Counterpoint Press has published, as a paperback original, a new collection of my stories titled I JUST HITCHED IN FROM THE COAST: THE ED McCLANAHAN READER. The book is a gathering of 14 stories, both fiction and non-fiction, including, to my unspeakable and no doubt insufferable delight, all three stories in A CONGRESS OF WONDERS, my favorite book, which has been out of print for a long time. (My friend and collaborator and cohort Tom Marksbury has been immeasurably helpful in the process of assembling the collection, and is officially its editor.) This is a big fat old book — 288 action-packed pages! — and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
But wait, there's more! Here's another long-delayed announcement:
Wind Press has just published HORSEFEATHERS: STORIES FROM ROOM 241, a contributor-edited anthology by the students in a University of Kentucky undergraduate Advanced Creative Writing Class I ostensibly taught in the Fall of 2009. The book, which is available on Amazon and in local bookstores, is a sprightly, eclectic collection of fiction and memoir. Scotty Adkins, one of the contributors, is the Associate Editor, I copy-edited the stories and wrote an introduction, and Johnny Lackey, bless his artistic little heart, did that terrific block print cover (above) for us.
On October 10/11 I'll be visiting classes and doing readings and signings with my old Prankster pal Ken Babbs at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, our mutual alma mater. (I graduated in '55, Babbs in '58) .
Babbs will be presenting his first novel, WHO SHOT THE WATER BUFFALO? (Overlook Press, 2011), the original draft of which he wrote almost 50 years ago, when he was a Marine helicopter pilot in the very early days of the Vietnam War.
Photo by Brian Lanker
You can read my reflections on my long friendship with Babbs—and on his wonderful book, including the blurb I wrote for him, here.
Then, on Wed. October 12, Babbs and I will bring our two-man show down to Lexington, where we'll read at Morris Bookshop at 7 p.m. in their beautiful new Chevy Chase location at 882 E. High Street (next to Le Matin cafe/bakery).
UPDATE:You can see some great pictures of the Morris Bookshop signing taken by Matt Goins, courtesy of the fine folks at the Lexington Herald-Leader by clicking here. Go ahead. You know you want to.
On Tues. October 18 at 7 p.m., I'll be reading and signing at Joseph-Beth Books in Lexington Green, and at Poor Richard’s in Frankfort on November 10 (6 - 8 p.m.). I'll be at the Kentucky Book Fair in Frankfort on Sat. November 12, and at the Maysville Book Fair in Maysville, KY, my hometown, all day on Sat. December 10.
Here also, belatedly, is a very good piece (with an equally good sidebar interview) that appeared last week in LEO, the Louisville alt-weekly.
But wait, there’s … !
Back up a couple of Saturdays, to the evening of Sat. November 12, when the wonderfully eclectic blues/rockabilly/jazz ensemble TIN CAN BUDDHA, featuring my old pal Rodney “Artsnake” Hatfield and his old pal Lee Carroll and Lee’s old pal Big Mitch Ivanoff and the great, great jazz/blues vocalist Gale Wynters, will appear at the Bomhard theater in Louisville’s Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts … and I’m in the show! I’ll probably have more to say about this event soon; meanwhile, here’s the poster:
9/24/11
Eschew Higgledy-Piggledy
I’ve long entertained the fancy that someday I would see all my favorite stories artfully assembled—by me, of course—in a single volume, but that pipe-dream took on new urgency when I realized that my book A Congress of Wonders—comprised of three novella-length stories including “Finch’s Song,” the story I want to be represented by when I stand before that Great Literary Panel in the Sky—had gone completely and permanently out of print. Eek!
That’s when Counterpoint—in the person of Jack Shoemaker—leaped into the breach with the opportunity to put together this collection, allowing me not only to salvage the Congress stories but also to showcase them in company with my other personal-best choices. I Just Hitched In from the Coast: The Ed McClanahan Reader is a gathering of fourteen previously published stories, an admixture of fiction and non-fiction, memoir and imagination. The three Congress of Wonders stories—which are inter-connected, especially by the presence in all three of my favorite character, Rev./Prof./Dr. Philander Cosmo Rexroat—provide a sort of narrative backbone for this assemblage of otherwise pretty disparate pieces, written as they were over a span of more than forty years.
Read more of my Owner's Manual in the writings section, here.
My daughter Cait and me and Cait's daughter Jessie, the determined- looking "Time for New Power" girl, marching on the state capitol at this year's edition of the I Love Mountains protest against mountaintop-removal coal mining. Photo by my daughter Kris.
I suppose you think these shirts are just amusingly inept Superman knock-offs, huh? Well, think again, bunky; this is the logo of Sandoz Laboratories, where, in 1938, the good Dr. Albert Hofman synthesized LSD. My Prankster friend Kirko happened to notice the similarity, and had the shirts made up in Superman colors. Then my wife Hilda took this high-fashion foto of our Great Dane, Frida the Wonderdog, and her faithful sidekick Acidboy.
The "I Love Mountains Day" march on the state capitol building in Frankfort, Kentucky, on February 17th, 2009, protesting mountaintop-removal coal mining. That's Ed on the left, in the red jacket.
Jack The Bear
Here's a video of my daughter Annie and me singing my Kesey tribute song "Jack the Bear" at Booksmith in San Francisco, during my Fall, 2008 book tour with O the Clear Moment. The video was shot by my Prankster friend Freddy Hahne. The song appears in the book, in the story called "And Then I Wrote ... "
Un-retouched photo by Clay Gaunce of Ed McClanahan reading from "Famous People I Have Known" at a benefit show for Metropolitan Blues All*Stars bassist, Ricky Baldwin, at The Dame in Lexington, August 4, 2005.
I've been working sporadically for the last several years on a novel which I usually describe as "a sort of left-handed, latter-day sequel" to THE NATURAL MAN, titled THE RETURN OF THE SON OF NEEDMORE, in which Harry Eastep, the point-of-view character in NATURAL MAN, returns to his hometown after a career in academia on the West Coast, and finds himself on the jury in a murder trial. Readers who remember NATURAL MAN may be interested to know that much of SON OF NEEDMORE is in the form of flashbacks, in one of which the late Monk McHorning makes a cameo appearance, and that Oodles Ockerman, who has survived the intervening years, also looms large (so to speak) in the foreground of the story. Sample chapters from the book — "Harry at the Breach," "Freejack," and "Poodad" — are posted on the "Writings" page of this website.
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