Solid Ground - On Sale, April 24th!

Photo: Kyle Sheridan
Cover Design: Natasha Snow

Holy crap, I'm almost published! On Monday, April 24th, my book Solid Ground will be released by NineStar Press.

I've shared the cover photo and a few details about the book on Goodreads, but many of you have asked for more information. Well, alright...

About the Novel
Solid Ground is the story of Conor McLeish, a middle-aged guy with a kind heart and an unfortunate Jameson habit, who simply wants to be a better man. He has a steady job, a Buddhist boyfriend, and a published debut novel, but he's weighed down by a secret and a truckload of emotional baggage he's carried from his youth.

As his fortieth birthday nears, Conor wants nothing more than to move ahead, to stop sabotaging his life and finally gain his footing. Life's not perfect though, and neither is Conor. He is his own worst enemy, and he continues to stumble over his hard-earned dysfunction.

Much of the novel is set in central Florida, where both literal and metaphorical alligators roam the riverbanks. Solid Ground is an intimate human story, a tale of personal evolution, that a wide audience can connect with and enjoy. The book is both dark and humorous, similar in tone to the works of Jonathan Tropper or John Irving.

Solid Ground is a work of literary fiction, and if I've done it right (and I think I have), it will feel like real life – full of smiles, dreams, tears, laughs, regrets, loss, dysfunction, love, and maybe, a bottle or two of decent whiskey.

There you go. Now, if you want more details, you'll have to buy the book and read it for yourself!

Coming Soon
Next week, I'll share links to Amazon, B&N, and other online retailers where you can pre-order/ buy the book in eBook format for $6.99 or in paperback for $14.99 (it's not published in hardcover).
For those who are interested, I'm also standardizing a process for getting signed copies!

Turn Style - Photos of Writers In Strange Places

Tom Wolfe and Kurt Vonnegut

It's said that a picture is worth a thousand words. So, what are unique pictures of your favorite authors worth?

Flavorwire.com has assembled a collection of interesting photographs that capture some of our greatest writers in odd circumstances and poses.

Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Vladimir Nabokov, Maya Angelou, and more.

Click here to find more images like the pic on the left of lit giants Tom Wolfe and Kurt Vonnegut.

Turn Style articles highlight compelling images and other amusing content related to art and fashion.

Coolest Author Recommendation Tool Ever

Those of you who worked at Borders will no doubt remember the amazingly clever Literature Map which we linked in the Atlas look-up application. For those of you who aren't familiar with this awesome tool, the Literature Map is a public website that allows you to enter an author's name into a search box and then be provided with an array of similar authors.

The ability to find related or suggested authors is handy, but what makes the Literature Map so fun is the stylish way in which the "similar author" results are displayed. The author name you entered appears in the middle of a dark blue screen, and the suggested author names are then displayed around the center of the screen, only they are scattered as if in a virtual universe. Those authors in closest proximity to the name you originally input are intended to be the most relevant recommendations. As a bonus, you can then just click on the name of any suggested author who appears, and the Literature Map re-populates with the newly selected author at the center of the universe.

Screen capture from the Literature Map.

I had forgotten about this awesome website until I saw a recent article about on Flavorwire. Since gift-giving time was coming up, I thought I would share it.

Give it a shot - access the site, type in your favorite author, and then enjoy the tiny solar system of writers that materializes.

(If you want to save or share the website, you can save the link or click the little envelope directly below and email this article.)

Obnoxious Authors and Bookstore Shennanigans

Most authors understand that bookstores are businesses and that they, the authors, are simply one important component of the total bookselling machine. Authors are typically gracious and pleasant people who show respect and appreciation in their interactions with booksellers.Occasionally though, an author comes along who exhibits a surprising lack of perspective and awareness about how the industry really works (or that bookselling is an industry at all). 

As you would expect, these uninformed folks are often the authors, celebrity or otherwise, who have just been published for the first time. Jane Lynch, who plays Glee's Sue Sylvester, demonstrates just how challenging these authors can be in this humorous video short promoting her new book. Viewing Tip: Click on the title bar at the top of the clip to open the video in a larger YouTube window.