poem-for-those-that-think-evolution-isnt-a-thing-368610988722