A Man Melting & Other Stories: The Low Down

I've been meaning to do this post for some time, but life intrudes. Damn all that needing a day job and a place to sleep stuff. Anyway, that's sorted now.

As I mentioned in the inaugural This Fluid Thrill post (fancy title for something three people read, eh?), I have a short story collection coming out next year and this will no doubt be mentioned again as the date approaches.

The progress so far: blurb and author bio provisionally complete; designer is off designing potential covers; copy editor is off editing the manuscript; I'm waiting for my photographer brother to receive his shiny new camera before the much anticipated author's photo shoot...

Here's the blurb:

A son worries he is becoming too perfect a copy of his father. The co-owner of a weight-loss camp for teens finds himself running the black market in chocolate bars. A man starts melting and nothing can stop it, not even poetry.

This terrific [not my words] collection of stories moves from the serious and realistic to the humorous and outlandish, each story copying an element from the previous piece in a kind of evolutionary chain. Amid pigeons with a taste for cigarette ash, a rash of moa sightings, and the identity crisis of an imaginary friend, the characters in these eighteen entertaining stories look for ways to reconnect with people and the world around them, even if that means befriending a robber wielding an iguana.

Of the eighteen stories, three have been previously published, and two placed in national competitions (one first and one top ten). Lot's of stories didn't make the cut, including six which were previously published.

Don't let the title scare you ladies off: 23% of the stories feature a female protagonist and/or narrator.

The following music artists are mentioned: Dire Straits, Nelly Furtado, Neil Sedaka, Van Morrison, U2, Styx, Queen, cast members of 'The Sound of Music' (I obviously went for realism over musical credibility).

Stories are set in the following locales: on the banks of the Manawatu River, Edinburgh, Zanzibar, Nelson, Sausalito, Sydney, Stellenbosch, the Scottish Borders, Lambton Quay, somewhere out passed Papakura, a boys high school in a fictional North Island town, a fictional North Island fly fishing destination, at least three offices and Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Death toll: 3 (2 main characters and 1 hitchhiker).

Provisional release date: May 2010.

More news as it comes to hand.