TIDINGS OF CALM AND STORM: My Published Short Story Collection

I published my second full-length work, Tidings of Calm and Storm, on September 20, 2015.  This is a short story collection that I have been putting together over a long period of time.  The book’s description is as follows:

Tidings of Calm and Storm contains a dozen short stories of Midwest life in the U.S. throughout the 20th Century. Every story here is concise, intelligent and clearly written. This collection starts with a stark and violent stopover in "Indian Joe," and ends with a mysterious sojourn taken by the protagonist in "Communing With Angels."

Though we can read each story separately, all of the stories are interconnected. The author once described the story "From Sparks to Flame" as being "about a harsh but potentially magical world that is slowly being gutted-out by small-mindedness." Other stories in this volume express a similar theme. However, through reading every story and coming to understand the various perspectives of all of the characters, we also sense that the world's magic is still within reach.

On the back cover of the book, I explain that the theme of many of the stories is the same as theme of my novel, As Sparks Fly Upward.  In the novel, I was highly critical of the hypocrisy of individuals you put on display of being moral and religious.  I think I did this effectively, though not every reader has been pleased with the narrator in the novel – who often was a bit of a hypocrite as well.  I tried a different approach with the short stories in Tidings of Calm and Storm.  Unlike the narrator of my novel, certain protagonists in the short story have hope and believe decency still exists.  In the stories, I tried to make every word, comma and period count.

You can find purchase information regarding Tidings of Calm and Storm at the following URL:

https://www.createspace.com/5596187

If you’re interested in my novel, As Sparks Fly Upward, you can find purchase information at:

http://www.amazon.com/As-Sparks-Fly-Upward-Hypocrisy/dp/1495913864/ref=la_B015TLSOUW_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1443370502&sr=1-1

Finally, I now have an author page with combined information regarding my fictional works at:

https://www.amazon.com/author/robertsmiller

I hope for my next full-length writing project to be a work of literary criticism where I seek to bring a bit of sanity back to literary studies.  This may take awhile.

 

Robert S. Miller

September 27, 2015

©  Robert S. Miller 2015

 

AS SPARKS FLY UPWARD: My First Novel Published

On Feb. 16, 2014 I published my first novel entitled: As Sparks Fly Upward : Tale of Belief, Unbelief and Hypocrisy.  The novel is 270 pages long and consists of 77,473 words.  It is personal, sometimes funny, frequently irreverent and often sad.  The blurb on the back cover describes the novel as follows:

As Sparks Fly Upward is about a young man’s inability to come to terms with the death of his father.  Joe Duncan’s father was an alcoholic, and Joe is well on the ways of becoming one himself.  His hometown’s condemnation of what happened to his father along with the unwillingness to provide his father with a decent funeral turns Joe against that community.   He learns not to trust even those that do care for him.

Joe’s rejection of organized religion is tied to his distaste of the small-mindedness of a community that wouldn’t accept someone like Joe or Joe’s father into its circle. 

The novel can be purchased for $11.23 at the following website:

https://www.createspace.com/4597352

It can also be found on Kindle at a price of $9.99 at the following website:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00P6JK6AY_


Let me comment quickly about the price as this was not randomly set.  The minimum price I was allowed to set by the publisher was $10.23.  I decided to then add a dollar on for my own royalties.  I don’t anticipate making a great deal of money because, other than this website and a short story published in Writer’s Note Magazine, I have no publishing history.  I published in this manner because of too many rejections by other publishing companies that apparently did not have enough time to review my work.  One such publisher mentioned this fact to me while at the same time assuring me that they took my submitted work seriously.  I just do not have time to wait in line to see this novel in print.

As Sparks Fly Upward is not for everyone.  I’m not saying this to be modest or because I’m a bad sales person.  I feel the novel can be extremely funny in parts and it also has an important point to make.  The novel is a critique concerning the self-satisfaction of the voices of moral authority in many communities.  However, the fictional character that narrates the book while being unique, talented and at times extremely generous is also an extremely flawed human being.  I need to make clear that the narrator’s character does not speak for me.  He is contrasted by the other main character in the book: a young woman of about the same age with a similar background who, despite their similarities, has not succumbed to the cynicism of the narrator.  Still, the problems that the narrator faces are not easily surmountable and so the novel ends on a somewhat unhappy note.

The theme of this book may be too ambitious – especially for a first novel.  By explanation, it’s not possible to resolve all problems in any work.  I hope to provide more positive characters in a series of short stories that I hope to publish this summer or early fall.

I originally was going to include in my novel a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche from the Will to Power.  Nietzsche stated: “The arrogance of man: when he sees no purpose, he denies that there can be one!” I decided against including it because too many individuals quote Nietzsche to begin with.  Also, I thought it was a bit incongruous that I would quote from such a renowned atheist when the quote said to me that there is so much more to this world than meets the eye.

 

For those that are still interested, I think you will enjoy the novel.  As Sparks Fly Upward was not hurried to meet any deadline (as were some of my movie reviews) and therefore it’s extremely readable.  It’s also not dull reading.  The cover photo on the novel also tells a story in itself.

I’m now looking forward to getting on with other writing projects.

Robert S. Miller

February 17, 2014

© Robert S. Miller 2014