Publisher reports good news

Word was received last week that Dawn McGuire's brand new book of poems, American Dream with Exit Wound, (IF SF, 2017) was enthusiastically reviewed in The Washington Post (4/11/17).

And that Renate Stendhal's forthcoming memoir, Kiss Me Again, Paris, is being pre-ordered at a nice place two months before its official June publication date.

Clearly these books and these writers can do without me, as I remain far away in the wilderness that is Wyoming for at least one more month; in fact they're both prospering in the absence of their publisher. 

As is so often the case, getting off the track and letting the train run provides its own kind of energy. Had I been at the world headquarters of IF SF, hand on the wheel, I doubt the kind of success both books are enjoying would have manifested. While this phenomena is impossible to quantify, it seems to be a law of nature, operating in the same realm as 'benign neglect' operates in parenthood. And when things come up, as they always do, David Barich back at the ranch riding herd.

Meantime, I sit in the cabin and read and read and read books. Anthony Trollope and Gustave Flaubert, primarily. Trollope's Barchester Towers and Flaubert's Bouvard and Pecuchet. In a reverse osmosis sort of way Trollope, writing in English about an English town in the mid-19th century, depicts what is best about French culture and Flaubert, writing about two middle-aged nincompoops bumbling their way around mid-19th century France, depicts what's so admirable about the English. I wasn't around in England or in France in the mid-19th century so perhaps I'm reading a little more into both books than I ought to.

Got a nice note from writer Thomas Fuller the other day (Monsieur Ambivalence, IF SF, 2013). Hi Brooks--I'm almost finished with my latest book, The Classical World, and will send it on to you early in May. Thanks again for having your wife, Lea Ann read it. I appreciated her comments and have noted her corrections--hopefully, we'll have far fewer typos than Monsieur A!!! She detests the subtitle--A Novel-log of Ideas--so I'm removing it, unless of course you have some strong feeling...Best, TFuller.