Saturday, August 7, 2010

Excellent debut by two indie authors, Jamie Hershing & James Stanson

Marouflage Minifiction Volume One:Marouflage is a first-rate collection of ultra-short fiction stories spanning a broad range of topics, including love, law, religion, truth. Many of them are are whimsical, funny, over-analytical or simply quirky takes on anything from mythological characters (The True story of King Midas) to something as trivial as computer code (Basic Insecurity).

Some stories (example: Qualities) have the tender substance of poetry.

Many stories are Aesopian in scope and sound (The Lion's Share, The Scorpion and the Frog) and might as well qualify as modern day fables. Yet others, such as Black and White Man, with their fractured beautiful prose, made me think of  Daniil Kharms.


Among the stories that I would like to mention as outstanding are Dead Sea Apes, Flypaper, The Prodigal's Son Son, Make Believe, Bedtime. Some of the one-sentence stories have the brutality of a thought, yet leave you smiling, pondering over possible meanings.


In all, an excellent debut of two talented writers. Highly recommended.

A recent interview with James Stanson  appeared on Kindle Author.

Friday, August 6, 2010

July Top Ten Most Viewed Writers on Dave Wisehart's blog

Today, I was happy to learn that Dave Wisehart's blog Kindle Author, albeit barely one month old, has made it in the Top 100 book blogs on the Internet.

Secondly, after tirelessly interviewing 59 authors in July, Dave looked to see who were the most viewed among the 59.  Here is the list, and yours humbly has made the top ten list @ number 8. 
  1. Lee Goldberg 
  2. James Stanson 
  3. Lisa Kramer Taruschio
  4. M.M. Bennetts
  5. Helen Smith 
  6. Stacey Cochran
  7. Danielle Q. Lee
  8. Gabriela Popa 
  9. Tonya Plank 
  10. Elisa Lorello

 Dave deserves congratulations not only for his entrepreneurial spirit but also for putting out there some of the most creative interviews on the web.  He customized his questions, so you discover something new (about both Dave and the Interviewee) with each post you read. 

Congrats, Dave! 
Looking forward to seeing Kindle Author at number 1.

Chicago flight

In haibun (a literary form originating in Japan), prose and verse (mostly haiku) coexist; the transition between them  brings on a “shift” t...