Contract signed with WVU Press for a book focusing on Breece D'J Pancake

Big news on the writing front

I signed a contract yesterday to write a book on Breece D'J Pancake for West Virginia University Press. Is there any real way for me to explain how incredibly excited I am? Well, I usually use words to express thoughts, but I might come up short on this one. Let's just review the facts:

1. I'm contracted to write a book for West Virginia's largest press.

2. It's the home state of the writer I'm writing a book about.

3. The writer is my favorite writer.

Seriously, there's more, but it would start resembling full on brag time if I went into it. It's enough to say those above three facts result in what is just about the coolest thing that's happened to me since I started writing thirty years ago.


A call out

There's going to be a section in which I take various author interviews (from folks who were influenced by Pancake in one way or the other) and hybrid it all up nicely. That being said, I'd love to get some responses from anyone who might be interested in writing up a little something or answer at length a few basic questions for a form I'll use to incorporate it all later. In particular, I'm hoping to get something from David Joy, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Scott McClanahan, Karen McElmurray, Chris Offutt, well the list goes on and on, really, but that's a start. I'll be sending out emails to solicit all these folks at some point (likely sooner than later).

There's another pot on the fire, writing-wise. I can't mention any specifics yet, but there's a fairly good chance I'll have a great indie press pick up my recent short story collection Sway at some point later in the year. Nothing is at all definite about that, though. I'm only going on some early impressions. It looks okay, though.


On the events front

I'll be reading at Taylor Books in Charleston, West Virginia on September 14. It'll be my third time reading at Taylor Books and I have Jay Hill to thank for every single one of them. Jay is a magician you will be hearing a lot from in the not too distant future. He's a champion.