Fridays: Forgotten Children’s Books

The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald (1967)
Illustrated by Mercer Mayer

Tom is the smartest kid in town. He’s smarter than most of the adults, too (which ain’t saying much, since this is Utah in 1896, but still…). Tom uses his great brain to run short cons on the other kids and get revenge on anyone who crosses him. He’s like Encyclopedia Brown without the civic-mindedness. He’s like Roy Dillon with chores and a bedtime. Now and then, his conscience or his mother force him to put his great brain to work helping others. I was probably ten years old when I first read this book, and it still holds up.

Don't forget to check Patti Abbott’s blog for a complete list of this week’s participants.

Damn That John McFetridge

I'm supposed to be finishing my revision of Bitter Water Blues this week, but I made the mistake of cracking open John McFetridge's novel Dirty Sweet, and got hooked in on the first page. Everything else got put on hold until I finished it this afternoon. Russian crooks, biker gangs, shootings, bombs, strippers, porn, seventies rock...Dirty Sweet has something for everyone. Like Declan Burke, McFetridge has been compared to Elmore Leonard. While there are stylistic similarities, McFetridge is his own man. Grab this one, but don't make any plans until you finish it.

Get Demolished

The latest issue of Demolition is now up and loaded with just the kind of depraved crime fiction I love. Stephen Blackmoore's "In a Family Way" is particularly tasty.

Recommended Reading

Lyman Feero blogs about Mental Health Awareness for Writers.

My Spine Is All Tingly

The summer issue of Spinetingler Magazine is now online for your reading pleasure. In addition to my story "Bank Job," you also get great stuff from Amra Pajalic, John McFetridge, Steve Mosby, Patti Abbott*, Steve Allan, Stephen D. Rogers, Sandra Seamans, Allan Guthrie, Tony Black and others, plus interviews and reviews.

PDF version.
HTML version.



*Is it just me, or is Patti out of control? She makes the rest of us look like slackers.
Discuss.

Big Guns

Plots With Guns #2 is locked and loaded with new fiction by Bryon Quertermous, Jimmy Callaway, Todd “Big Daddy Thug” Robinson, Jason Duke, Patti Abbott, David J. Montgomery, Frederick Zackel and Josh Converse. This issue will scar you for life. What're you waiting for? Get on over there.

Hideaway by Michael Kimball

On Tuesday, June 17th, at 7:30 PM, the New YORK Theatre Company will present a test-run staged reading of Michael Kimball’s new play Hideaway at the York Public Library. Hideaway will open the 2008-09 season at The Players’ Ring (Portsmouth, NH) this September. Audience members will be invited to stay after the performance for a talk-back with director Joi Smith, playwright Kimball, and the full cast.

To separate their troubled son from the destructive influences of a Massachusetts suburb, Ray and Sally Stenovsky move to a remote lakeside cabin in northern Maine. They isolate Christopher and home-school him for five years. Then one day a prefab log cabin is erected next door. Enter Bobby Johnson and his young wife Deadre, a hard-partying couple living under Witness Relocation. When the play opens, Chris is alone. Scenes follow thematically rather than chronologically, in answer to Chris’s question: "How did I get here?"

Michael Kimball is the author of the thrillers Green Girls, Mouth to Mouth, Undone and the critically acclaimed Firewater Pond.