Featured Reading at Noe Valley Authors Fest March 23

Hello Friends. I'll be one of three featured readers at the Noe Valley Authors Festival, the culminating event of Word Week, on Saturday, March 23, 3:00, St. Philip’s Church Hall, 725 Diamond St. (between 24^th St. and Elizabeth), S.F. I’ll have a 45–minute slot built around The Mighty Roman, my novel about baseball and the modern American man, and in that time, I’ll read two or three scenes from the book, field audience questions and comments with my pitcher's mitt, and sell and sign the book at the souvenir stand. I'll really gonna kick it with a high–energy reading, and it would be so cool if you could come—and just as cool, and very much appreciated, if you'd pass the word among any friends into baseball, lit, and the intersection of the two. To see whether you might enjoy the book, if you haven’t read it already, check out the first chapter and reader reviews here, and listen to this audiobook of selected scenes from the book (with awesome “bed music” courtesy of Steven Kacsmar’s Phantom City!).

Yours in the love of baseball and literature, Jon

Reading at Noe Valley Authors Festival

Hey y'all, I'll be a featured reader at the Noe Valley Authors Festival in San Francisco on Saturday, March 23. My 45–minute slot, during which I'll read from The Mighty Roman and discuss the book, begins at 3. Details—such as the venue—to come. Considering this is a week before the baseball season, the time is perfect for baseball lit. I'd love to see you there!

"Lawrence" Launched

First words of the novelization of popular short story "Lawrence" written yesterday—the dread Barrier of the Blank Screen, demolished. To good effect, I hope ...

Aliens.

The two sibs with the yellow–flecked, blue–green, almond/olive–shaped eyes and the smooth skin that was not Chen–yellow, Chavez–brown, Marino–dusk, or Chapman–pale, but a distinctly original blend of them all, with Walkingstick–red in the cheekbones .

Not illegal aliens, they didn’t meant that—at least, not in the lower grades—but Area 51. That Laurie’s head was egg–wide at the top didn’t help. Nor did it help that he widened his almond/olive–shaped, yellow–flecked, blue–green eyes in wonder at the everything that everyone else thought wondrous, and at many things that no one did.

The Flying Saucer Incident was no help either, establishing the boy as Room 2’s sacrificial oddball on his first day of kindergarten. This despite his big sister’s determined preparations to ease her little brother’s entry to school.

It was Mercy who had walked Laurie to school that first day. This seemed to parents and girl alike as a duty befitting a third grader long accustomed to being fawned over as precocious. In fact, the girl had skipped second grade, ...

Dec. 6, 2012 

"Boxers"—New Story

In this story adapted from the upcoming Trips `n' Trials of a Down, Beat Dad, middle–aged hipster Hammerhead Hirsch, The Pugilist Poet and Boardwalk Balladeer of limited Beat Era fame, struggles to raise his kid Scrap on his own. The story first ap

peared in New South, the print lit–mag of Georgia State University. Spoiler alert: this story does reveal the main plot points of Trips `n' Trials. Enjoy, friends! And "Like" on the book's page if you ... like.

Trips `n Trials—Chapter One

Here's Chris Corwin's brilliant cover design for the novel Trips `n' Trials of a Down, Beat Dad, the story of single middle–aged hipster dad Hammerhead Hirsch. 

Hipsters of the world unite!