Honoring Stegner, Kesey, Kimball, Smith and, well, myself

In a fiction workshop at Stanford, Wallace Stegner told Ken Kesey and others that a success for one writer is a success for all writers -- which seems especially true now when people have so many other shiny things to turn to besides books.

So, I'm taking a moment to tip my hat to Michael Kimball and Alma Books for what seems to be a great start to the sales life of Mr. Kimball's novel, Dear Everybody. Google this one. It's getting incredible reviews.



On the same note, let's not forget Curtis Smith's recently released novel, Sound + Noise (Casperian Books). It, too, is generating some buzz.



It's victories for novels, even small victories, that might help bring more readers back to literary fiction. Non-fiction has had a good run here, but that's enough. It's time to bring back the deeper values of symbol, metaphor, and catharsis that come from reading fiction.

So, according to Stegner, Kimball and Smith's successes are successes for me because any success of the written word is a success for all people who write words.

Cool.

That means I can expect some sales to trickle down to my novel, Into the Desperate Country.



Now, if you're strapped for funds, the M.E.W. (that's My Empty Wallet) suggests that you buy the above books in the reverse order that I have them on this post.