I was thrilled that my poem, After You Go, was selected by editor Harris Gardner, for issue #55. Also in this issue, is work from Ted Kooser, Marge Piercy, Steve Ratiner, Hilary Sallick.
What I love from an acceptance from Harris Gardner is that he lets you know what he liked about the submission. In this case:
"Although it is rather short, nevertheless it is poignant and compelling. It has a universal appeal for anyone who has suffered the loss of somebody close. (I must admit, it brought tears to my eyes.) The closing lines were espescially powerful. This is a well crafted creative effort."
This poem will also appear in the Blue section in my upcoming book of poetry, Almost Bluing for Xtra Whiteness from Big Table Publishing.
Two days ago I announced that book #19 Almost Bluing for X-Tra Whitening a book of poetry, was in production with Big Table Publishing, and that my novel The Shadows of the Seen was looking for a home.
A lot has happened in two days, but as of today The Shadows of the Seen is under contract with Pierian Springs Press. Is it coincidence? I don't think so.
***
The Shadows of the Seen, is about the persistent issue of gun violence in our society, examined through the intertwining narratives of three central characters, a politician, a shooter, and a reluctant hero.
After the contract was sent back, Kurt Lovelace, Executive Editor at Pierian Springs said:
We are very excited to be your publisher for your novel, “Shadows of the Seen”—and it is crucially timely. However, I fear gun violence in America isn’t going anywhere good anytime soon. Ergo, this topic will remain timely for a very long time.
If only this topic could suddenly stop being timely, or at least some progress made to decrease this type of violence. While writing this novel, I always felt the subject matter was of extreme importance. I still feel that way and I'm honored, and with boundless gratitude to be able to announce that it has a home.
***
"Timothy
Gager weaves a narrative story that is entertaining and addresses the gun
crisis in our country. Politicians, lobbyists, and our mental health system are
shown to need a cleansing in Gager's upcoming book. "
--Barbara
Legere, Author of Keven’s Choice, and Talk to Me, I’m Grieving
"Guns
don't kill people, people kill people." However, as Timothy Gager's nasty
little parable will demonstrate, the people who kill people are the very people who
should not have access to firearms. In case you've been living under a rock and
the national carnage has escaped your notice, it's just too easy for a lunatic
to get a gun.
“Timothy
Gager is a writer who has written about gun violence as it needs to be written.
He goes past the quick “post” or “reel” that we see after each shooting that we
hear about in the news. We get the sound, the smell, the feel of what gun
violence leaves behind. Sometimes, it hurts to read his words, but then again,
it hurts to be the victim of gun violence, so get over it and read on. We can’t
imagine the pain, but Timothy can. “Big men, big guns, big egos to fill,
they don’t even need a reason, got a license to kill…” from my song
“Standing Your Ground””.
Big Table Publishing will be putting out Almost Bluing for X-Tra Whitening , my tenth book of poetry, sometime soon, looking at before the end of the year. The title covers the multiple themes held withing the page: aging, pop-culture, music, feeling blue.
The book will be divided into four sections:
1) Blue
2) X-Tra White
3) Re(a)d
4) Blu-ing
Here's its very first blurb, and it's from Jennifer Martelli
I have blurbs for my next novel, Shadows of the Seen, but no publisher as of yet---I've sent it out to quite a few, now it's time to play the waiting game. My vision for a cover is below and please note, I am not a graphic artist.
I have to admit, listening to this after being away from it for nearly ten years was pretty amusing. Legitimately, I was laughing at my own jokes (per usual).
The cast had a lot of fun recording and producing it:
Shannon Clare McDerrmot: Producer, Narrator, Multiple/Most Voices notably the main characters Woody Geyser, Maura and Kayak Kenny
Richard Mark Jordan - Scumming Manager Joe Keating
Emmanuel Chumaceiro - Bobby Maloney, Mike Homer, Dyed Haired Bob Boulet (also appeared as a character in Joe the Salamander), Marisimo, and Sayid
Chris Notarile: Dino Tribuno, Blonde Bob, Jimmy Pudlow
So here are two free clips from the Audible version of Grand Slams:
Part II, Chapter 59: Keating's Interview: Joe Keating's bad behavior (being a sleazebag and cocaine monkey) has caused him a little trouble. Instead of being fired he has to complete and retake all the trainings at Grand Slams restaurant. Then, he must interview for his old job, as the narration takes us into his head during the questioning.
Part II, Chapter 68: Maloney Afternoon Show: Four of the college-age employees at Grand Slams head out to Jack's on Mass Avenue in Cambridge for an afternoon show to see the bands Scruffy the Cat and the Sex Execs. Also written into this scene, which takes place in 1984, is my friend, the late, great, Billy Ruanne.
The book was reviewed upon original paperback release by Mignon Ariel King:
The first thing one notices in Timothy Gager's Grand Slam: A Coming of Eggs Story is the Holden Caulfield-like anti-hero protagonist Woody. There is an ensemble of characters in the novel who make up the staff and management at a chain diner, Grand Slams, and Gager deftly weaves their backstories and inner lives into the fast-paced narrative. Despite the often more bizarre and troubled manifestations of the other diner workers' lives, Woody is clearly the focal character. Woody is a young almost-man who is emotionally distressed and unfocused. He is in an emotional and social limbo a year post high school, and still living with his parents, yet he is focused enough to seek and find work over the summer break from college. The two characters who are also Woody's age are working their part-time diner gigs around college schedules, would-be college schedules, and pre-career funks. It is unclear at times whether the trio have any clear plans. They do, however, have dreams and passions, the passions often misdirected. Of the three, Woody is the most attuned to what is going on around him, very invested in how other people's lives are turning out, whereas Sugar and Bobby are just going through the motions, enduring their surroundings and coworkers.
Woody's mother (Mrs. Geyser) attempts to monitor and guide; his father, a political progressive who named his son after Woodrow Wilson, grumpily tunes out his family to focus on favorite television shows. A comparison is drawn between Woody's father and his "work mother," Maura. Maura is fifty-something and seems plunked in the diner with her crumply stockings and middle-aged wide middle; Woody's father is plunked in his living room in a Michelin man body. It is no wonder that the Grand Slams "work family" is so dysfunctional with Maura as its matriarch. She keeps things moving, but she emotionally detaches from everyone at work to go home to nobody after she picks up her check each week. Maura left her daughter behind for a better life...perhaps, but really her life is only simpler, uncluttered by the needs of others. She has no suitors, no girlfriends, just her job and subtle dreams of making more, having more, materialistically speaking.
Most of the low-level workers in the diner are more invested than their superiors. Keating, a nasty bastard of a boss, does as little as possible while screaming at his employees, most notably emotionally abusive toward Kayak Kenny, a developmentally challenged bus boy who fantasizes about buying a kayak. Kenny believes girls will fall in love with him if he has a kayak, swept up in the romance of floating on the pond with him. Keating floats on cocaine and a rather sleazy sex life. He sweeps women off their feet with the lure of free drugs. Sugar is the diner's beauty; she is lusted after by every man who comes within reach of her pretty, pony-tailed, short skirt- and cowboy-booted beauty. More power to the male author who makes Sugar one of the most intelligent, focused, compassionate characters in the book. Her flaw is pathologically bad taste in men. She has a small life and thinks small, but she evolves and matures faster than her age-appropriate male interests. Sugar's introspection leads her away from the sweaty, portly, mustard-stained tie and rumpled suit grasp of Keating. Her next conquest is a socioeconomic upgrade, Sayid, an Egyptian man who is too sexually repressed (for religious reasons) to use Sugar as a sex object. He courts her, and this is obviously something to which she is unaccustomed but which she grows to realize she deserves. Meanwhile, Woody pines for her from afar, as he did in high school, while being her platonic friend.
There are standard types throughout the narrative. Marisimo, the half-blind ex-boxer with cauliflowered ears, is less than fluent in English and over invested in his dishwasher job. Dyed-haired Bob, the transplanted new boss, could not care less about anyone who works for him; he re=trains the staff with an iron fist. Woody resists the ridiculous, superficial changes in a hilarious sequence of passive-aggressive actions, such as hiding the clip-on bowties. Even the chilly Maura begins to warm up to coworkers as her career waitressing is challenged by the new regime. She at least is proud of her work and her 20-plus years' commitment as the company girl. The last romantic hope she had divorced then paired up again without noticing Maura's romantic hopes for him. Maura is a bridge between the detached elders, with their selfishness, rigor, and paternalistic actions only in the condescending sense, not in any way caring about role modeling for or promotion of the Grand Slams staff. The three young characters are not slammed over the head of the reader, and Gager manages to use character typecasting without making the characters seem wooden, stiff props in the narrative. In fact, the characters are so realistic, and subtly nuanced with uncharacteristic personality traits as well as those expected, that the reader is frustrated by wanting to hug or slap them. Throughout the novel, the almost-adults keep the momentum going in the midst of the socially odd and borderline tragic, invested adults. How will this trio grow up while surrounded by infantile, base, or simply lost adults? The reader is invested by the third chapter in finding out.
Marianne Leone, Tiffany Davenport, Jennifer Friedman Lang, Ray Guidrox, Gary Grossman, Elizabeth McKim, Carla Panciera, Dr. Dannagal G. Young, Ellis Elliot, Enzo Silon Surin, Josh Barkan, Laura Zigman, Tom Laughlin
Suzanne Frischkorn, Kim Addonizio, Thomas McNeely, Jenna Le, Sarah Bridgins, Lee Matthew Goldberg, Lise Hanes, Dr. Paula Perez, Michael Mark, Maya Williams, Hannah Sward, Caitlin Avery, Carla Swartz, Stacy TenHouton, Donna Spruijt-Metz, Morgan Baker
Jonathan Papernick, A.K. Small, Aaron Tillman, David Rockland, Kimberly Ann Priest, Sain Griffiths, Harris Gardner, Lisa Taylor, Michael Keith, Jim Shepard, Zach VandeZande, Rusty Barnes, Daniel Nester. Kurk Lovelace (reading from Annemarie O'Connell's book), and Nina Shope
Sara Lippmann, Robin McLean, Gregory Orr, Rich Murphy, Diane Suess, Ron Tanner, Aleathea Drehmer, Christina Adams, Sharon Applegate Greenwald, Lucas Scheelk,
Joseph Milosch, Barbara Legere, Ellene Glenn Moore, Vincent Cellucci and Chris Shipman
The audiobook version of 2014's Grand Slams: A Coming of Eggs Story, due out any day, features an ensemble of talented voices. Spearheading the production of Grand Slams was Shannon Clare McDermott, who voiced the audiobook version ofJoe the Salamander.
Shannon's other credits can be viewed on her BACKSTAGE PAGE
It's no secret the way we treat our elderly in their end of life journeys. I saw it first hand, and it's heartbreaking. I've had conversations with my own children about it, and they think I'm joking, but I'm not.
So read all about it with the poem accompanied by a wonderful picture "Empty Chair" from Digby Beaumont
So, I'm playing music again. The main reason is because of the brilliance and musical talent of Lisa Haley. I don't think she realizes she's a genius---most geniuses don't, but it's more of a life saving experience. It's nice to be able to play songs again, and it's fun. That's what it's about for me now...not "making it" but having fun. Mr. Chan's Chinese Restaurant isn't CBGB's, The Ritz, The Rat, The Carpenter Fieldhouse, or even The Deer Park. Repeat. It's a Chinese Restaurant in the suburbs. We're not sharing the bill with Talk Talk, Our Daughter's Wedding, Tommy Conwell, The Hooters, The Ventures or The Psychedelic Furs, but it's in front of people, and it feels pretty good.
Recently I was at a show at the Sinclair, I was thinking about how I had actually played in clubs like that, opening for bands that were well known and known club worthy---concluding who I was playing was pretty good.
I was pretty lucky too, but I never realized how grateful I should have been. I was too busy with a chip on my shoulder. I was a kid. I also had a lot of addictive issues, which probably caused things to end (that and drummers are hard to find).
So Friday I get to play. I get to play with a genius, and we get to sing a lot of harmonies. I get to play a few songs by myself as well. I show up at a few open mics without Lisa, but this is a lot more songs than that.
Somewhere in the 90's-Walking Erect
Somewhere in the 80's, The Wake, The Maytags, The Zippers
I've had some great writers I've had the pleasure of interviewing on my Virtual Dire Literary Series.PLAYLIST/PLEASE SUBSCRIBE
Also, I get to book special lessons for writers for my daily writing group. Lots of INFOALL VIDEOS HERE
It is rare that am I put on the hotseat, but I was last Thursday, and I got to talk about writing and give a little advice. It was a privilege to be interviewed by Dale Phillips for the Tewksbury Writers Group out of Tewksbury, Massachusetts. Check it out if you get the chance
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