Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Top Ten Posts of 2014 viewed here on News

If Snoop Dog ever said my name, it would be pretty cool, but he won't, probably not ever.



Year end Top Ten lists are kind of silly, full of ego, but without further adieu, here are the most viewed posts from  this blog in 2014, in reverse order with a quick comment about why it made the list. This year's list is dominated by "The Thursday Appointments of Bill Sloan", and, once again,  there was only one announcement of any singular story or poem being published cracked the Top Ten. Interesting, indeed.





10

University of Delaware acknowledges The Shutting Door written by one of their famous alumni and I acknowledge the location of much of my college years, The Deer Park


Reason: A lot of my friends went here. The Deer Park, I mean, the U of D.  Also there are a lot of cool pictures of me and bands in college along with mentioning some of my drinking history--all past life stuff.

Reason: Only announcement of poem or singular story to crack the list.


Reason: People want to see me? The Shutting Door came out in late 2013, but I was doing poetry readings for it well into the spring. Combined with readings for my novel, it was the most readings I'd done in any year. 


Reason: The novel was this much more interesting to hear me read from, slightly more than the #8 answer.

Reason: Not a very meaty post, but the first draft was finished in 2010, and people are curious about, who, what, why and how, it becomes a public product. Six months later, it was out in the world..

Reason: What did I say above. September? This is a post from June. My tour was taking shape. Teaser plus out of town gigs created interest. 

Reason: I reversed my stance about sites such as Kickstarter. Here, I listed the  reasons and how donating to a charity was involved. I raised a good amount of money and the donation went to the Out of the Blue Art Gallery via Jimmy Tingle. Wins all around. 

Reason: A fun promotion. It had games, my kids, comedy and something free. It involved 64 of you. 2014 Champion Kia Alice Groom. 2015 will bring you March Madness for Bill Sloan. 


2. 

New interview by xxx, which got shelved and why - MY OPINION: The support of women should be a given, not a controversy.


Reason: I'd like to think that people were interested in the interview, which was pulled from publication because of my support to a worthy cause. People were more interested in righting the mistreatment of these brave women. Good, that. 


And the number One most viewed blog post of 2014



1. 

Seven ways to purchase---"The Thursday Appointments of Bill Sloan"


Reason: All the cool kids have one, so everyone has to have their own. I'm so grateful for everyone's support, interest, purchases and love. 



Our Beautifully Broken Mirror: A review of "The Thursday Appointments of Bill Sloan" at Revolution John

There's a great review of The Thursday Appointment of Bill Sloan written by Sheldon Lee Compton. Thanks for the great words.

The Thursday Appointments of Bill Sloan
by Timothy Gager
Big Table Publishing
278 pgs

I like the word innovative in place of experimental, especially when talking about fiction and more especially when taking a better look at Timothy Gager’s novel The Thursday Appointments of Bill Sloan.
Like any good innovative work, the novel has an immediate, almost built in, structure option – therapist Bill Sloan’s Thursday appointments.  Through this prism, Gager imagines and offers us a look at a variety of extreme characters, each reflecting in some way parts of ourselves, if we’re reading closely.
However, it’s not excessively innovative (that can certainly happen) as much as it allows innovation to provide the looking glass into a central humaneness for us all.
Take the character of Kate Hummingbird Warrior, for example. Kate is a spiritual healer who brings with her an optimism that shines against the backdrop of the overall novel, and, particularly, Sloan’s own nefarious ambitions. During the course of her time with Sloan, she begins to realize deeper issues, more or less on her own.  With Kate it seems Gager is saying that amid all the other insanity and longing in the world, there is a part of us all that has the potential to see the goodness and capacity for goodness in ourselves and each other.  Likewise, though guided (as best as Sloan can) she is alone in her recovery in many ways, much as we all are when facing moments of critical revelation.
This and details about the other of Sloan’s patients (each chapter begins with a new Thursday appointment and provides that nice innovative structure mentioned earlier) is deep stuff, but Gager wisely lends these ideas to a darkly comedic tongue and razor sharp eye for the humanity resting just beneath the wailing.
For me the multiple character views, Sloan’s own inner workings, and the nod to identity disorder inherent in this structure is the crux of Gager’s accomplishments with this novel. An author could have easily opted to explore the many layers offered in such a novel through only one or two characters. We’ve seen it done many times, and done well, at that.  But Gager didn’t take the common and mostly more comfortable route in showing his readers that splintered mirror that is all of our own identity disorders.  In good form, he wrote a book with as many characters and individual problems as there are ideas for how we collectively find ourselves in such places. I like the risk, and it’s one that pays off.
So where does this leave our deliciously dislikable Bill Sloan? How does Sloan fit into the book as, in fact, its core?
I like to think Sloan is our lesser angel, but an angel all the same. Crude, manipulative, prideful, lazy, backstabbing, and on and on. A lesser angel because there’s room to grow in so many important ways. And therein lies Sloan’s true beauty, our true beauty. Potential.
The Thursday Appointments of Bill Sloan is a wildly imagined ride that, to this reader, reflects on some level our own journey, our shortcomings, our hopes, our black eyes, and our capacity to love and be loved. It’s an ambitious novel, in this case, and beautiful in its own way because of that ambition.
Here are some ways you can purchase The Thursday Appointments of Bill Sloan.

Monday, December 22, 2014

2014: My year in publishing, touring, reading and doing crazy stuff.





2014  marked for me,  the least amount of published work in a long time. Still, there was "The Thursday Appointments of Bill Sloan", which proudly took up a lot of my writing time for the finishing editing process, the promoting oand the touring for.  It has sold a lot and the blurbs and reviews  (plus reader reviews) for it have been amazing. Also I was interviewed hosted various interviews, as well as filmed, recorded, ran a March Madness contest and raised money for the tour of the West Coast and The Out of the Blue Art Gallery

2014, in sheer number,  
1 book, 
11 short stories/flash  (of them, two co-written) , 
9 poems, 
2 essays



BOOKS

The Thursday Appointments of Bill Sloan,, August 2014, Big Table Publishing




SHORT, FLASH AND MICRO FICTIONS 
 
"You Buy Too Much Kale" September 16, 2014 Flash Frontier

"Being Aesthetically Pleasing" July 8, 2014 Flash Frontier
(written with Teisha Twomey)


"Iron Mike Behind Bars" June 9, 2014 Cape Fear Review

"Best Fiends", May 28, 2014 Fried Chicken and Coffee
"Pole"
"The Beauty on the Inside"

"No.Station" May 28, 2014 Akashic Books Thursdaze

"All About Zebras in The Wild", May 9, 2014 The Legendary
"What Are The Reasons They Hang On"

"Systematic Knowledge" March 29, 2014 Pure Slush

"Clarence's First" March 7, 2014 Paragraph Line
(written with Teisha Twomey) 




POETRY
 
"This is Where You Are"
December 1, 2014, Ibbetson 36


 "Decomposition"
"No Home Like Place"
"There's Sunshine When You Need It"
November 26, 2014, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Winter 2014

"Rockwellian BBQ at The Town Green"
July 3, 2014 Oddball Magazine

"About Making Love"
June 1, 2014, Ibbetson 35

"We Won't Work Out"
May 31, 2014,Right Hand Pointing Tenth Anniversary Issue

"Meeting With Father Vincent"
May 1, 2014, Extract(s) 2 (print)

"Nearsightedness"
March 1, 2014,The Citron Review




ESSAYS

November 17, 2014, Big Table Publishing, Featured Authors
"My Analysis of Television and How It Influenced, "The Thursday Appointments of Bill Sloan"

September 22, 2014, Mass Poetry Website
"Going Wherever Time and Writing Takes Me"



 

INTERVIEWS,  AUDIO/VIDEO
 

November 25, 2014
 "Interview with author, Chris Jane"

November 17, 2014
How Television Influenced "The Thursday Appointments of Bill Sloan"

November 16, 2014
"Video Clips from Sunday Salon, Jimmys #43" 

October 6, 2014
"Video from The Interobang Appointment of Timothy Gager, Seattle, Wa."

October 2, 2014
"Interview with journalist, Ognian Georgiev"

September 22, 2014, Mass Poetry Website"Going Wherever Time and Writing TakeSeptember 10, 2014
"Interview with Scott Fynboe, Sundress Academy of the Arts"

June 8, 2014
 "Pod Cast from Eastern Lit House Reading"

May 3, 2014, Mass Poetry Website 
"Riding with Kim Addonizio, discussing poetry in a crappy car"

 April 2, 2014
 "Shelved interview by Name Redacted"



 CONTESTS AND FUND RAISERS

 September-October, 2014
"Go Fund Me, Tour Fund Raiser, half going to charity"

March 23,, 2014"My March Madness Contest for your copy of The Shutting Door"