Unreasonableness and So Much More: Recommended Reading This Week

~ davidbiddle ~ 2 Comments
Painting by Tim Williams http://www.flickr.com/people/shitao

My latest commentary is posted at Kotori Magazine as part of my column “These Altered States.” There’s a lot of talk about “moving forward” and the American Dream these days (and those days back in 2012). “These Altered States” has the secondary title “America Trying to Become Itself.” This month’s post is a shout out to provocative progressive thinkers and doers everywhere. Read it right here, “Do Not Be Reasonable – Boundaries and the New America.”

I want to point you to another online read that I think is phenomenal writing and Continue reading →

Beyond the Will of God Named EBook of the Month

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My novel, Beyond the Will of God, won the E-Book of the month award at the innovative book site, “IWriteReadRate.com.” I am grateful and indebted to all who voted for this funky little psychedelic mystery. Here’s a clip from the IWRR announcement:

It was a close run race last month, with the most total votes yet – great stuff! Without further ado, the winner is…

Beyond the Will of God: A Psychedelic Mystery by David Biddle

Congratulations to David and we hope that he will find the critique helpful to support his writing journey, and continue to inspire his creativity and dedication for literature.

His winning ebook will be the featured one on the iWRR homepage during the current month. David joins our previous winners – to discover who they were, click here.

You can pick the book up through the IWRR site for $0.99. That’s a pretty good deal. I’m raising it back to $4.99 at Amazon later this week. It will go to $6.99 by the end of Continue reading →

Pointing Fingers: Talking Guns with the NRA

~ davidbiddle ~ 2 Comments

Action to stem violence

Action to stem violence (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I grew up in Central Missouri in the 1960s and 1970s. People drove around our town with guns mounted in the back of their pickups — mostly twenty-gauge shotguns and .22s. I had friends who hunted regularly. Duck season was big in our neck of the woods. So was driving around with a couple weapons for show. The idea of guns was part of life for us back then. Those were the days of the Vietnam War, too. Weapons, the potential for violent threat at any moment, and self-protection were an odd cultural focus that ran under the grain of everything else.

We were Quakers, though — my family. We were pacifists. I was also the son of social scientists. My parents knew the literature and the research. Guns make people a bit Continue reading →

Origins of a Psychedelic Novel: The Backstory on Beyond the Will of God

~ davidbiddle ~ 4 Comments
[Added note, 6/15/14: you can download “Beyond the Will of God” at NoiseTrade.com as a digital book for free right now…hurry because the offer will close soon…this was originally posted at the website Behind Blue Eyes, as noted at the end here, but the deals for digital downloads no longer apply. Still, go to NoiseTrade and it’s all free]
 
Jimi Hendrix (figure@Strobist #2)
Jimi Hendrix (figure@Strobist #2) (Photo credit: Jen Son)

It has to be admitted upfront that I was in an altered state of mind when I first came up with the idea for Beyond the Will of God. It was 1975. I was 17 and had just discovered the raw power of crazed electric guitar (Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Hot Tuna, and Jefferson Airplane to be precise—all night long). Until that weird autumn evening I had no idea how far the mind could go into the soul…and all just through letting loud guitar music take you over.

The next morning I was listening to Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland. The song “1983…(a Merman I Should Turn to Be)” came on. The best way to describe what Continue reading →

Holidays and Your Writer: Advice to Readers, Families, and Friends

~ David Biddle ~ 5 Comments

kindle-christmas

This is a repost from earlier in December. 

Indie authors are setting up shop in bedrooms and dining rooms and kitchen tables on every street in every neighborhood from Staten Island to Oahu. In 2005 about 300,000 new book titles hit the shelves of bookstores and the pages of Amazon. In 2012 I’ve read estimates of over 1,000,000 titles — just for this year alone!

It used to be when I told people I was working on a book, they would look at me like I was some cute, exotic monkey creature with bucked teeth and big brown eyes. Now they say, “Oh, do you know Ed Jones or Continue reading →

5-Star Review for Implosions of America at El Dink UK

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Trying to get people to pay attention to serious fiction (what the hell else do we call it?) in this new Indie World is not easy. Finding folks who appreciate the raw and the real can feel quite futile.

So when someone does get what you’ve done, it’s pretty special. The folks at El Dink a UK independent book review of all things Kindlesque just posted a review of my new story collection, Implosions of America. The Tweet I got letting me know this truly stunned me:

“We’ve just reviewed Implosions Of America by @dcbiddle and it’s…. awesome…fb.me/2pNtot0jU”

See the full 5-Star review from Barry at El Dink here:

5-Star Review for Implosions of America “Nine short stories about love might help us understand what the hell is wrong with America”

Click the cover to check out the book.

 

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New Publishing Frontier Lesson #37: DIY or DIE

~ davidbiddle ~ 2 Comments
Doctor Oliver Sacks.
Doctor Oliver Sacks. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Oliver Sacks has a fabulous essay at the back of yesterday’s New York Times Book Review called “Reading the Fine Print.” Everyone who reads needs to check it out. Dr. Sacks, one of this world’s most important thinkers about human consciousness (his most recent book, Hallucinations, is just the tip of the iceberg), bemoans in his essay the demise of large-print books. He acknowledges the end of large-print has come about because e-Books can provide any size type a reader desires, but that’s not good enough for him. Sacks doesn’t want a sterile electronic reading experience, he wants “books with heft, with a bookish smell, as books have had for the last 550 years, a book that I can slip into my pocket or keep with its fellows on my bookshelves where my eye might alight on it at unexpected times.”

Continue reading →

Who Are We?

~ davidbiddle ~ 1 Comment

Today’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut may well rip this country apart. Gun control is another of the issues that simmered during this year’s election while both sides did their best not to lift the lid. You can already see the posturing on both sides if you read the news accounts.

“Not the time to be talking about gun control.”

“Oh, yeah, guess what? Now’s the time. We’re marching.”

Continue reading →

The Teachings of James Bond and Other Work Coming Out This Month

~ davidbiddle ~ 2 Comments
Fighting Monkey Press

Fighting Monkey Press just posted an essay I modified for them called “9 Things I Learned from 40 Years of Following James Bond.” I posted a very long version of this piece here a month or so ago. Pavarti Tyler who honchoes Fighting Monkey says its her favorite guest post yet. Check it out. Also, check out Pavarti’s blog and book offerings HERE. If you like my piece, make sure to share it through your networks. As I’ve noted here recently, this is the season of sales and reach for writers. We can’t make things work without the help of readers, bloggers, and other authors.

I’ve also been informed that a review I wrote for Reality Sandwich on Dr. Ben Continue reading →