Life's a Mixed Bag, Ain't It?

Today I received two deliveries. The first delivery was a piece of mail from the IRS that said I owed $12,000 for my 2015 federal income taxes. Based on my income (or the general lack thereof), I suspected this had to be an error, a mistake compounded on on top of another mistake. Nonetheless, I pooped my metaphorical pants.

After chewing off some fingernails and stress-chugging my coffee, I dug through a couple of adequately maintained file drawers to retrieve my tax paperwork: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010...can you see where this is going? Every year present and accounted for, except 2015. More metaphorical pooping. But okay, I keep electronic records, too.

I booted up my laptop and opened my "Taxes" folder. And there it was, right there where I left it —my trusty 2015 Federal Income Tax .pdf file. Thanks, TurboTax. I reviewed my 1040 form, did a bit of online research, and chomped on my remaining fingernails. Son-of-a-bitch, I had, indeed, made a reporting error related to some (not shady, I swear) investment decisions in late 2015. Next, I called the Merrill Lynch 800 number and spoke to my finance guy, the recent college grad who answered the phone at the call center. After a few minutes of blame avoidance, he said something like, "It's probably okay. But you know, check with your tax guy because that's not my expertise." So I called my tax guy. "Dad," I said, "you aren't going to believe this shit."

My dad, who was at lunch with my mom, empathized with my frustration and angst, and patiently listened to the full story. He asked all the right questions and reassured me. Now I won't bore you with more minutiae about my 2015 tax filing, but suffice it to say, my dad ultimately agreed with the Merrill Lynch guy, and then said something like, "It's probably okay. But you should call the IRS." So, I did.

I dialed the number provided on IRS Notice CP2000 and, not surprisingly, encountered a hellish phone tree. I muttered under my breath and anger-mashed buttons as I navigated my way through a maze of insufficient choices, until at last, I found Bob. His voice was a summer breeze, warm and pleasant, and he brimmed with competence. I explained my situation to Bob who quickly grasped the nuance of each detail. "It's okay," he said. "Just send us that 1099-B and we'll re-calculate. Capital loss, something, something, something. You'll get a check for $300-400 in a few weeks from the IRS."

I'll get a check...I'll get a check...I'll...get...a...check. The words swirled in my head like a feather, then floated to a quiet gentle rest in my consciousness. "Bob,"I said, "I think I love you."

It was after noon and I had only just gotten off the phone with Bob when the doorbell rang. Another delivery. I ran to the closet and snatched a pair of jeans from a clothes hanger (don't judge...I was "working"). I pulled on the jeans and raced to the front door. No one was there, but a medium-sized padded envelope had been left on the mat. I remembered what day it was. My heart raced.

You've likely figured it out by now, probably saw it coming just like that missing 2015 tax file. I carried the package inside, placed it on the kitchen counter, and stared at it. This moment had been a long time in the making, and I considered waiting for someone else to come home before I opened the package. After all, getting published is a group effort. But writing is lonely work. I gently unsealed the envelope, slid out the contents, and held in my hand for the first time ever, a printed copy of my book.

Solid Ground is available in print and ebook 

at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers. 

Solid Ground - Giveaway Winners!

We have three lucky winners in the Solid Ground Giveaway contest! 

Congratulations to Dina Mellor, Mitch Watt, and Mary Lowery Good! I'll contact the winners via email shortly, and they'll each receive a digital Advance Reader Copy of Solid Ground today!

Incredibly tough day for everyone else (I'm sure?). In case you forgot...

The ebook of Solid Ground releases on Monday, April 24th, and can be pre-ordered now from Amazon, B&N, and other online retailers.

The print version of Solid Ground can be purchased now on Amazon and should be available later today from B&N and other online retailers.

Oh, and if you'd like to get your copy signed, just click here!

Happy reading everyone!

Solid Ground - Free Book Giveaway!

UPDATE (April 20): The print book is here! You can now order a paperback copy of Solid Ground from Amazon for $14.99. The print version will also be available for order from B&N and other online retailers tomorrow!


Solid Ground will be officially published on Monday, April 24^th and I’m so excited about sharing the book with the world that I’ve decided to give it away. Well, not to everyone, but to three of you. 

Register HERE for a chance to get an electronic copy of the book (free!) a full weekend before anyone else gets theirs.

This Friday, I’ll randomly draw three winners who will each receive a digital Advanced Reading Copy. If you’re interested, be sure to sign up before midnight (Pacific) on Thursday, April 20th.

PS: In case I haven't shilled enough yet...you can also pre-order a digital copy of Solid Ground now at Amazon, B&N, iBooks, and lots of other places online.  Oh yeah, and here's a reminder of how you can get your copy signed.

Thanks everybody!

Solid Ground: Pre-Order Links and Other Fun Stuff

UPDATE (April 20): The print book is here! You can now order a print copy of Solid Ground from Amazon for $14.99. The print version will also be available for order from B&N and other online retailers tomorrow!


On Monday, April 24th, you’ll finally be able to see what I’ve been doing since I left the bookselling business and fully immersed myself in the book writing business. In choosing a plot and theme for Solid Ground, I took the advice of Toni Morrison and others, who essentially say, write the book you want to read. I like to read books about how human beings struggle, how imperfect we are, how much we get in our own way and screw up our own lives, but within all that, despite all that, how we also find moments, even years, of enlightenment, happiness, and love. So, that's what I endeavored to write. I hope you find my efforts to be a worthwhile investment of your reading time. Honestly, I did my best not to write a shitty book.

Ordering
Digital versions of Solid Ground can be pre-ordered now for $6.99 in most of the places you can buy ebooks, including: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, etc. You'll get the ebook on April 24th.

Print copies will be available for order for $14.99 on Thursday, April 20th  at Amazon and from B&N and other sites on Friday, April 21st. If you order by Thursday, you’ll likely have it in your hand when it releases Monday, and possibly even a day or two earlier.

Signed Copies
I was amazed (and genuinely thrilled) that more than a hundred people responded when I asked who’d be interested in getting a signed copy of the book. If you weren’t just being kind, look for details soon on how to get your signed copy. And if you were just being kind, thanks for that too.
(But buy a copy anyway. Seriously. Buy it. Even if you don’t read it. Buy it. It's big, use it as a doorstop. And if your doors don't need stopping, stash it in the attic, you know, like a keepsake.)

Giving It Away (the book, not the ending)
One last note, I have three digital Advanced Reading Copies I’m GIVING AWAY next week BEFORE the RELEASE DAY. Stay tuned!

Thanks everyone!

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!

Who Are the 15 Best Paid Authors?

Listed below are the top earning authors of 2011 according to an article recently published in Forbes magazine.

James Patterson:  $94 million
Stephen King:  $39 million

Young Stephen King

Janet Evanovich:  $33 million
John Grisham:  $26 million
Jeff Kinney:  $25 million
Bill O’Reilly:  $24 million
Nora Roberts:  $23 million
Danielle Steel:  $23 million
Suzanne Collins:  $20 million
Dean Koontz:  $19 million
J.K. Rowling:  $17 million
George R.R. Martin:  $15 million
Stephenie Meyer:  $14 million
Ken Follett:  $14 million
Rick Riordan:  $13 million

Flavorwire notes several interesting trends and stats about the list.

• Thriller and Young Adult (YA) writers dominate the list (9 of 15).
• Among the top fifteen, there are 9 men and 6 women.
• Everyone on the list is white.
• 10 of the top 15 are at least fifty years old.
• 14 of the authors write fiction (Bill O'Reilly writes "non-fiction" although he lives in a fantasy world).

Having thoroughly reviewed the works of the top-paid authors, I'll be scrapping my current novel to begin work on a story about a quirky teenage detective-spy who lives in a fantastic medieval land, wherein he uses his dragon to solve heinous international murder mysteries each day, before becoming a were-pire (trademark pending) and drinking the blood of adolescent British witches at night.

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.

"The Sisters Brothers" Wins Tourney of Books

By Paul Gagne, Guest Blogger

The 2012 Tournament of Books concluded yesterday with a championship matchup between Teju Cole’s debut novel Open City and Patrick deWitt’s work The Sisters Brothers. It was a dream matchup – for me at least, as I had read both books – and in the end, deWitt’s modern western novel outgunned all other competitors. 

As I wrote in my initial review of Open City, surprisingly little happens in the novel. Still, its thoughtfulness and quiet power will stay with me more than any other book in the tournament. That The Sisters Brothers, a western set in 1850s northern California, prevailed in the opinion of ten out of sixteen judges, owes to three things chiefly – Eli, the winning main character in Sisters, the amount of sheer incident in Sisters versus the lack of same in Open City, and a worry that Teju Cole is aping the style of W.G. Sebald, whose work I have not read (though Austerlitz has been on my to-be-read radar for quite some time).

The Sisters Brothers is a fine diversion, featuring short-short-short chapters (sixty in total in under 400 pages) that are ideally suited for modern attention spans, while Open City introduces us to a novelist whose debut work demonstrates, at least in part, what it means to have consciousness, and ultimately, to be human.

I’m sorry, but this matchup is a no contest for me in favor of Open City. Unfortunately, a majority of the judges didn’t agree.

As for this year’s Tournament of Books, it introduced me to several books I wouldn’t have read otherwise, including both titles in the championship match. And heck, it got me to read 6 books in 6 weeks (giving a big boost to my goodreads.com challenge goal!), which I haven’t done since I commuted via the subway back in my Boston days.

Speaking of goodreads, add me as a “friend” on the site, and perhaps we can keep each other informed about great things to read, as well as get ready for next year’s Tournament of Books. 

Tournament of Books Moves to Second Round

By Paul Gagne, Guest Blogger

ToB Official Bracket

The Tournament of Books is kicking off its second round this week, and the literary scrapping is starting to heat up. As I mentioned in my prior ToB post, this event brings March Madness to literature, matching up contemporary works of fiction in head-to-head competition, bracketology-style.

I’ve been participating in the ToB for 4 years now, and each time I am struck anew at just how much the judges make the tournament. As there are no set rules for choosing winners in each literary matchup, it’s up to each judge to choose her own criteria in determining which book moves forward. Most of the time, this is satisfying. Other times, it's incredibly frustrating.

Let’s look at a couple of the matches that have been decided already, and then I’ll give my pick for Monday’s final first-round match, with my rationale.

From the judgments that have been made thus far, what I find most interesting is that both Bethanne Kelly Patrick, the editor of my new favorite website, Bookriot.com, and author Haven Kimmel, seem to have chosen their winners based on a belief in the future of literature and the output of their respective chosen winners.

The Tiger’s Wife vs. The Stranger’s Child (Judge - Bethanne Kelly Patrick)

This matchup is one in which I read both titles prior to the Tournament. The judge selected Tiger's Wife as the winner, and I would have made the same decision, but for different reasons. I wanted to love Hollinghurst's Stranger's Child, as I have been passionate about several other titles by him over the years, but it was a letdown, and I knew it would be by about three-quarters of the way through. I also had high expectations for The Tiger’s Wife, and for the most part, those were met.

Especially effective for me were the linking of family and national myth-creation to the story of grandfather and granddaughter in war-torn Serbia. And while I enjoyed the Obreht more than the Hollinghurst, I felt no lasting emotional connection to either, although Obreht had me momentarily near the end, when the grandfather eats dinner in a hotel where he had honeymooned years earlier. The scene is perfect, quiet and powerful, as the grandfather dines with the deathless man as a military siege nears the hotel.

Bracketology for Readers - Tourney of Books

Click the chart to to view an enlarged version.

By Paul Gagne, Guest Blogger

Have you filled out your bracket yet? Not that bracket. This one.

The folks over at The Morning News have been running the Tournament of Books concurrently with NCAA March Madness for eight years now, and it has helped to sustain a higher level of book discussion on the web.

In the Tournament, sixteen books are seeded from 1-4, with perceived powerhouse authors such as Haruki Murakami and Booker Prize-winner Julian Barnes receiving #1 seeds. Judges are assigned to each pair of books, with the winning book moving on to the next round, and so on until the final, which is decided by the opinions of all the judges, plus a tiebreaker.

If your favorite title gets eliminated before we reach the final four, don’t give up hope. There is also a Zombie round, in which a book knocked out in an early round comes back from the dead.

NPR explains the rules of the Tournament nicely, although if you think about the process of choosing the "best" book, what really makes one better than the other? This is not a heart-stopping contest decided by a buzzer-beater, and there won’t be any clutch fourth quarter free throw opportunities. There aren’t even points, after all. Judges bring biases to the table, and at least once, have admitted to not finishing both books they were assigned to evaluate. But like great basketball teams, books can have heart, they can finish strong, and on any given day, an underdog book can make a name for itself and inspire us all.