Welcome Danny Gardner!

I apologize that there was a mix-up and we had dead air yesterday.

I bite off more than I can chew a lot, and with Holly West stepping down, I thought a post a week would be easy. Not when you're working full-time and writing a novel, it ain't. So I reached out to a couple of writers who have a lot to say, who could use this spot to get it heard.

Danny Gardner, author of A Negro and an Ofay, was the first to come to mind. Danny's posts on social media and articles are always worth reading, and both funny and important.

Next week, I hand the mic to the author of a great debut, and a rising star in the genre. We'll be sharing duties on Wednesdays from now on.

If you don't know Danny, this is his debut-- a powerful novel set in the '50s in the Chicago area, showing a side that gets short shrift in the mobster narratives about the city and its environs.

On Reading

I'm tired. It's been a hell of a week, and as I write this, it's not quite over. Like many of you, I feel bombarded by a news cycle that's moving too fast, end of the school year activities, and life in general. Squeezing out time to read and write has been a challenge this week - but I've made it happen (we must make it happen). Rather than making it all about me, let's talk what I'm reading.

When I got to know Danny Gardner I was immediately happy to know him. Now I'm really happy to be reading his novel, A Negro and an Ofay. I'm not far in, but I'm loving it so far. I'm eager to get to the end and sing it's praises.

(Buy it)

I'm also listening to Liane Moriarty's The Husband's Secret. I really enjoyed the TV adaptation of Big Little Lies and while this isn't quite as enthralling, there's something really delicious about stories that are simultaneously incredibly domestic (all the leads are groups of suburban moms) and so goddamn dark and noir.

Any number of authors more successful than I am have said if you don't read, you can't write. Here's to making some headway on the TBR, enjoying good stories, and still getting to call it "work."