Ignore what the Lady Mime Says: I’m not Dead

In the nineteen-eighties and early nineties, before I became the dour man-in-black with a handlebar mustache you see in my profile pictures, I was a mime. I was goofy and loose-limbed and adept at falling down on all sorts of surfaces. I even had rainbow suspenders. Though not working enough to support a middle-class lifestyle, I could earn as much as ninety dollars an hour. Not bad for a long-haired, silent leaping gnome. I became an extremely minor celebrity in Columbus Ohio.

Toward the end of my career, I was approached by a young woman who wanted to perform as a mime, but with her act being informed with the light of her Christian faith. I didn’t exactly register how that was going to be done. Still, I gave her what advise and encouragement I could.

The upheaval in my life at that time, along with the increasing number of pains in my back and joints, dulled my enthusiasm for performing. Slowly, the jobs started drying up. It wasn’t just that my normal contacts began to forget me. The aspiring lady mime had begun to tell my former clients that I had left town, or even died. That were her actions illumined by her faith.

Now I’m primarily a writer, I have learned by the mistakes of my former occupation the importance of reasonable and sustained self-promotion, because otherwise the people who might buy your stuff will think your dead. So here I am, telling you I’m not dead.

My first novel, Camp Arcanum is a horror/comedy about sex, magick and power tools. It has been available on Amazon and B&N since March 2014 to modest sales and very satisfying reviews. My publisher, Post Mortem Press, was confident enough in it to contract its sequel, Proserpina’s Bower. That will be available May 2015. If you’re in the market for a couple of smart, funny books, I know where you can get them at a reasonable price.

And I’m not dead.