Author
It’s Hanukkah, and to celebrate, I’m offering my Kindle Single Get the Greek: A Chrismukkah Tale free until Sunday!
My short story Get the Greek is now available as a Kindle Single in the Amazon bookstore!
To paraphrase the great Mark Twain, “Everyone talks about the commercialization of the holiday season, but nobody does anything about it!”
Had this story been written by populist television personality Bill O’Reilly, it would have been titled Killing Santa. My publisher wanted to title it When Judah Met Santa (though in her Boston accent it came out like “When Juder Met Santer”), but I nixed it because this isn’t a love story. It’s a short, comic tale about Hanukkah, Christmas, and the lengths one historical figure might go to end the commercialization of the holiday season.
Actually, it’s got a few historical figures in there. Plus an angel. And Santa Claus. It all works, believe me.
Get your copy for $0.99 while they’re still so cheap!
Revised, expanded, updated, and more relevant than ever, my short story How to Fix a Broken World has been published by Liberty Island!
I’m pleased to announce that my short story Hold On has been published by Liberty Island.
It’s a bit of a departure, as it doesn’t involve the bizarre, horrific, or supernatural: Hold On is a human story about marriage, parenting, and loss in the not-too-distant future, when America’s illegal immigration issues come to a head.
I teased Hold On a little here. Go give it a read and tell me what you think.
This is a terrible story. The Andrade family has my deepest condolences.
On the loss of his son Julian, San Antonio police officer Jose Andrade said, “It’s very difficult; it’s the hardest thing I think anyone can go through. I think it’s the hardest thing in life. I don’t think there’s anything harder.”
Before I became a parent, I could understand this in a detached, almost academic fashion. After all, I’ve been familiar with grief. We’ve all lost somebody.
Now that I’m a dad, I don’t think I could ever understand the breadth of the Andrade family’s loss, and I pray that I never have to.
I’ve talked publicly about adoption before, here and elsewhere. In those pieces, I’ve touched briefly on our failed adoption, where we took the baby home, cared for him for a night and a day, and got a call from the agency that the birth mother changed her mind and decided to parent instead. The details of that experience are too personal to put in writing. It was extremely difficult, even life-changing, and not entirely in a good way.
But it wasn’t the same as the death of one’s child. I suspect it’s not even close.
I did reference that experience in my novel The Blessed Man and the Witch. To illustrate one of the symptoms of a strained marriage, I had my protagonist Hector deal with something similar. It became a triggering event in his past, and the implications of it have stretched into the novel’s sequel (which I’m still writing). This is not to say that it is the defining moment for him; after all, he’s as complicated a figure as any person, and as such is subject to many significant experiences. But it did mark him and push him in a certain direction.
On Thursday, April 16, my short story Hold On will be published on Liberty Island. Unlike my other material, it doesn’t deal with the bizarre, horrific, or supernatural in any way, though it is set in the near future. The story addresses themes of marriage, parenting, and loss within the context of America’s current illegal immigration crisis. As always, the intent is to tell a good story, not proselytize, and I believe I’ve done that with Hold On.
Sometimes, losing someone doesn’t make you stronger. The cracks don’t always get repaired. And the universe doesn’t just stop when you’re grieving, even though it should.
My hybrid Christmas/Hanukkah story Get the Greek: A Chrismukkah Tale, was published by Liberty Island!
It’s got comedy, pathos, excitement, and the most incisive social commentary you’ll ever see outside of a gas station water cooler conversation. If you’ve ever been interested in what Judah Maccabee really thinks about the holiday season, then this is the story for you.
There’s a little bit of rough language, some implied intimacy, adult situations, mild violence, and angels. Which reindeer takes a bullet? What does Heaven’s VFW post look like? Where do cat souls come from? These questions and more are answered in Get the Greek, free to read on Liberty Island!
