Signing Event

Here’s a photo of yours truly at the Barnes and Noble. I met a number of readers and signed some books, it was a great day. Hoping to do more events like this when the next book is released.

Book Talk

I will be at the Barnes and Noble in Poughkeepsie, NY on Saturday, April 27 at 2pm for a book talk and with copies of THE OSPREY MAN. It’s sure to be a fun time! Bring a friend, grab a coffee, and stay for some storytelling.

Poughkeepsie Book Festival

This Saturday, March 30, I’ll be at The Poughkeepsie Book Festival with copies of my book, THE OSPREY MAN. Each child under 17 who attends gets a voucher for $15, with which they can buy a book from one of the over 100 authors and illustrators who will be there. So come and support this great library–they put on this and plenty of other amazing events every year. Bring the family for a fun day filled with books and activities.

The Osprey Man update

Hello all! Thanks to those of you who have purchased a copy of The Osprey Man. As I wrote here last August, the publisher of the novel, Daniel Willis, passed away. There was talk of his company, DX Varos, being sold to a new publisher, but that hasn’t yet materialized. I have not received any statements or royalties since Daniel’s passing, and so I want to ask that if you are thinking of buying a copy, PLEASE DON’T USE THE PUBLISHER SITE, as I’ll get nothing from it and will have no way of knowing it sold. I don’t even think the publisher is still fulfilling orders. If you want it, please write me directly–I have some copies left that I can sign and sell.

I am working on getting my rights back to the book, as it seems the publisher is no longer functioning. Thanks again for your support of the book.

I have other things in the works that I hope to share soon.

Happy Halloween!

It’s my favorite day of the year! Here’s a seasonal story I published a couple of years ago, called “The All Hallows Knight,” in which a young boy tries to revive the spirit of the dead, and gets more than he expected. Happy All Hallows Eve, one and all. https://issuu.com/theparagonjournal/docs/final_version_tales_of_reverie/10

Art is by Joseph Mugnaini, who did many wonderful illustrations for Ray Bradbury’s work. This one is from The Halloween Tree, first published in 1972.

The Award-Winning OSPREY MAN

I’m happy to report that THE OSPREY MAN won second place in the YA category of the CIPA EVVY awards! Congratulations to all the winners.

If you’d like a copy, please get in touch, I’ll sign it and send it to you. It’s cheaper and more personal than amazon 🙂

Happy reading!

THE OSPREY MAN SALE

THE OSPREY MAN is just $12 right now, through June 30, with free shipping from my publisher. It’s $5.99 as an ebook, or you can contact me for a signed copy. Read the reviews here–this coming of age tale is great read for a young person in your life, or for general readers.

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

My eight and ten year olds read this wonderful and hilarious Terry Pratchett novel with me, and yesterday we went and saw the new film based on it. They loved both the book and the movie. The incomparable Hugh Laurie voices Maurice, and did a fine job bringing the self-regarding feline to life.

The movie hit mostly all the right notes in bringing this book to the big screen. There are some things I truly love about the book. First off, it’s an irresistibly funny and mischievous idea to update the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and of course Pratchett tweaks the tale so that the intelligent rats, in league with Maurice and a boy piper named Keith, scam town after town, infesting them and then pretending to be charmed by the piper, with whom they march away, before collecting their payday, splitting the cash, and moving on to the next victims.

I also love the idea that the rats at the center of the story became brilliant and self aware after eating magic potions from a dump filled with refuse from Unseen University. This is such an amusing idea that it seems like it could be the seeds of plenty of other books in Discworld. There is a lot of talk in both the book and the film about what it means to be intelligent, how the rats should best use their newfound intellect, and in what way they should live with humans. I daresay most people do not think philosophically like this about themselves and the purpose of their lives as much as these rats do; of course that’s part of the fun.

The rats’ names are a real hoot, too. When they became intelligent, they simply named themselves after things that they thought sounded cool in the dump, and the kitchens from which they pilfer food and widdle in the cheese. Hence they have names like Dangerous Beans, Hamnpork, Peaches, Big Savings, Darktan, Sardines, and so on. Great stuff that also never failed to make my kids chuckle.

Maurice, Keith, and the rats find themselves at odds with rival scheming ratcatchers, and then a Rat King who wants to control them and wage war on humans. The film diverges a bit from the book, but did an admirable job of bringing Pratchett’s wit and comedy to a new audience. My daughter had a great time at the movie and particularly enjoyed Death and his sidekick, a rat sized reaper.

Pratchett deftly handles some serious issues for kids in this book–death, for one, as well as bullying and tyranny and the need to defend oneself from such abuse. For a comic novel about magic rats, he covers a lot of ground and makes it seem effortless.

I highly recommend both the book and film to a wide audience. I think my kids and I will next read The Wee Free Men, another of Pratchett’s Discworld novels written for a young audience. Given how prolific Pratchett was, I don’t think we’ll be running out of Discworld books anytime soon.