Welcome, 2023

I’m happy to make a couple of fun announcements to start the new year. My short story collection, Giovanni’s Tree: New Italian Folktales, is due out from Bordighera Press this spring. I’m revealing the cover here for the first time, along with blurbs from a few authors who liked the book. I’m grateful to them all. I’ll post again when the collection is in print and available.

“Bam Writes a Blog” announced that the 42 Stories Anthology reached its goal of 1,764 stories and will publish in 2024. My short story contribution titled “Lost Soda Bottle Finds Love Way Out in Space” won the Story of Excellence Award in the Science Fiction category. I’m looking forward to reading all the many other 42-word stories.

Finally, this seems like an appropriate bit of trivia for book lovers to ring in 2023: Literary Hub reports that on January 21, 1789, Boston publisher Isaiah Thomas and Company published the first American novel. The book was titled The Power of Sympathy: or, The Triumph of Nature, by 24-year-old William Hill Brown. Spoiler alert: The plot sounds like something straight out of a Shakespearean tragedy. Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, and then, on their wedding day, boy and girl discover they’re actually siblings. The girl dies of consumption, and the boy shoots himself dead.

Well, I’ll leave you on that cheerful note to kick off the new year. I hope you like the pic of me taking advantage of a rare day of sunshine in Rochester, NY (today!). It’s a long winter up north. Moments like this are few and far between.

Happy New Year, all. Wishing peace and love to everyone around the world in 2023.