Some Book News

I have typically not used this blog for promotional purposes, but rather as a home for personal reflection and storytelling. I'm also conscious, though, of this blog being a piece of my writing portfolio, an outlet that more people I know may read than my fiction and poetry, and even a way of keeping tabs on me for folks who don't use much social media.

With that set of considerations in mind, I'm using today's blog post to share the news that I have two books coming in the fall.

I've been pretty focused on trying to get a book published since I finished my MFA in 2016. Some of that's a professional consideration, as the sort of teaching jobs I'd like to progress toward tend to require, or at least favor authors with at least one book (and for those from well outside the worlds of literary writing and academia, no, self-published books generally don't count). In addition to that practical piece, getting a full-length book published became the self-imposed albatross and asterisk to my writing career. About a decade ago, I distinctly remember thinking to myself that I wasn't sure if I could very genuinely call myself a writer if I had never published anything (problematic thinking, no doubt, but it’s where I was at). Since then, I've published stories, poems, essays and book reviews with over 150 different publications. Still, the point lingered in my mind that without a book, it didn't feel like I had really accomplished my childhood dreams of being an author.

After two years of sending out different versions of a collection anchored in stories I'd written during my MFA program, I turned back to a book project I had started before I moved to Oregon. It was a linked collection of largely surreal or downright speculative short stories about circus performers. I was happy with a lot of the stories, but dissatisfied with the overarching narrative that tied them together--largely for resolving in a forced happy ending that hadn't felt right when I wrote it, and I only felt less at home with after the passage of five years.

So, I went back to the circus with a vengeance, revising, writing new material, and ultimately preparing a second full-length manuscript to at least theoretically better my chances at getting a book out into the world.

On December 12--my son's birthday—-I got an email while we were visiting the Georgia Aquarium. Duck Lake Books, a new small press, was offering publication for the original collection I'd been submitting, You Might Forget the Sky Was Ever Blue.

After I had signed the contract and after I had shared the good news of a book forthcoming on social media, after Christmas and after our little family had traveled to see Heather's folks, I got another email, this time from Hoot 'n' Waddle--a small press that has been around a bit longer. They wanted to publish Circus Folk.

You Might Forget the Sky was Ever Blue will be out in September.

Circus Folk will be out in November.

I expect I'll be discussing these projects more on social media, here, and at other Internet locales in the months to come. I should also note that my publishers will be posting updates, too--for those on Twitter, they're @ducklakebooks and @hootnwaddle.

For now, my sincere thanks to everyone who helped out with these books in ways big and small, direct and indirect, even if it was as simple as believing me and stopping to read what I had to say from time to time. I'm very grateful, and so excited for these books to take flight.