Announcing the Release of My Short Story Collection: Something Like Bliss

Fire up your Kindles Fiction Lovers!

I’d like to take a moment to announce the upcoming release of my story collection “Something Like Bliss.” The Kindle release is pretty much slated for January 29th 2017, roughly a fortnight from the Tropic of Capricorn. I’m practicing a Capricorn, as you might already know. While I had originally planned on putting out my book this past June, a number of obstacles prevented this from happening. I find I keep tripping over life or it keeps tripping over me. Anyway I’m excited to see this project finally coming into fruition. All of the stories, save one, have been published in literary journals. Below you will find a roster of the lucky lit mags. Three of my stories first appeared in my MFA Thesis at Pacific University. They’re tickled pink to be freed from their buckram binding.

Many of the stories in this collection cross genre boundaries as well as myriad emotional landscapes. “El Mariachi” is set in Mexico and centers on the unrequited love a young man has for his aunt. “A Private Language” is an updated, reconfigured Stand By Me, following the lives of 4 latchkey boys, culminating in a gruesome moment that will forever change them. Some of the stories have a fabulist element. “Rejects from the Pretzel Factory” is a comical take on the exploitation of a sweet old lady, a former Rockette, who has been roped into a greedy corporation’s ad campaign. Also, included is “The Itch of Runaway Souls,” which was published this past April in the new insert of the Chicago Tribune’s Printers Row.

I’m not going to pretend I don’t have a favorite, but I’m also not going to share that with you either. Gonna play possum. Seriously though, I waited a long while to share this collection with the public because I wanted it to be just so. I’m most passionate about shorter works. I’ve always been a devoted reader of pithier prose: Flannery O’Connor, Kafka, Borges, Chekhov, Bernie Malamud. And of those writers who go long, I favor their short stories: Haruki Murakami, Thomas Coraghessan Boyle, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Hannah Tinti, Pete Fromm, Phillip K. Dick.

Maybe the time we live in is indicative of my predilection for concise works. I believe it’s Francine Prose who says something
to the effect that in short stories “each word must go on the trial of its life” in order to make it into the final cut. Something like that, and when it works, it’s something like bliss.
Thanks for all of your support and I look forward seeing you at the upcoming readings and such.

Publication List

APT
Breakwater Review
Chicago Tribune’s Printer’s Row
Digging Through The Fat
Euphony
Gravel
Merida
New Pop Lit
Newtown Literary
Snapping Twig
Storychord
The Main Street Rag
The Summerset Review
The Vehicle
Tulane Reivew
Twisted Vine
Vector Magazine
Writer’s Digest
Yellow Chair Review