The new book is now available! Lost Change and Loose Cousins is out in E-book now, paperback shortly, and when the paperback is released it will have an additional story – “Philosopher Dog,” by yours truly.

Strother Kevin Hall and I are happy to share this one with you. Go now, friends, and get the book here. And as always, please consider posting an Amazon and Goodreads your review of  Sewerville, Lost Change and Loose Cousins, and anything else you read.

We’ll be releasing the cover in a few days, but here’s a quick listing of the titles included in my half of Lost Change and Loose Cousins (co-authored with Strother Kevin Hall), out later this month:

“The Autobiography of Nobody”

Philosopher Dog: Issue One

“The Dead on Black River”

“Apep, the Darkness”

“The Sweet Smell of Pine Needles”

“Sewerville: The Lay of the Land”

As mentioned before, it’s a mix of new stuff and previously released. I will say, “Apep” and Philosopher Dog are my two personal favorites, and since those are both part of the new stuff, that ought to be all the incentive you need to buy the book. I may also include a little something called “Me and Pookie Down by the Meth Shack” if it’s finished in time. We’ll see.

Closer…

Okay, folks — I’m happy to say, it looks like the next book will release in June. Lost Change and Loose Cousins is a collection of short stories, essays, and other etcetera by both yours truly and Kevin Hall. Some of the material has seen previous e-release – like “The Dead on Black River” and “The Sweet Smell of Pine Needles” – but there is plenty of new stuff in there, too. I’m excited to finally share it with you.

More details will follow over the next few weeks. In the meantime LIKE and SHARE with all your friends on the interwebs (Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, wherever)!

‘ppreciate you!

Everybody – Sewerville has been nominated as the June read of the month in the Goodreads reading group On the Southern Literary Trail. I thought it was nice to be nominated in a reading group centered around Southern literature, which is exactly the target audience for the novel.

Goodreads is a gigantic website, with tons of information for book fans of all stripes. If you already use Goodreads, consider voting for Sewerville; if you haven’t joined the site yet, this is a perfect excuse! Voting ends April 28.

Thanks, love you, bye.

Roger Ebert died today, as many if not most of you have already heard. There have been thousands of news reports and blog posts in the wake of his passing, and there’s probably nothing I can say that hasn’t been said already.

For people who love film, and writing about film, and writing about anything, the man was a giant of our culture. I have long believed that he was one of the best writers working in the last 50 years. He was a huge influence on me, both in terms of my love for movies and also my own writing. It is perhaps cliché to suggest it, but since cancer took his ability to speak a few years ago, he still spoke to more people than ever before through his work in print and on his blog.  Perhaps cliché – but no less truth. He will be missed.

“The Sweet Smell of Pine Needles” is in the new Winter 2013 print anthology of the normally online literary magazine Crack the Spine. Order here! And order another copy of Sewerville while you’re at it!

Well, not so much my party, as my January break. Writing and editing a novel takes a lot out of you, and my brain just needed a rest. I struggled through the month of December trying to move forward with some new projects, but by New Year’s I realized that if I didn’t take some time off and recharge, I’d probably crash and burn. So, I decided to spend January watching a lot of movies and tearing through every episode of The West Wing (which, by the way, is something I really should have done a long time ago). But now I’m back.

In some Sewerville news, the novel is available at Morris Book Shop in Lexington, KY and soon will be at Carmichael’s in Louisville (both locations). You can order it through Joseph-Beth and just about any other local store, too, but I honestly don’t know if it’s on the shelf. One way or the other, SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORES! I use Amazon and B&N just like everybody else, but there’s something about the atmosphere in the local stores that just can’t be replaced.

Aside from that, I’ve got 3 different projects going right now, in various stages of development. There’s no telling which one will be finished first, but my next book will be one of these:

Sewerville Part II: Tales from the Sewer. It’s a collection of short stories, each centered around a primary character in the Sewerville universe. Some are from Sewerville, while other stories will introduce characters who figure prominently in Sewerville: Part III, including the fictional president of the Kentucky State Senate. Right now I’m resisting the urge to release each story one at a time but I guess it’s more than possible that one or two will leak out before the book is completed.

The Long Dark Run is a horror novel,   and was teased in my short story “The Dead on Black River.”  Right now I’m using the tag line “a horror story for the 99%.” I’m not telling you anything else just yet.

Ripsnorter is another horror novel, this one about ancient evils and modern drug abusers. Like Sewerville before it, Ripsnorter started life as a screenplay; a friend calls it “Sewerville with monsters.” I guess there’s something to that. It’s a bleak gut-punch of a story, with parts that I’ve found deeply disturbing even as I wrote them. We’ll see what other folks think. (If I had to pick one, I’d guess this will be the next novel finished. But no promises.)

Anyway, I just wanted to update folks since I hadn’t posted in a while.

Ravens 27, 49ers 17.  Sorry, Kyle.

JAS

“Sewerville: The Lay of the Land,” is now available on Amazon.com, just in time for all of you lucky kids that received a Kindle or tablet computer for Christmas. (I’d imagine that it will also eventually end up published in traditional formats down the road as part of Sewerville Part II: Tales from the Sewer.)

This short piece sets up the smalltown world of Sewardville, KY in true smalltown fashion, with some funny/sad anecdotes that shed light on how the town came to be known hither and yon as Sewerville. The meaning behind the novel Sewerville‘s title is clear enough I think, given all the seedy sorts of goings-on, but now you have “The Lay of the Land” for a little extra background color. There are some shoutouts to prominent characters like Boone and Walt Slone, and also some mention of “the Mountain;” as some of you may know, The Mountain was the book’s working title, as in Where you from? I’m from the Mountain.

“The Lay of the Land” was actually written as the first chapter of Sewerville, but fell on the chopping block because I wanted to get right on with the story’s oh-so-important family dynamics. Still, I thought there was a little bonus fun to be had for folks who’ve liked the novel, and this was another way of saying “Thanks!” to all of you.

This bonus section is free through January 1. After that it’s only $0.99, but why pay for something later, when you can get it now for nothing?

Merry Christmas! Better late than never.

JAS

P.S.,

As reported elsewhere on the Internets: there was another war on Christmas but it looks like Christmas survived. I guess that means Fox News won themselves a medal.