For your calendar: I will be reading from my newest literary suspense novella, The Conversationalist, and a short off-center tale from Sandcastle and Other Stories at Village Books in Fairhaven on Friday May 31st at 7pm. Please join me for this and feel free to ask questions about the writing life, the writing process, and how I created these stories. Village Books Website: click HERE. Every author I want to go hear comes to Village Books.

The other amazing turn of events is my invitation to appear on the Short Fiction Panel of this June’s Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago, 8th and 9th, with Simon Rich, and Amina Gautier, and moderated by Frank Tempone. Can’t wait. I’ve been reading all of the books from these authors and I heartily recommend them. This is a free event, but with 150,000 people attending the 2-day festival last year, and over 260 authors, most of the author events are ticketed. If all the tickets are not used then it’s first come first serve. The Short Fiction Panel convenes at 1pm on Saturday June 8th, followed by a book signing. Please tell all your Chicago-area pals. Click HERE for more information.

With a few wonderful author events just around the corner, I wanted to give some sharing time to those who only want to hear their names a dozen more times a day—or the ball to be thrown one more time, please.

Kipling Puppy is now one and a half and is a car or tractor-hopping dervish. She jumps in the car too quickly, almost hitting her peabrain (yes, she sometimes only uses one pea rattling around in there) in the process. She reminds me of Max, The Grinch’s mutt. Sitting and panting in happy fixation. She’s a comic genius now.

Ajax The Gray doesn’t slink around as much now that the weather is better, but he does wear himself out and loves to snooze next to either of the dogs . . .

Eartha Kitt’n reamins a charmer. This spring she’s had a tougher time dealing with neighborhood paramours, and needed stitches . . . she’s healing well and looking forward to better days ahead.

Thank you for checking in here and best for Memorial Day.

Ever,

Justin

The Conversationalist will be published by Green Darner Press very soon—please look for it, and check out Sandcastle and Other Stories too.

Please Subscribe or Follow A Writer’s Life Blog and sign up for my newsletter to the right. For signed copies, please hit the link to the right.

To buy or download a free sample of Sandcastle and Other Stories for kindle readers or for iPad, PC, Mac, or iPhone with the kindle app, click HERE. While at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the iBookstore, please hit the Like button. It’s a great way to show support for your favorite authors and their books. And please leave a review if the book hits you well.

Follow me on Twitter @JustinBog. Please hit the Like button on my Author Page on Facebook by clicking HERE.

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I just wanted to stop by A Writer’s Life blog to share the story of the Author Event last night at University Book Store in Seattle. This was a dual-author event with Stacey R. Campbell, whose Young Adult novel, Hush, is not to be missed. Go pick it up and enjoy a book that will get you ready for summer. It’s a light and breezy addition to the boarding school/lost heir to a throne canon.

This photo of Stacey and I was taken about ten minutes before the reading started. Stacey’s extended family comes from the Seattle area and the room soon filled with radiant good will. Several friends dropped by. And the publisher, Green Darner Press, was well represented. Pink and white champagne, and royal tiara-shaped cookies lined the table—Stacey, the cookies were delicious.

Stacey began the reading with a tale of how she had to overcome childhood dyslexia to form a strong belief that she could become a writer, her one dream that began to take shape as her own three daughters began to attend boarding school: If I’m telling my daughters they can be anything they want to be, why did I let specters from my past try to stop me from trying to attain my own goals? Hush is the result. And her reading was lively and engaging.

Then, being the introverted writer who has avoided the spotlight and public speaking for most of my adult life, I approached the lectern with a growing confidence. The nerves will never go away. I used to take a failing grade in school and college when asked to give a speech, but maturing and growing as a creative writing teacher changed all of this. Now, I view speaking in front of a group as a worthy challenge and spoke about my initial fears first, and why I decided to share my writing. I do write darker tales, and following Stacey brought this opposition into focus. Light followed by darkness is okay as long as no one gets hurt and champagne can bring a cheerful catharsis. I read Sandcastle, the title story, because of its length—it’s the outlier story that has the most shock value—and because of the time constraints for the event, which still left 20 minutes for people to mingle, get a signed copy, and talk about writing. Loved every minute of it.

Best to you in approaching your own goals head on and please share your goals and the journey you are taking in the comments section below.

Ever,

Justin

Please Subscribe or Follow A Writer’s Life Blog and sign up for my newsletter to the right. For signed copies, please hit the link to the right.

To buy or download a free sample of Sandcastle and Other Stories for kindle readers or for iPad, PC, Mac, or iPhone with the kindle app, click HERE. While at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the iBookstore, please hit the Like button. It’s a great way to show support for your favorite authors and their books. And please leave a review if the book hits you well.

Follow me on Twitter @JustinBog. Please hit the Like button on my Author Page on Facebook by clicking HERE.

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I’ve been busy on the other side of the writing life, the dreaded side, the one that makes me most nervous: the pre-release side of the game. And it is a game. Please don’t believe I am bragging here; it’s just life—we all have met nice people. I’ve met many authors in the past few years, and more than a few over the decades, authors of all kind, from self-published to Big House denizens—love hanging out and talking about how other writers live in and out of their created worlds. I was lucky enough to receive a personalized copy of Stephen King’s Insomnia, the book he publicized by driving his motorcycle across the country in the mid-90s with stops in only ten bookstores. I worked in one of those ten lucky bookstores, the now-defunct independent bookstore in the Sun Valley Mall called Ex Libris. ~hat tipped off for lost days and lost bookstores~ Does it matter that I’ve been surrounding myself with other authors for almost thirty years? Nope. Not one bit. A favorite quote from a creative writing professor: “If I met half the writers in the world, I wouldn’t read their work.” She was being realistic. There are very few authors—their lives, the way they act in the real world—who can match the quality of their prose.

That being said, I hope my own introverted nature isn’t a turn-off for anyone out there—I’m an introvert with a hyper amount of energy. With authors having to pick up the megaphone and shout out to the world that they have a new book out—doing this mostly all on their own, without big marketing dollars from huge publishing companies—I hear so much about new books and I wish I had more time to read the ones that really really peak my interest. I do love reading literary fiction most of all, literary fiction that dips into the psychological or suspense realms, and it’s rare to find an indie author writing in the same vein, but they are there if you take time to look. Maria Savva is one such terrific writer, and she has a field of books in her backlist to explore; I can’t wait to pick up her forthcoming collection of tales, Delusion and Dreams. Gae-Lynn Woods just released her second novel, and I swear she writes as if a demon is tracking her. Love love loved her first novel The Devil of Light—and can’t wait to crack open her next book. Introverts must rise out of their writing chairs from time to time to let the world know they have a new book out—we must channel the extrovert hidden within, cage it, train it, and release it in small doses. So, here is my official shout:

The official book cover for my next release, The Conversationalist, has been created, and I want to share this with you. The art fits the atmosphere of the literary suspense novella—or eNovella. My mother created this work and simply titled it 005. It is 11 X 14 inches, mixed media on paper, and I am the owner of this work. She loved water, loved sitting on shore and watching the waves, lake or ocean.

Please let me know what you think.

Here is the working Book Description:

There’s something wrong with Patrick. People whisper about him; most want to help him, as if he’s a songless bird with a broken wing, make him a project, set him up on a date with a best friend . . .

ever,

Justin

Please Subscribe or Follow A Writer’s Life Blog and sign up for my newsletter to the right. For signed copies, please hit the link to the right.

To buy or download a free sample of Sandcastle and Other Stories for kindle readers or for iPad, PC, Mac, or iPhone with the kindle app, click HERE. While at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the iBookstore, please hit the Like button. It’s a great way to show support for your favorite authors and their books. And please leave a review if the book hits you well.

Follow me on Twitter @JustinBog. Please hit the Like button on my Author Page on Facebook by clicking HERE.

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Well, the incredible writing journey I am on continues.

I remember driving down to Seattle with fellow Young Adult author Stacey R. Campbell, who wrote the fun “lost royal princess” mystery titled Hush, with a list of bookstores to visit. The very first on our list was University Book Store in Seattle, the largest independent bookstore in Washington. I always loved to dream big, and the introduction to the staff there could not have gone any better. They welcomed Stacey and I with creative energy, and immediately began to talk about an official book launch for our two books and Green Darner Press, a new imprint of the Publishing house Gemelli Press.

The University Book Store has several other branches, but our author reading and signing event will be held at Seattle’s U District branch the very same night several other literary events are taking place: what a great convergence. Seattle readers are awesome.

If you live in the Seattle area please show up at 7pm on May 14th—there will be champagne too. And please tell all your friends in the area. Thank you very much.

I hope your own reading and writing lives take you to new heights.

Justin

Please Subscribe or Follow A Writer’s Life Blog and sign up for my newsletter to the right. For signed copies, please hit the link to the right.

To buy or download a free sample of Sandcastle and Other Stories for kindle readers or for iPad, PC, Mac, or iPhone with the kindle app, click HERE. While at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the iBookstore, please hit the Like button. It’s a great way to show support for your favorite authors and their books. And please leave a review if the book hits you well.

Follow me on Twitter @JustinBog. Please hit the Like button on my Author Page on Facebook by clicking HERE.

Subscribe to the e-Magazine In Classic Style for tips on Travel, Dining, and Entertainment.

For Apple/Mac IT, WordPress wrangling and multimedia Publishing/Editing Services, please contact the company I use: Convenient Integration.

Peter Hobbs, the author, book reviewer, and interviewer extraordinaire sat me down long enough and asked the tough questions. (A Herculean task akin to rounding up squirrels in a motocross globe.) An exchange of writing philosophies took place. Within this cool back and forth I shared one of the unused covers for my upcoming original literary suspense eNovella The Conversationalist—the chosen cover will be exposed on A Writer’s Life Blog as the release date approaches.

To read the complete Peter Hobbs interview, please click HERE. While there, why not sign up as a subscriber to all things Hobbs-ian. He has 1,661 blog followers, and his comedic impulses, mixed with his writerly eye never fail to amuse and make me think.

Here’s the obligatory Kipling and Zippy pics for those going into withdrawal. They shrug their shepherd shoulders at all things beyond See Spot Run.

Eartha Kitt’n wanted some attention this past weekend during a walk. She raced up a tree and impersonated The Cheshire Cat—twisty tail disappearing in the branches and exposing her full-on toothy grin sparingly.

May the sun hit you when you least expect it,

Justin

Please Subscribe or Follow A Writer’s Life Blog and sign up for my newsletter to the right. For signed copies, please hit the link to the right.

To buy or download a free sample of Sandcastle and Other Stories for kindle readers or for iPad, PC, Mac, or iPhone with the kindle app, click HERE. While at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the iBookstore, please hit the Like button. It’s a great way to show support for your favorite authors and their books. And please leave a review if the book hits you well.

Follow me on Twitter @JustinBog. Please hit the Like button on my Author Page on Facebook by clicking HERE.

Subscribe to the e-Magazine In Classic Style for tips on Travel, Dining, and Entertainment.

For Apple/Mac IT, WordPress wrangling and multimedia Publishing/Editing Services, please contact the company I use: Convenient Integration.

My first eBook, Sandcastle and Other Stories, has just been published at Amazon, and the response I am receiving is very energizing and humbling at the same time. I hope everyone reading the stories enjoys them as much as I enjoyed writing each one.

Short Fiction is a tougher sell than novels. I hear this from good friends: “I don’t read short stories, Justin.”

A little part of me winces. The statement is true though, and fewer people are reading overall. Bookstores are closing, or moving into smaller spaces as rents begin to rise.

I worked in bookstores long enough to know very few people buy short story collections. These books have to be hand sold. (But even the people who don’t like reading short stories love to be entertained so they may choose a different entertainment platform, say, a film, or a television show, a sporting event, or a concert.)

What is a film? Dare I say a film is only a short story — a condensed version of a novel. Usually most film adaptations aren’t as good as the book or source material. Here are a few exceptions, but short stories as source material for feature films always interests me. Brokeback Mountain was based on a short story by Annie Proulx, and Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay. The Killers was filmed to great success, and came from a very good Hemingway short. Original screenplays only start with a single idea. Those are usually the ones taking all the risks and are the most original.

Take a curious idea and give it voice, tighten the prose; construct your paragraphs and allow the characters to go where they want to go. Play that idea out as succinctly as possible — make each word count, give it weight, and a terrific short story may be born. I read a short story each night, and have been doing this for a very long time. Most collections have ten stories in them, like my own. So, that’s ten nights of reading. After I read the short story I dig into a good book.

If you love short stories, or even if you don’t, please tell me why. Who are your favorite writers of short tales? I read all genres. If writers can master the art of the short story, then they are ready to shoot for a longer work, stretch out their narratives, give their characters some meat to eat to last a whole season, or maybe even just one day.

To purchase Sandcastle and Other Stories, please click this link HERE. The book is only available as an eBook right now, but you can download a free kindle app for iPad, PC, Mac, or iPhone. The link will take you to the book’s Amazon Page. You can also choose to download a Free Sample, which includes the complete first story, The Virtue of Minding Your Own Business. While at Amazon, please hit the Like button. This is a nice way to show support for your favorite authors. If the collection hits you well, please consider writing a review at the Amazon book page, and let me know what you think.

A print version of the book is under construction, and I apologize for any delay.

This painting is by my father, George Bogdanovitch, and his art, along with my late mother’s art, can be seen by clicking HERE.

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I always try to pick books for the upcoming summer season, captivating books that will introduce me to characters I would never meet in real life, for good or bad, and allow me to visit places I probably will never have a chance to travel to—here at A Writer’s Life Blog and at the eMagazine In Classic Style though, I never say never. If the book thrills? All the better for my collection of beach books. Currently, I am reading what is being touted as this year’s “It” book, and I am blown away by how good it is. I love time travel/reincarnation novels, and I am devouring Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. It’s the kind of book I do not want to end; like her main character, Ursula, when I finish reading the book, I may have to go right back to the beginning. It’s a marvel and the positive hype actually does justice to such a thought-provoking premise—change in structure is good when you know how to break the rules. If you have not discovered Kate Atkinson’s writing, you are in for a treat. Every book she has written is worth reading. Return to her backlist over the summer.

Publisher Overview: 1) Life After Life by Kate Atkinson—What if you could live again and again, until you got it right?

On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.

Does Ursula’s apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can — will she?

Darkly comic, startlingly poignant, and utterly original — this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best.

2) The next book that has caught my eye is The Andalucian Friend by Alexander Söderberg. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo built up expectations for every thriller that follows in its huge wake. This thriller has the requisite “cool” plot line—I’ll be reading this next.

A Monumental Crime Thriller—The First of a Trilogy—That Will Set the World On Fire

When Sophie Brinkmann meets Hector Guzman, her life is perfectly uneventful. She’s a nurse and a single mother, living with her son in a sleepy Stockholm suburb. She likes Guzman’s quiet charm and easy smile; she likes the way he welcomes her into his family. She quickly learns, though, that his smooth façade masks something much more sinister—he’s the head of an international crime ring that is at war with a rival organization. Before she can fully grasp the extent of his dangerous world, her life starts to come undone: her family is at risk, a long-lost friend mysteriously resurfaces, and she realizes that she can trust no one. Whether she likes it or not, she’s now at the center of a global turf war between Spanish drug traffickers, German gangsters, Russian hit men, and Swedish cops. To get out alive, and with her integrity intact, she will have to summon everything within her to navigate this intricate web of moral ambiguity, deadly obsession, and craven gamesmanship.

The Andalucian Friend is a breathtaking thriller of the first order—turbo-charged, action-packed, highly sophisticated, and unputdownable.

3) The Humanity Project by Jean Thompson—The first novel Jean Thompson wrote, The Year We Left Home, thrilled me to no end. It fit into the Jonathan Franzen side of the literary pond, and captured the growth of siblings over the years to stunning effect. Thompson’s new novel’s premise sounds perfect for sunny days—hope-filled drama is welcome.

Publisher Overview: After surviving a shooting at her high school, Linnea is packed off to live with her estranged father, Art, who doesn’t quite understand how he has suddenly become responsible for raising a sullen adolescent girl. Art’s neighbor, Christie, is a nurse distracted by an eccentric patient, Mrs. Foster, who has given Christie the reins to her Humanity Project, a bizarre and well-endowed charity fund. Just as mysteriously, no one seems to know where Conner, the Fosters’ handyman, goes after work, but he has become the one person Linnea can confide in, perhaps because his own home life is a war zone: his father has suffered an injury and become addicted to painkillers. As these characters and many more hurtle toward their fates, the Humanity Project is born: Can you indeed pay someone to be good? At what price?

4) The most anticipated book on my list is by Joe Hill, son of Stephen King, titled NOS4A2. Early reviews by other masters of the horror and fantasy genre have made me anxious to discover the dark pathways revealed in between the covers. It’s terrific to note that talent runs deep in King’s writing family. I’ve read Hill’s three previous books, and they are all original, with different settings, and characters who would remind you of the everyday crowd around you if all of their dark secrets happened to be revealed. Also check out Horns and Heart-Shaped Box.

Publisher Overview: Charlie Manx burned a man to death in his black 1938 Rolls Royce Wraith, but that’s not the worst of it. Rumor has it that he kidnapped dozens of children, taking them to a place he calls “Christmasland.” The only child ever to escape was a very lucky girl named Victoria McQueen.

Vic has a gift – she can ride her bike through the Shorter Way bridge and she’ll come out the other side wherever she needs to be, even if it’s hundreds of miles away. Vic doesn’t tell anyone about her ability; no one would understand.

When Charlie Manx finally dies after years in prison, his body disappears…after the autopsy. The police and media think someone stole it, but Vic knows the truth: Charlie Manx is on the road again…and he has her kid. And this time, Vic McQueen’s going after him.

5) The Black Count by Tom Reiss gets a spot on my list because it’s billed as more adventurous than my favorite classic of all time The Count of Monte Cristo. This isn’t a new in nonfiction, but it’s been on my radar for quite some time. I held back until this summer because I didn’t want the reality, the story behind the story, to color my fondness for Dumas’ mighty adventure, the very first suspense novel.

Publisher Overview: Here is the remarkable true story of the real Count of Monte Cristo – a stunning feat of historical sleuthing that brings to life the forgotten hero who inspired such classics as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.

The real-life protagonist of The Black Count, General Alex Dumas, is a man almost unknown today yet with a story that is strikingly familiar, because his son, the novelist Alexandre Dumas, used it to create some of the best loved heroes of literature.

Yet, hidden behind these swashbuckling adventures was an even more incredible secret: the real hero was the son of a black slave — who rose higher in the white world than any man of his race would before our own time.

Born in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), Alex Dumas was briefly sold into bondage but made his way to Paris where he was schooled as a sword-fighting member of the French aristocracy. Enlisting as a private, he rose to command armies at the height of the Revolution, in an audacious campaign across Europe and the Middle East – until he met an implacable enemy he could not defeat.

The Black Count is simultaneously a riveting adventure story, a lushly textured evocation of 18th-century France, and a window into the modern world’s first multi-racial society. But it is also a heartbreaking story of the enduring bonds of love between a father and son.

6) Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear (10th in the series)—Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series of books have won me over, and she has many other admirers as well. You can’t go wrong, and her latest looks perfect for a sunny day. I can picture this day ahead of me. If you want to start right at the beginning, please find the first Maisie Dobbs book, titled Maisie Dobbs.

Publisher Overview: The death of an Indian immigrant leads Maisie Dobbs into a dangerous yet fascinating world and takes her in an unexpected direction in this latest chapter of the New York Times bestselling series “that seems to get better with each entry” (Wall Street Journal).

London, 1933. Two months after the body of an Indian woman named Usha Pramal is found in the brackish water of a South London canal, her brother, newly arrived in England, turns to Maisie Dobbs to find out the truth about her death. Not only has Scotland Yard made no arrests, evidence indicates that they failed to conduct a full and thorough investigation.

Before her death, Usha was staying at an ayah’s hostel alongside Indian women whose British employers turned them out into the street–penniless and far from their homeland–when their services were no longer needed. As Maisie soon learns, Usha was different from the hostel’s other lodgers. But with this discovery comes new danger: another Indian woman who had information about Usha is found murdered before she can talk to Maisie.

As Maisie is pulled deeper into an unfamiliar yet captivating subculture, her investigation becomes clouded by the unfinished business of a previous case as well as a growing desire to see more of the world, following in the footsteps of her former mentor, Maurice Blanche. And there is her lover, James Compton, who gives her an ultimatum she cannot ignore.

Bringing a crucial chapter in the life and times of Maisie Dobbs to a close, Leaving Everything Most Loved marks a pivotal moment in this remarkable series.

7) The Dinner by Herman Koch is a book that sounds like it will appeal to my darker sensibilities. It is grounded in reality and in the Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? section of the world with intersecting characters in a heightened and suspenseful drama.

Publisher Overview: An internationally bestselling phenomenon: the darkly suspenseful, highly controversial tale of two families struggling to make the hardest decision of their lives — all over the course of one meal.

It’s a summer’s evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse — the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened.
Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple show just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.
Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable narrator, The Dinner promises to be the topic of countless dinner party debates. Skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy.

8) Olive Kitteridge put Elizabeth Strout at the pinnacle of literary acclaim when it won The Pulitzer Prize, and it is phenomenal (go read this now, please), and her new novel The Burgess Boys is also receiving early high praise. I will read anything Strout writes, and I’m far from alone. Here’s the book description.

Publisher Overview: Haunted by the freak accident that killed their father when they were children, Jim and Bob Burgess escaped from their Maine hometown of Shirley Falls for New York City as soon as they possibly could. Jim, a sleek, successful corporate lawyer, has belittled his bighearted brother their whole lives, and Bob, a Legal Aid attorney who idolizes Jim, has always taken it in stride. But their long-standing dynamic is upended when their sister, Susan—the Burgess sibling who stayed behind—urgently calls them home. Her lonely teenage son, Zach, has gotten himself into a world of trouble, and Susan desperately needs their help. And so the Burgess brothers return to the landscape of their childhood, where the long-buried tensions that have shaped and shadowed their relationship begin to surface in unexpected ways that will change them forever.

With a rare combination of brilliant storytelling, exquisite prose, and remarkable insight into character, Elizabeth Strout has brought to life two deeply human protagonists whose struggles and triumphs will resonate with readers long after they turn the final page. Tender, tough-minded, loving, and deeply illuminating about the ties that bind us to family and home, The Burgess Boys is Elizabeth Strout’s newest and perhaps most astonishing work of literary art.

9) The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer is on my list because of her beautiful prose. Her writing is comparable to the current fiction greats, Franzen, McCarthy, Irving, and so many more. Discover Wolitzer’s novels. I loved her early work too, especially Surrender Dorothy, if you can still find it.

Publisher Overview: The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge.

The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through life at age thirty; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence. Jules Jacobson, an aspiring comic actress, eventually resigns herself to a more practical occupation and lifestyle. Her friend Jonah, a gifted musician, stops playing the guitar and becomes an engineer. But Ethan and Ash, Jules’s now-married best friends, become shockingly successful—true to their initial artistic dreams, with the wealth and access that allow those dreams to keep expanding. The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and the shapes their lives have taken.

Wide in scope, ambitious, and populated by complex characters who come together and apart in a changing New York City, The Interestings explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life.

10) The Round House by Louise Erdrich just won the National Book Award, and I cannot wait to open the book. If it’s like her other tales, my summer will be complete.

Publisher Overview: One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe’s life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared.

While his father, who is a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning

Please tell me what’s on your own Summer Reading List, and enjoy your own reading journey.

Best,

Justin

P.S. Coming soon to all online eSellers: the original literary suspense eNovella The Conversationalist. Be on the look out.

Please Subscribe or Follow A Writer’s Life Blog and sign up for my newsletter to the right. For signed copies, please hit the link to the right.

To buy or download a free sample of Sandcastle and Other Stories for kindle readers or for iPad, PC, Mac, or iPhone with the kindle app, click HERE. While at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the iBookstore, please hit the Like button. It’s a great way to show support for your favorite authors and their books. And please leave a review if the book hits you well.

Follow me on Twitter @JustinBog. Please hit the Like button on my Author Page on Facebook by clicking HERE.

Subscribe to the e-Magazine In Classic Style for tips on Travel, Dining, and Entertainment.

For Apple/Mac IT, WordPress wrangling and multimedia Publishing/Editing Services, please contact the company I use: Convenient Integration.

Here is where I get to officially shout: COMING SOON

This is not the final cover to The Conversationalist . . . only a parody. Kriss Morton, Cabin Goddess, came up with this image after hearing the title. Kipling told her she wanted to be a star. If you need Kipling for your own book covers, she works for biscuits.

On this poor and neglected Writing Blog I can finally shout that my next publication will be out by June: The Conversationalist. Where have I been? To Cannon Beach and back, with a stop in Port Townsend for two days when the ferry system shut down with engineering and mechanical failure. The book signing at the Cannon Beach Book Company was a bright moment, and I will always remember the gorgeous Summer-sun day. I even got sunburned walking the beach, which filled with more tourists than many locals could remember. The town amazes me. Haystack rock beguiles. Besides being the only vacation I’ve taken in three years, I did get a lot of revision work completed, and now, The Conversationalist is almost ready for its debut.

The Conversationalist, a literary suspense novella will be published in May by Green Darner Press as an ebook only, on all platforms, and it will be paired with a bonus short story, Mothers of Twins, one of the psychological tales from Sandcastle and Other Stories. The story is long, divided into seven chapters, and I love the added length and the space because it allowed the main character to breathe, the tension to build in a natural way.

The book cover art is being finalized this coming week as the novella works its way into the minds of early beta readers. Originally, this tale was picked up for a suspense anthology centered around the subject of stalkers—that anthology fell apart (there are others working their way to fruition as I type). The Conversationalist is set on Fidalgo Island in the Pacific Northwest, a place where I introduce Patrick, a man who becomes the victim of a stalker who wants to teach him a lesson—Patrick is a single man who doesn’t know how to date well. People always try to hide their darkest secrets, the moments in life they hope will never be uncovered; some take their secrets to the grave.

Here is the beginning of the story. I hope this sneak peek makes you curious enough to seek out the story once it’s published. And I thank you for joining me on this writing journey.

The Conversationalist

by

Justin Bog

1

Wendy sits across from me and tells me she’s afraid to die. She wonders what it’s like; what if this is all there is? It isn’t easy for me to listen to the words Wendy speaks.

My index finger traces through the condensation at the base of my martini glass as her forlorn questioning waves hit me. I don’t repeat to her out loud her last yearning words in a combative tone. I want to. Inside, thoughts about life, death, endings, unfairness turned to bitterness, propagate.

“My mother died a year ago,” she says, lowering her voice as she glances at the diners around us, “horribly.” I don’t know Wendy well enough to understand if she’s embarrassed by her own boldness, revealing a personal lament right out in the open, or by her mother’s ill fortune.

I watch her lips move, opening, pressing tightly together then opening again, sipping hot coffee. She didn’t add anything sweet to hers.

There’s a catch in Wendy’s voice when she finishes her story, as if something keeps snagging on a hook down her throat. I hope the coffee soothes her ache.

“You realize you need to move on with your life, right? I mean, you’re always going to grieve,” I say. “It’s over now. Think about what your mother would want you to do.” I let her see nothing but concentration on my face, while inside I’m perplexed, a sweating liar. The image of my own mother tries to surface and it takes all I have to stifle her visage from taking over my every thought.

“I keep thinking about train accidents,” Wendy says. She lifts a pale hand to her cheek and brushes a loose strand of hair away. “And how stupid they are.”

I nod my head and try to listen. All I see is my mother’s downturned mouth, how quick her unpleasant countenance turned into a scowl. I would flee the room, the home, walk, run away to the cliff-side pathways, meander for hours until safe to sneak back . . . mother in a gin-fueled stupor, now passed out and harmless. Wendy isn’t a mind reader. She sees only steady concern, and this is too easy for me to pull off.

“How awful,” I say, “no one thinks of trains anymore, even when they rush right through Seattle and northward, hugging the coastline. They stop us when we least expect it.” And this isn’t the right thing to say either. I can see Wendy coming to the same conclusion, and I ask her if she’d like to change the subject.

Only a month ago, Wendy, a friend of an acquaintance, took me into her confidence, or wanted to place me in that position: noble listener—I found it all a bit desperate. On that first date I drove her to a quiet, secluded dinner at The Chuckanut Manor, a family-run establishment looking out over the oyster-rich waters of Puget Sound. Once seated and waiting for a very dry martini (no vermouth and lots of olives), I’d need at least two just to settle into a functioning haze, a single glass of pino grigio for Wendy, gulf prawn and avocado cocktails to start, she allowed me to prattle on about my cat, Roadway, who needed an operation on her kidney, and how much it would cost; let me ask her what she would do: pay the horrendous and expensive bill or acquiesce to Roadway becoming roadkill. She listened to my sorry tale; it’s where my mind was at on that day.

Now, a month later, I sit, foggy, a similar state of mind, in a different seafood restaurant with a better bar, two happy hour martinis downed, fidgeting with my napkin below the lip of the table, and I barely hear Wendy ask me another question. She brought a bag of them tonight.

. . .

Please Subscribe or Follow A Writer’s Life Blog and sign up for my newsletter to the right. For signed copies, please hit the link to the right.

To buy or download a free sample of Sandcastle and Other Stories for kindle readers or for iPad, PC, Mac, or iPhone with the kindle app, click HERE. While at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the iBookstore, please hit the Like button. It’s a great way to show support for your favorite authors and their books. And please leave a review if the book hits you well.

Follow me on Twitter @JustinBog. Please hit the Like button on my Author Page on Facebook by clicking HERE.

Subscribe to the e-Magazine In Classic Style for tips on Travel, Dining, and Entertainment.

For Apple/Mac IT, WordPress wrangling and multimedia Publishing/Editing Services, please contact the company I use: Convenient Integration.

Cannon Beach is all about restoring balance . . . spirit, and thoughts about gratitude. 

Haystack Rock is a 235-foot (72-meter) sea stack in Cannon Beach, Oregon. It is sometimes claimed locally to be the third-tallest such “intertidal” (meaning it can be reached by land) structure in the world, but there are no scientific references to support this. A popular tourist destination, the monolithic rock is adjacent to the beach and accessible by foot at low tide. The Haystack Rock tide pools are home to many intertidal animals, including starfish, sea anemone, crabs, chitons, limpets, and sea slugs. The rock is also a nesting site for many sea birds, including terns and puffins.

If you live anywhere near the Oregon Coast, fifty miles from Portland, please join me at one of my favorite bookstores, Cannon Beach Book Company, on March 30th from 2-4pm, for a signing of Sandcastle and Other Stories. I’ve been vacationing in Cannon Beach for almost fifteen years, getting to know the town, meeting fellow tennis players, writing away in one of the coffee shops, eating some of the best seafood, and walking the beach, which goes for miles, and is home of Haystack Rock. The town’s beach was shown at the beginning of The Goonies, and I thought the surfing beach in Twilight looked familiar as part of Ecola State Park.

Well, in the writing life, some very significant author events are shaping up. Click on the event page online at cannonbeachbooks.com. Also check out the line-up of terrific authors who will Get Lit At The Beach! in April in Cannon Beach, including Terry Brooks, Garth Stein, Ursula Le Guin, Chelsea Cain, and Phil Margolin.

I can’t wait to get back to the beach. I hope Brenda, the main character in the title story Sandcastle, is not there.

Please join me. If you cannot make it, I will also be reading and signing Sandcastle and Other Stories in Anacortes at the Anacortes Public Library on June 19th, sponsored by Watermark Book Co., my local island’s incredible bookstore. After that, I will travel to Whidbey Island’s Wind and Tide Bookstore in Oak Harbor on April 28th between 2 and 4pm to sign books with Stacey R. Campbell, who wrote Hush, a terrific YA novel. There is also a book reading and signing event in the works at Fairhaven’s Village Books on May 31st. These dates are all jumbled up but please mark your calendars.

The official Green Darner Press Seattle-area book launch for Stacey R. Campbell’s YA novel Hush (I highly recommend this light, breezy suspense novel about a lost princess) and Sandcastle and Other stories will take place at University Book Store, the largest independent bookstore in Washington State, on May 14th beginning at 7pm. Please join Stacey and I there, or at any of these other bookstore events. If you are in the Oregon or Washington area and would like to get a signed copy or just meet and talk about writing and the creation of dark stories, or if you simply want to ask after Zippy and Kipling, please mark these Author events’ dates in your calendar, and please share the news with your friends in the area.

Here is the University Book Store event page:

Thank you for your support of my first book, and the writing life, and best to you in your own creative endeavors,

Justin

P.S. One last cute puppy shot of Kipling from way back in the day . . . she insisted.

Please Subscribe or Follow A Writer’s Life Blog and sign up for my newsletter to the right. For signed copies, please hit the link to the right.

To buy or download a free sample of Sandcastle and Other Stories for kindle readers or for iPad, PC, Mac, or iPhone with the kindle app, click HERE. While at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the iBookstore, please hit the Like button. It’s a great way to show support for your favorite authors and their books. And please leave a review if the book hits you well.

Follow me on Twitter @JustinBog. Please hit the Like button on my Author Page on Facebook by clicking HERE.

Subscribe to the e-Magazine In Classic Style for tips on Travel, Dining, and Entertainment.

For Apple/Mac IT, WordPress wrangling and multimedia Publishing/Editing Services, please contact the company I use: Convenient Integration.

I have neglected A Writer’s Life blog too much over the past month or two since the Green Darner Press version of Sandcastle and Other Stories was published.

“Put the book down already, and grab my tennis ball—now!”

Even Kipling and Zippy are starting to wonder about my priorities.

All the pets, Ajax the Gray and Eartha Kitt’n included, are sleeping too much and drinking less espresso.

I’m trying to go to the Fidalgo Pool five mornings a week, and I often return to find Kipling and Eartha Kitt’n snoozing.

Today, the decision for what kind of tub to place in the new log cabin is in full swing . . . this is the dream tub. Eartha Kitt’n could stare at the dripping faucet all day if I let her.

It’s early spring here and the daffodil buds are sprouting.

I finally corralled Zippy and Kipling and took the Washington Park loop, something I try to do more than once a week.

I hope everyone has a terrific weekend . . . I’ll be out with the mutts instead of stressing out on any couch.

Justin

Please Subscribe or Follow A Writer’s Life Blog and sign up for my newsletter to the right. For signed copies, please hit the link to the right.

To buy or download a free sample of Sandcastle and Other Stories for kindle readers or for iPad, PC, Mac, or iPhone with the kindle app, click HERE. While at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the iBookstore, please hit the Like button. It’s a great way to show support for your favorite authors and their books. And please leave a review if the book hits you well.

Follow me on Twitter @JustinBog. Please hit the Like button on my Author Page on Facebook by clicking HERE.

Subscribe to the e-Magazine In Classic Style for tips on Travel, Dining, and Entertainment.

For Apple/Mac IT, WordPress wrangling and multimedia Publishing/Editing Services, please contact the company I use: Convenient Integration.