The Angels, 2050.

Hey, you know what’s better than endlessly scrolling social media? Closing your eyes while someone reads you a story that transports you to another world. Maybe—like me—you find an odd sense of comfort in a deep, dystopian dive?

The latest episode of the Simultaneous Times podcast is so good, and I’m thrilled that The Ebb Somatic, my feminist, dystopian (but funny!) podcast-within-a-podcast, is part of it.

The Ebb Somatic is set in 2050 Los Angeles—renamed The Angels after 2039’s American Language Act—in a United States that has finally, fully deteriorated into an anti-woman, anti-queer, wealth-hoarding plutocracy. What persists? Trashy true-crime podcasts, overpriced, “anti-aging” beauty devices, and, perhaps, true love. (This is the same setting as another story of mine, also produced for this podcast: From the Angels to Snakes.)

Huge thanks to Phog Masheeen for the brilliant music and sounds, including the saddest, catchiest jingle. The team producing the Simultaneous Times podcast every month does such fine work, and I hope that you will listen to this episode and then listen to many more.

I’d love to hear what you think.

The Ebb Somatic Simultaneous Times, episode #29

From The Angels to Snakes Simultaneous Times, episode #14

We Have Your Connie Moody Simultaneous Times, episode #18

Interview – Simultaneous Times Podcast, Supplementary Log #16

Writing, Frenzy.

In 2017, I moved home to the Mojave, although I grew up in Connecticut. I’ve been in a writing frenzy ever since, trying new things, playing with form, opening up to everything I might want (need) to write. Lately, it seems my words are landing with enthusiastic publishers, and that is so good I almost don’t want to say it out loud lest I jinx it.

Today, Pine Hills Review published my little story-as-answering-machine-message Neighborhood Watch, circa 2009. Just last week, The Weeklings posted my short, satirical and all-too-timely piece What’s Your Problem with Joe Biden? Last month, my contemplative, desert-y flash I Was a Pink Bath Bomb went up at Mojave He[art] Review.

I even tried my hand at sci-fi and wrote From The Angels to Snakes, which was performed with a full cast and original music on the Simultaneous Times podcast.

As always, a full list of my publications can be found HERE.

I am (forever) grateful to all those who publish, produce, read, and share my words.

 

 

 

Born and Dying: My First Book’s First Year

cvrIt’s not like I had no idea what to expect. As a bookseller I assisted with author events both swanky and huge (Pat Conroy at a Connecticut yacht-club brunch) and tiny and spare (local writers at my used bookstore in Kingston, New York). As a book buyer for the wholesaler Baker & Taylor, I bought everything from small press titles to kids books to some of the largest adult trade lines (all of which have since folded into Random Penguin–yes, I know they prefer the names reversed.) Book promotion is an enormous challenge at every level. Even backed by a corporate publisher’s PR machine, many books struggle to attract interest. Every year, thousands of excellent books are published and ignored. It’s an honor to reach any readers. And if you hear from a few who loved your book and got what you were trying to say–well, let that wash over you, because that connection is everything. You get used to the non-responses from places you’d hoped to appear. You get used to leaving readings with unsold books. To empty seats in the audience. To other books getting more attention and praise. You stay grateful throughout.

So, to celebrate Not On Fire, Only Dying‘s first year, a multimedia look back. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: thank you for hearing me.

Pics or it didn’t happen: proof it wasn’t a strange, beautiful dream with too much public speaking:

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Original music composed by Naomi Hamby for Not On Fire, Only Dying:

“Marko’s Theme” was used for the book trailer. Here it is accompanied by the previously unreleased “Lola’s Theme.”

Speaking of the trailer:

Maybe you’d like another listen to Marko’s mixtape?

Select blog posts written through acceptance, publication, and promotion. Short and honest:

Thank you for hearing me. (12/31/14)
Cats get in the way. (1/23/15)
No big deal, but…MY BOOK HAS A COVER. *swoon* (3/26/15)
Blurbs and Preorders and THANK YOU. (5/4/15)
Presenting my book trailer! And insecurities… (7/3/15)
Brooklyn, beginning. (9/5/15)
Have I mentioned I have a new book out? (9/29/15)
But is it art? On book reviews. (10/18/15)
More than chocolate? (2/4/16)`
What do you want? (5/11/16)

Thank you to everyone who read this book (and to those who have a copy and might yet get around to reading it–no worries. Trust me, I know how that goes. Maybe once in a while something small and unrelated will remind you of Not On Fire, Only Dying.

Happens to me all the time:

Sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears.

Marko mix-tapeI received this old mixtape in the mail shortly after completing Not On Fire, Only Dying  (my debut novel, out Sept 15). It appears to have been made by one Marko Holomek, my book’s protagonist. Marko is a chivalrous, drug-dealing ex-con and a product of my imagination. So it was weird, getting this tape.

For years (yup, years) Marko lived in my head and in stacks of unpublished pages. For years he lived with me. When the book was finished, he left. I don’t know where he is now. There was no note enclosed with the tape. No return address. cvr

Marko is easy to love, I truly believe it — as damaged and dangerous as he is. Maybe because he himself loves so easily. There is nothing he won’t risk for Lola.

Marko loved the woman he made this mix-tape for, too. She does not appear in Not On Fire, Only Dying. She was part of Marko’s life before this novel, before his twenty years in prison, before Lola. My guess is he made the tape around 1990, when he was worried about this woman’s safety and knew she didn’t love him back. I can see Marko, a young man back then, selecting each song carefully, considering the lyrics and how the music felt. I see him hunched over a dual-cassette boom box. He has a finger poised above the Pause button because pausing before hitting Stop means a less noisy transition. He has a stack of his favorite cassettes and a pack of 90 minute blanks because 60 minutes aren’t enough to say what he needs to say.

But he only finished one side. What happened? Some interruption. Marko doesn’t quit, not ever.

I like these songs, it turns out. I’ve always liked them. I guess Marko knows me well, too. He sent the tape because he knows I will continue to tell every part of his story, even now that he and I are no longer in touch.

The old cassette came unspooled en route, I’m afraid. Luckily I found another way to share with you the songs Marko chose, once, a long time ago, for a woman who did not love him: