Day: September 11, 2012

Sneak Peek: Dissolute Kinship: A 9/11 Road Trip

Today, we feature a sneak peek of David Antrobus’ memoir, Dissolute Kinship: A 9/11 Road Trip.

When David Antrobus set out on a personal, reflective solo road trip from the Pacific Coast of Canada to New York City, he picked a random date: Tuesday, September 11, 2001. This coincidence, despite the horrors of that day, proved oddly serendipitous in the sense of the author’s struggle for understanding of his own relatively small trauma, which he was then only beginning to face.

Evocations of the quiet melancholy of the landscape alongside poignant descriptions of grain elevators, motels, convenience stores and gas stations as he heads eastward across the Canadian Prairies are complemented by the dawning reality of New York City’s wounded presence looming ever nearer. Upon arrival, the author is at first haunted by the visceral horrors that remain just days after the attacks on the World Trade Centre, yet finds unexpected comfort in the people of the city as they relate their own personal trauma stories.

Dissolute Kinship: A 9/11 Road Trip is available through Amazon.com, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and other online stores.

Here is an excerpt from Dissolute Kinship: A 9/11 Road Trip: Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Dissolute Kinship: A 9/11 Road Trip”

Writer on Vacation: A Guilty Pleasure

Recently my family and I decamped to the Polish coast for a week of quality time before the annual school grind sets back in for another year. I didn’t plan to write anything substantial while there, if for no other reason than the Baltic is at its warmest at this time of year: sometimes the water is as mild as +5 degrees and, if one can dodge the icebergs*, one can have quite a refreshing swim. However, these swims do not promote creativity. Instead, afterwards I indulge in my guiltiest pleasure: taking photos of strangers. Continue reading “Writer on Vacation: A Guilty Pleasure”

Patrick Turley Announces New Release

WELCOME TO HELLAuthor Patrick Turley is pleased to announce the release of his new book, Welcome to Hell: Three and a Half Months of Marine Corps Boot Camp.

The only existing first-person, insider account of Marine Corps Boot Camp, documenting the good, the bad, the ugly and the hilarious in the making of the Few and the Proud. Patrick Turley captured it in his forthcoming book “Welcome to Hell: Three and a Half Months of Marine Corps Boot Camp”. John Patrick Shanley said it only as a former Marine and Pulitzer Prize winner could: “It’s great to have gone to Marine Corps boot camp. It’s terrible to be in Marine Corps boot camp. It’s fun to read about Marine Corps boot camp.”

“This well-told and entertaining insider’s description of the deadly serious and also sometimes humorous process of making Marines will bring back memories to all former Corps members and provide some understanding of their special quality to those who only occasionally glimpse them in an airport.” – Publisher’s Weekly

Welcome to Hell: Three and a Half Months of Marine Corps Boot Camp was released on on August 14, 2012 by Chronology Books (an imprint of History Publishing Co.). It is available on Amazon.com, Amazon UK, and Barnes & Noble in print and as an e-book.

Taking Your Pulse – A BookPulse Tutorial

Quick heads up: Since I only uploaded my one book, I didn’t anticipate a problem with this. Apparently, you can’t upload more than one book unless you have a separate Facebook page for each one. This is important information BookPulse might want to place front and centre, just sayin’.

There are some things I am extremely lazy about. Unfortunately, one of those things tends to be self-promotion. I am not good at it and have no great love for it. Actually, it’s worse than that: I actively dislike it. But we’re constantly told (let’s be honest, “harangued” might be a better word) that it’s an essential part of the writer’s toolkit… and not only independent writers but those poor captives of the publishing industry, the traditional writers, too. I kid, of course: we are all brothers and sisters of The Mighty Word, and “Kumbaya” sounds exactly the same when sung by my gruel-spattered co-minions as it does in the lofty yet slightly sterile halls of Simon & Schuster… although the soft moans of existential despair accompanying the former can be a little disconcerting.

But I digress. As I tend to do. Probably because I can already feel the ennui descending as my main topic looms like a grey, haunted, driverless engine on a fog-blanketed night.

So. Once in a while, I break out of my truculent, indolent recalcitrance and stumble on something potentially useful to our collective writerly aspirations. (Apparently, I also break out the Thesaurus.) Continue reading “Taking Your Pulse – A BookPulse Tutorial”