Buy Hagridden and help fight hate

  In the past month, Americans have seen our darkest underbelly — our racists, our hate groups — crawl out from under their rocks and take to the streets to incite and commit violence and, in some cases, to commit murder and terrorism. Really, this has been bubbling up like some foul odor from ourContinue reading “Buy Hagridden and help fight hate”

Hashtag Hagridden

I’m not on Instagram, which is weird considering how much I like taking and sharing photos. (Remember when I used to keep a Photo Blog here on this website?) But a lot of folks seem to love it, and some of those folks — lo and behold — also dig my novel, Hagridden. Okay, sure,Continue reading “Hashtag Hagridden”

A couple of Southern transplants around the Puget Sound

Last Thursday, I joined novelist Alec Clayton for a reading and book signing at the Timberland Regional Library in Lacey, WA. Alec read a couple of passages from his most recent novel, Tupelo, with a perfectly timed emotional shift: a bit of humor and then a wonderfully nostalgic teenage make-out session that takes a sudden turn at the end intoContinue reading “A couple of Southern transplants around the Puget Sound”

Ruining a box to extract a treasure

Okay, that title is dumb. I didn’t ruin the box at all. (My wife even complimented the pretty shipping label!) But I did cut the box open, and there’s a story there. When my first book, Box Cutters — also a chapbook of short fiction — came out and I received my first copies in theContinue reading “Ruining a box to extract a treasure”

The Girl in the Bayou

The other day, I heard a short snippet of a story on NPR about books with “Girl” in the title — books like Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train. “I have talked to other crime writers that have been urged by various professional people in their life to put theContinue reading “The Girl in the Bayou”

The “rules” of reading: Neil Gaiman, Hagridden, and age appropriateness

Yesterday, on my Facebook page, I revealed that my eight-year-old niece had taken my books to school because her class is discussing what and why authors write. She thought it would be cool to share with her classmates that her uncle is a published author, even though, as my sister put it, my fiction isContinue reading “The “rules” of reading: Neil Gaiman, Hagridden, and age appropriateness”

Hagridden at one year: the reading copy

While I was preparing to read from Hagridden on the novel’s first birthday this past August 19, my wife was thinking about my reading copy of Hagridden, worn and fringed with multicolored note tabs, and she suggested I share that copy of the novel with you. Which I thought was a wonderful idea! So here is myContinue reading “Hagridden at one year: the reading copy”

Hagridden cut through Kindle like a Bowie knife

You all are amazing! Last week, my publisher offered Hagridden for free on Kindle, and in those few weekdays, more than 500 of you grabbed a digital copy of my book! That sudden momentum rocketed Hagridden up through the overall Kindle ranks, and y’all drove Hagridden to #1 in the War genre for Kindle books (it is set inContinue reading “Hagridden cut through Kindle like a Bowie knife”

Hagridden is FREE on Kindle this week

I’ve been posting about this on Facebook and Twitter since yesterday — and loads of kind friends and fans have been sharing the news as well — but in case you hadn’t heard: Hagridden is free! That’s right: it’s Fourth of July Week, and for this week only, my independent publisher, Columbus Press, has given everyone theContinue reading “Hagridden is FREE on Kindle this week”

Books that surprised David S. Atkinson

David S. Atkinson, whose book Bones Buried in Dirt just plain delighted me this time last year and whose preview of Hagridden this year was beautiful and so greatly appreciated, well, he’s gone and done something awesome again. Not a great believer in “top books” lists, David has instead listed some books that surprised him this pastContinue reading “Books that surprised David S. Atkinson”