Scott Semegran's Blog
September 18, 2025
Newsletter: September 2025 Edition
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Welcome to the September 2025 edition of my newsletter. It’s been a few months since I’ve sent out a newsletter, but it’s not for lack of interest. I had an eventful summer and much of it was recovering from a bout with covid, then tending to my wife as she recovered from a serious injury. I was glad to care for my wife, but covid can go straight to hell (seriously, get vaccinated). Anyway, I wrote a lot of fiction this summer and my wife has been editing a novel manuscript that I finished back in May. I wrote a new novel manuscript later in the summer and I completed the first draft of it yesterday! I’m hoping to send both of these to my literary agent later this year, so he can hopefully find publishing homes for both of them.
A surprising thing that happened this past August was learning that my novel The Codger and the Sparrow won the Discovery Prize for Fiction in the Writers’ League of Texas Book Awards. I was shocked when they notified me, to say the least. Winning an award from a group of writers is a BIG honor for me. According to the Writers’ League of Texas, “the WLT introduced the Discovery Prize to recognize one outstanding book in each category published by independent presses, university presses, and/or self-published authors… for its fresh voice, inventive story, or some other element that made it stand out.” I’d like to thank the WLT for this prestigious award. I’m honored!
September 4, 2025
Scott Semegran Interviews James Wade
On Saturday, July 12th, I drove from Austin to Wimberley, Texas to spend time at Fair Dinkum Coffee Shop with award-winning author James Wade, and to talk about writing and books and his latest novel Narrow the Road, an excellent work of historical fiction that—in my estimation—is somewhere between Huckleberry Finn and The Body by Stephen King. It’s also, I believe, his best novel yet. At this point in time and history around our interview, Texas had just experienced its worst flooding in a while. Initially, we glumly talked about the victims from Camp Mystic in Kerr County and the poor response from political leaders in Texas, but that wasn’t our focus for this interview. We were there in that quaint coffee shop to talk about Narrow the Road, and so much more. Here’s where we started.
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Scott Semegran: Let’s talk about your new book, the new novel Narrow the Road. It’s your fifth novel in six years. You’re quite the prolific writer. It’s such a fantastic book. You received your first Publishers Weekly starred review. What was the initial nugget of inspiration for you and this story?
James Wade: I had spent a good deal of time researching East Texas around the Great Depression era for my last novel, Hollow Out the Dark, and even after I’d written the book it still felt like there was more to tell about this time period and this place. So I had my setting, but I wasn’t sure what the story would be. I decided to start in a town I’d always wanted to write about—Manning, Texas. It was a mill town. Now, it’s nothing more than basically a historical marker, but Manning was a thriving mill town in the early 1900s, and my great-grandmother was born there, and so I had always heard of Manning growing up, and how it was purely a company town. That means the company built your house. They stocked the store and the commissary where you spent your wages. There were movie theaters that the company would pay for movies to come in and for performers. So it was really the most labor-focused community. Also, it was segregated. They had whites in one area Blacks in the other. They also had Italians in one area, which I didn’t know there were a ton of Italians in East Texas in the 1920s. So, I was fascinated by Manning and the way that the town worked, the way they got supplies there on the rail and brought in things like great blocks of ice that took several people to unload off the train. So I had all this interest and background with Manning, and then when I sat down to write, I realized it was going to be a story about this boy’s journey, in both the physical and spiritual sense. So alas, we had to leave Manning pretty early on.
As both a reader and a writer, I love stories where you have a point A and a point B, and then you just go along the path to something. It’s a lovely metaphor for grander themes, but on a more practical level it kind of keeps the momentum going for the writer. It takes a little bit of the pressure off. You already have some built-in motion happening.
SS: I’ve read all of your novels and I noticed something starkly different with this one. So, unlike your other novels, which have these unrelenting forces coming in from the outside causing the protagonist to do something in particular, whether it’s people from the outside, coming in doing things to them, someone dies, or someone’s making decisions for them. In this novel, that inciting force is coming from within a family and, particularly, the repercussions from William’s father’s decisions. So, can you talk about this change in focus? Because for me, at least having read four of your books before, it was rather a stark difference, and I really became fascinated with the story earlier on because of that difference. Can we talk about that?
JW: With this novel and for this character, William Carter, his circumstances are still dictated by outside forces. He’s in the position he’s in based on a number of things: the Great Depression, failing cotton farm, his mother’s illness and her refusal to be treated by doctors, the choices that his father has made. All of this is outside of his control, certainly. But to your point, every action in the book happens because William makes a decision. First one, then another, and we see him take agency of not just his life but of the plot, and that is very much on purpose to where, from the moment that he makes the decision to leave to the moment that the book ends, he is the one who was in control of the story. And that is part of the hero’s journey, and it puts him in that light, and it lets the reader be close to him. We see how he agonizes over some of these decisions.
August 20, 2025
THE CODGER AND THE SPARROW is the Discovery Prize Winner for Fiction
THE CODGER AND THE SPARROW is the Discovery Prize Winner for Fiction in the 2024 Writers' League of Texas Book Awards. According to the Writers’ League of Texas website, “the WLT introduced the Discovery Prize to recognize one outstanding book in each category published by independent presses, university presses, and/or self-published authors.” Because of this, I’m honored that they selected my novel as the Discovery Prize Winner for Fiction.
For more information: https://writersleague.org/programs/annual-book-awards/2024-book-award-winners-and-finalists/
May 27, 2025
Newsletter: May 2025 Edition
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Welcome to the May 2025 edition of my newsletter. What a wild past few months it’s been in the publishing and writer worlds. AI is still on the loose absorbing copyrighted works and spitting out gibberish including in a published summer reading list in a major city newspaper of books that don’t exist. A conventionally attractive white dude lands a two-book publishing deal for books he hasn’t written yet, simply because he’s kind of handsome and confesses in public that he likes to read; angry, hardworking authors are losing their minds. And to top it all off, the orange-goblin administration is tearing away funding from the arts through claw backs from NEH, NEA, and more. It’s common knowledge that all great societies have a flourishing art scene. What’s fueling this attempt to destroy creative culture in the U.S.? Greed and tax-cuts for the rich.
March 10, 2025
Newsletter: March 2025 Edition
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My Latest Book, An Excellent Author Interview from the Archives, Entertainment Recommendations, and MoreSubscribe to get the newsletter in your email inbox. Never miss an update. Subscribe today!
Photo by Scott Semegran
Welcome to the March 2025 edition of my newsletter. It’s been a great month so far! I published a new book on March 4th. I was a featured author at a book festival on March 8th. But as I’ve long known, I’m on the proverbial roller coaster in the life of an author. Whenever good things happen, silence and rejection is sure to follow. Sigh. But I guess that’s life as some say. Anyway, upward and onward to the newsletter.
Let’s start off by saying that my latest book Starman After Midnight came out on March 4th and I couldn'‘t be happier. I love its pocketbook-sized format and newsprint-style paper. It's received some lovely reviews which you can read on Booklist, BlueInk Review, Kirkus Reviews, Lone Star Literary Life, and so on. I had the best pre-order campaign of any of my books so far. It’s a humorous little book with some mystery and suspense, even a tad of magical realism. It takes place in a suburban neighborhood where two beer-drinking neighbors who couldn’t be more different discover a naked man on their security cameras walking around at night. They form a posse of neighbors to find out who this mysterious man is. I would love it if you bought a paperback or eBook.
I was a featured author at the Hill Country Literary Festival this past weekend in Bulverde, Texas at the Mammen Family Public Library. What a beautiful library and a fun event. I was on the “Paths to Publishing” panel with three other authors. Our moderator was Lori Mammen who asked great questions. I also read a couple of pages from my new novel Starman After Midnight. There were so many great authors featured there including May Cobb, Katie Gutierrez, Kimberly Garza, Lucy Griffith, Jenny Browne, and so many more. I sold some books and signed some books, plus got a sweet swag bag. A fantastic day overall!
February 13, 2025
Newsletter: February 2025 Edition
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Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash
Welcome to the February 2025 edition of my newsletter and… Did you watch that Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl Half Time show? I’m sure you did and, if you didn’t—oh man, it was a doozy! Packed full of symbolism, it was one for the ages, surely to be studied and referenced for a long time to come. Without mentions of blunts, hoochie mamas, or bling as many may expect, it was a masterclass in Black history, U.S. political division, Lamar’s place in pop culture, and one of the most biting finales in a hip-hop beef EVER (sorry, Drake. Good luck coming back from this one). I really, really enjoyed it. There were the obligatory social media posts afterwards of “I didn’t get it” and that’s to be expected. Lamar is a next-level artist who can navigate between low and high brow, tell complicated stories, and drop bangers. Dude won a Pulitzer Prize for crying out loud (other popular musicians to do that = zero). Those of us in the business of telling stories recognized his mastery. He did it at the Super Bowl of all places. And the funny thing is, I don’t even like to watch football. I had to power through several minutes of some boring excuse for a sport to get to the good stuff. Anyway, up and onward to the newsletter.
Last month, I completed a first draft of a novel I started working on in July 2024. I’m keeping the title and description under wraps for now. It came out to 74,000 words in length, four thousand more than my target of 70k words. I felt really inspired writing this first draft. It brought me a lot of joy, which is something to celebrate in these troubled political times. Rather than inundate myself in national news, I curbed my desire to do just that and focused on writing this novel. It took a lot of discipline! It would have been easy to sink into the political-news rabbit hole and fume and seethe and grit my teeth, something I did a lot from 2016 – 2020 when our orange-baby overlord miraculously won the presidency the first time. But I was determined to focus on the joy of writing and I did just that.
January 6, 2025
Newsletter: January 2025 Edition
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Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash (and enhanced by Scott Semegran)
Welcome to the January 2025 Edition of my newsletter and the beginning of a new year. I don’t know about you, but for me, 2024 was a mixed bag. Some amazing things happened, but some terrible things happened as well. My beloved cat and social media star, Berri, passed away in May. Then our family dog, Victory, passed away the week before Christmas. So sad! And don’t get me started on the U.S. presidential election: the saddest thing of all in 2024. That orange felonious sexual-predatory insurrectionist for president? Yuck! We could have had JOY, someone with intelligence and common sense, and our first woman for president. Anyway, onward to the writer newsletter stuff.
As for my writer self, 2024 was a bang-up kick-ass year. So many fantastic things happened, some of which were bucket-list items. Here’s my 2024 in a nutshell.
2024 Writer's Wrapped:
Published my 9th book The Codger and the Sparrow on March 22nd. Paperback from TCU Press and audiobook from Vibrance Press.
Book launch event at BookPeople on March 28th in Austin, Texas hosted by author extraordinaire James Wade (what?!)
Book launch event at Nowhere Bookshop on March 30th in San Antonio, Texas hosted by fiction grandmaster Andrew Porter (what-what?!?!)
Prepped my 10th book Starman After Midnight for March 4, 2025 release (my tenth book? WTF?!)
Finished first draft of my 11th book (OMG!)
52k words into first draft of my 12th book (what’s happening??? I’m on a roll!)
Appeared on live TV (so weird LOL)
Featured author at Boerne Book Fest (awesome)
Featured author at Greater Austin Book Fest (awesome)
Interviewed on the Desideratum Podcast by Theresa Bakken along with the narrator of my audiobook for The Codger and the Sparrow: Brian P. Craig (a special episode)
Interviewed on the Simply Write podcast by Polly Campbell (also special)
December 17, 2024
Austin Liti Limits Episode 64 with ANTOINE WILSON is Out Now
Austin Liti Limits Episode 64 with award-winning author ANTOINE WILSON is available now. He talks to me about his excellent novel MOUTH TO MOUTH, one of Barack Obama's favorite books of 2022. Such a fantastic interview! Check it out now over at the Austin Liti Limits website.
Or watch right here:
December 1, 2024
Newsletter: December 2024 Edition
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Welcome to the December 2024 edition of my newsletter and the beginning of the December holiday season! My family celebrates secular Christmas, a version that focuses on our family. For many including Linus on A Charlie Brown Christmas TV special, this holiday is also about the birth of Christ. But in America, we all know that Christmas is really about Santa Claus and a decorated tree and presents and candy and watching classic Christmas movies and drinking spiked eggnog and… y’all know the holiday drill. So whether you believe in Christ or believe in Santa (or BOTH!), this is the perfect time of year to argue about that, but also to enjoy treats and movies and stuff. Anyway, onward to the newsletter content / wordy part / my thoughts and ramblings!
One thing I promised myself NOT to write about after the 2024 U.S. election was politics. Even though for some fucked-up reason, America elected a sexual predator / felon / narcissist / moron who can barely string a cogent sentence together as our next president, I promised myself to move on and discuss other more important topics, preferably books or publishing or creative writing, all of which are much more interesting than an orange fascist man-baby regurgitating word-salad. So, as promised, this is NOT a political post. What are the books I liked best in 2024? Well, let me tell you.
Best classic book reread: Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck. Funny and empathetic, what a great read about the comradery of downtrodden friends. If you thought Steinbeck only wrote downers, then you’d be wrong. Steinbeck wrote several comedies. I know! Hard to believe, but it’s true. Start with this novel.
November 18, 2024
Simply Write with Polly Campbell Featuring Scott Semegran and his Novel The Codger and the Sparrow
I'm pleased to announce my appearance on the Simply Write with Polly Campbell podcast where we discuss my writing process, character development, and the book awards. I really, really enjoyed chatting with Polly and I hope you enjoy listening to us talk about writing. We do jump into the weeds and wade through writer-nerd territory, but I loved it!
Listen Now:
If you enjoy listening to podcasts in your preferred audio servce, then here are links to several:
