NOW AVAILABLE
Dangerous Places
a new collection of short fiction"Glasser’s funny and authoritative voice is that of a sage storyteller." -- Booklist
Immediate shipping from SPD Books!
The Good Men Foundation Book Project launched on November 1, 2009
Buy it!
Someone once said the best thing to do shortly after publishing a book is to leave the country. It’s beginning to feel like good advice.
The other alternative for me is to write–a lot. After the annual eating to excess orgy called Thanksgiving, on the following day when all patriotic Americans engage in the national passion for spending what they cannot afford on items they do not need, for people they do not like, instead of arising pre-dawn to trample a rent-a-cop, I put in some hours on finishing Part 2 of Riverton Noir, the novel that asks the question, “What if America’s typical teenagers behaved like America’s typical teenagers?” With the final third to go, I am hoping to have the draft complete by mid-January. Then comes the hard work
But my attention is also being swayed to original publishing at Amazon via Kindle. Is there a market for short fiction, one story at a time? I have posted three.
And I have a book’s worth written over the past decade. There’s a way to make it a coherent collection, too, something too unformed to talk about here. It’s suitably bizarre, though.
What to do? What to do?
Watching sales figures at Amazon.com is amusing. “Soaring” to 65,000 in the book universe…my o my and w00t w00t!
The Internet has redefined what mid-list publishing is. What, I wonder, is the worst selling book at Amazon? 1,000,000? When the world was young, a new book had a shelf-life of a few years. Bookstore owners read trade publication reviews, ordered 3 – 4 copies, and kept them on the shelf awaiting the reading public that asked for recommendations or browsed.
The advent of bookstore chains and consolidation of trade book publishers ended all that. Book are marketed like beer. Publishers pay for shelf space at Barnes & Noble or Borders, and the stores return unsold copies in weeks, giving a book a shelf-life about the same as a can of beer. The clerk at Borders sells coffee and only sometimes knows anything about books–usually not, at that. “Mid-list” publishing–good books–moved online. Newspapers that review books are devoting fewer pages or eliminating their book sections completely.
If a book is not perceived as a blockbuster, it is not likely to get published at all, unless a small press picks it up with the intention of keeping it in print for a long while, for the love of literature and publishing itself.
The irony in all this is that my literate friends who are far from academe or publishing often bemoan that they can find nothing really good to read, by which they mean intellectually or aesthetically engaging, accessible, and being more than “brain-candy” of passing value. The reviews of serious books have likewise moved online, as has the growing conversation at literary blogs. A few of my favorites are on the Blogroll to the right…if you are reading this on Facebook, you’ll need to go to this blog to see what I mean.
According to Amazon.com, Dangerous Places weighs 25 lbs.
They allegedly have only 3 copies left…buy ‘em out and review the book!
The reading drew about 50 people. After a gracious introduction by Rod Kessler that detailed our friendship of 30+ years, I read from “Danger.”
This was a different crowd than Kansas City, a bit younger, mostly students. There were passages that in KC got laughter that were met with silence in Salem, mostly because I believe the younger crowd did not get it. My friend Frank came up for the reading and said I was an idiot for expecting anyone to get references to Henry Fonda. Frank may have a point.
I got to explain why Samantha Lewis’ initials are on page 173 with the inscription “with thanks.” If you are interested, write the query under Jody’s run in this blog at perryglasser.wordpress.com .
Nicole brought her baby, Hayden, who is amazingly well-behaved. He only squalled quietly for a minute it two — obviously a literary critic.
After the reading we gathered at Tavern in the Square for burgers and assorted meals, about 10 of us. Rod took the photos now on Facebook.
I hope the people who bought the book will enter comments.
What to read from Dangerous Places…any suggestions? 5:00 p.m. Central Campus, Enterprise Center, Salem State College.
Age of Marvels and Wonders … the lead fiction, in the pole position for a reason, but as a novella, the best I can do is a section. An aged college professor going blind meets a house-keeper who on the run from her abusive, child-molesting boyfriend. They go into business, but the boyfriend finds them, he also finds resources … This was in Next Stop Hollywood.
The Veldt …a family man who loves his life is afraid to tell his spouse that he was fired from his job two weeks ago. They shop at the mall, but when his parking space gets taken by a yuppie, he goes off the edge.
Lighted Windows…two set pieces in a frame, the theme is causality, but the frame has a meta-fictional twist. You got to look out for those homeboy gang-banging pigeons. There’s a knife fight and a chess game…
Fishhook … a bit of naturalism. Some of us shoplift; some of us work retail. It’s all theft.
Jody’s Run … a novella that covers the life of a woman from 15 to 30. She has abandonment issues because her mother died when she was 3: or was it suicide? It’s hard to confront a ghost, so what to do with the empty anger. The section, “In the Arms of Men,” won a P.E.N. Syndicated Fiction Award. But it’s a novella…how much can I read?
Danger … I read this in Kansas City. Five set pieces that make meaning by juxtaposition. It got laughs and deep breath shocks with its experimental, sometimes risky prose. Fun to read, too. Beware the gremlin; just beware of the gremlin.
This does not get tiresome…..
Read it here.
Last Friday night in Kansas City, I read to some nice folk at an event dubbed “An Evening of Dangerous Fiction.”
The earliest copies of Dangerous Places were first published that day, and may now be officially ordered from the publisher, BkMk Press.
Wednesday night, I had the good fortune to be among the featured writers who had contributed to the Good Men Project Foundation’s book. The DVD they are selling is amazing, and it all goes to charity. I am fortunate to be among them.
Teaching is heating up — it’s that time of the year — and everyone is pandemic conscious, so when someone sneezes, there is a moment of panic in every eye.
On November 19 I read at Salem State College. I expect either hordes, or a few older people in search of free cheese.
Present Magazine is located in Kansas City, Missouri. Folks there are kind, and the hamburgers legendary.
What lovely people! The first copy of Dangerous Places as put into my hand as I exited the airplane: 6 hours later I was reading to a nice crowd of literary folks. Evan McNamara read first with a fine story about a homicidal clone, and than I followed with “Danger.” They were videotaping the reading — as soon as it is out, you can watch it here.
I am hoping that the 20 or so people who bought the first copies of the book post comments on the site.
Thanks for everything!
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