Writers4Relief Update

    Before the election went haywire, I had a vision of getting writers together to submit stories that would go into eBooks, get sold on Amazon and Draft2Digital, and half the money would go to relief groups like Feed America or Hurricane Response. Noble idea, anyway.

    But now, we're not worried about hurricanes. We're worried about the overthrow of the American Republic by the current administration. I have a different vision for what writers could do, but I don't want to manage a website or launch a marketing campaign or do anything that sucks me and my friends any further into The Matrix. I'm writing a series of tell-me-what-I see stories under the book title Life During Wartime. I don't want to talk about how to market it. I want to write 20 good stories and then poke my head up for air and see what's going on in the wasteland.

    I will not be marketing shirts and cups and hoodies. I don't have the energy. I will be writing my Grapes of Wrath stories until someone says, you know, I'd like to read that. Each story is based in a rock song I admire. All the stories will be like that. Hippie rock and black rhythm and blues let real voices be heard. Now with hip-hop and reborn jazz, more chances to express the universal world view are everywhere. We will not be denied. I got your WOKE right here, buddy. 

These are the featured songs so far. You can also look for Neil's Faves in YouTube.

Life During Wartime

That's All You Need

The Ghost of Tom Joad

The stories are in final draft, well received so far. Knowing the song will help you catch on.

 Waiting in the Weeds          An American metaphor

"...I don't know when I realized the dream was over
Well, there was no particular hour, no given day
You know it didn't go down in flame
There was no final scene, no frozen frame
I just watched it slowly fade away..."

Music by the Eagles

Song by S. Smith and D.Henley

YouTube   Click to listen

 This John Prine song will help you understand what My Darling Boy by John Dufresne is all about.

Summer's End

 Book launch Saturday January 25 at Books&Books Coral Gables  5PM

Books&Books Click here for info

My review sent to WW Norton:

My Darling Boy by John Dufresne

 

John Dufresne’s latest novel tells a story of love and loss, a father trying to find and rehabilitate his opioid-addicted son when the son does not want to be found or rehabilitated. Olney, the father, has been straight his whole life, never addicted or incarcerated or homeless. His son Cully becomes addicted to pain medications young and soon becomes all those things and begins lying to his parents and stealing from their home to support his habit. He morphs into a stranger his parents can’t understand or reach out to in their desperation to bring back the darling boy they raised. Reminiscent of American Pastoral by Phillip Roth, My Darling Boy deals with the terrible estrangement that shocks so many families around the world: the good life sometimes is not good enough. Junky love is not the same as family love, Olney learns the hard way. His wife leaves him, not able to handle the stress of Cully’s metamorphosis into a strange young man without feelings for those who care the most for his well-being. He finds his son and loses him time after time. Olney’s search leads him to extraordinary and decent people pushed to the edge of our white bread world, each with their own story of loss and survival.

Told through Olney’s point of view, we learn through the fascinating characters he encounters that love is indeed hard to find and hard to keep for most good-hearted people. The happy past Olney remembers with Cully is denied by the young man as an illusion. The addicted Cully can remember his supply chain but not his own childhood. Olney’s heartbreak is the reader’s heartbreak. Having love turned away is an undercurrent in the lives of every single character in the story, just as it is in real life. That is what makes Olney’s hope and courage stand out to the reader: there is hope. There is love. There is the chance of a better future despite all the despair, but only if he continues his quest and does not give up. Olney is a hero for our times.

 

Neil Crabtree

Author of Smuggler’s Return

 

 

 If you are interested in the craft of writing, Steve Almond's book is a must-have. Written with sincerity and verve and a sense of humor, Truth Is The Arrow is also a memoir of Steve's writing career including time spent at Florida International University and in John Dufresne's Friday Night Writers. Steve Almond is the author of a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction, including All The Secrets of the World and Candyfreak. This current book is a masterpiece of shared insights from thirty years of writing, teaching and workshop mentoring. Buy it    HERE at Amazon or here at Books&Books. Clicking either link takes you to the site. The chapter on rendering the inner life stands out:

From page 183: "To focus on the inner life today--to read books, to imaging with no ulterior agenda, to reflect on painful or confusing experiences--is to defy the clamoring edicts of our age, the buy messages, the endless pleas for followers and likes.

Writers have to find a different way of being in the world. The making of literature is the manner by which we come to understand our inner lives, by which we travel in difficult truth toward elusive mercy, and thereby reaffirm the bonds of human kindness.

I am speaking here of something that goes beyond the fate of our work, or the brief span of our lives. I am speaking of the man, or the woman, who stands in silence at the top of the stairs, just a few seconds longer, feeling the ghost of his beloved mother in his arms, rocking her back and forth, back and forth."

 Relief update:

Now that we're moving into the Winter of our Discontent, I find that what will be needed in the coming months is not hurricane relief,  though that is a major concern for me and all my friends and family. The various agencies helping are getting support and help from millions around the country. But what I see is the danger of an anti-Woke government encouraging prejudice against Art and Artists. You know the new Administration is going to be trying to defund the arts, public broadcasting, libraries, subversive literature as they will define it, and the teaching of classic liberal values. Banning books has already demonstrated that Freedom of Expression is now under fire. Why keep kids from reading the world's greatest literature?

I'm such a sucker for good causes. I do want to Save the World. I want to feed the hungry, house the homeless, heal the sick, clothe the naked, rebuild all the broken homes and businesses. I still buy Biggie Bags from Wendy's for the bums on US 1.  That's a personal thing.

Dedicating a website is a different story. I'm a writer, not a millionaire. I'm a reader, not a politician. What I've learned over these last years is that there is a community of writers and readers who sincerely want to help. Now I see that community is about to be attacked. There will be closings of Liberal Arts programs in every university in America. There will be dedicated teachers and professors fired for teaching the vision of America they grew up with. The networks will be loaded with MAGA propaganda as anyone who opposes that dark vision is prosecuted and harassed. Free elections will cease as we know them, replaced by restricted voting for friends of the Man Who Would Be King. Public health will be at risk for millions of Americans as Anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists take charge of agencies once meant to help. The rich will get richer. By the time the middle class figure out their 401Ks are about to collapse, it will be too late. The people who brought our grandparents the first Great Depression will bring the next. War will be seen as a financial decision, good for the Economy. But will we have any allies?

Of course, I could be wrong. We might be heading into the next Golden Era. America will be great again. 

We'll see. Meanwhile, I will build a website for writers to share with readers, students, teachers and all the artists, all the musicians, all the people who care. Writers4Relief just WOKE up.

 The 40th Miami Book Fair ended Sunday evening, after thousands of visitors from around the world came and enjoyed beautiful weather, great music, exhibits of every cool thing on this planet, and readings by authors we all know and love. I worked our booth, the South Florida Writers Association, with displays of over 50 books written by our members, including Sea of Tranquility: A Literary Anthology compiled from contributions of poetry and short pieces members contributed for a trip to the Moon as part of the Lunar Codex. It was fun working with Don Daniels setting up the booth, and sharing space with Gladys Barrios, C.V. Shaw, Regine Fisher, Anita Mitchell, Ramesh Nyberg, and others to promote their books and encourage new membership.

And you know what? There was no Protest Against Books organized by those who prefer Banning Books to reading them. They would have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support for literacy over ignorance. You don't see Ugly People standing outside Beauty Pageants complaining. Same here.