Night School Now Available, Goodreads Giveaway, and Pepper's Ghost Quarterfinalist for ScreenCraft Cinematic Prose 2025

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Jan 31, 2025

This month’s content is brought to you by readers like you whose paid Substack subscriptions and book purchases help produce and promote my work: extraordinary stories about ordinary Americans. Good stories don’t, and shouldn’t have to, conform to the dominant aesthetics and politics. If you’re a free subscriber, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Thank you for supporting and reading my work and spreading the word. And a hearty welcome to new subscribers.

And thank you to my annual paid Substack subscribers. One annual paid Substack subscription contributed to producing and promoting Night School and entering the Cinematic Prose contest for Pepper’s Ghost.

Night School Now Available

“What you hear is what you know, but what you don’t know is what you need to hear.” When college radio DJ Scotty Piper receives mysterious messages connected to his love of music and encyclopedic knowledge about a legendary rock band and their enigmatic guitarist, he leaves behind his colleagues and everything familiar and raises the odds he may never return home or to the job that keeps him grounded and gives him meaning. Scotty pursues answers and untangles riddles, diving into an oceanside city’s natural and supernatural history, an underground world of allies among enemies and enemies among allies, and groups and individuals haunted by transcendence. Like a detective, he unearths the truth about things that are seen but temporal and those that are unseen and eternal. Scotty’s journey among media and tech, money and corporations, the secular and sacred, and illusions and reality reveals an inescapable longing to be part of something larger.

ISBN (print): 9798986092713

ISBN (e-book): 9798986092720

Buy from the publisher (preferred)

A book’s success can thrive on word-of-mouth and grassroots marketing, and I’m asking you to help spread the word about Night School. Anything below you can do can positively impact me and my work:

Order the book (print and e-book).
Recommend to family, friends, acquaintances, book clubs, libraries, bookstores, bloggers, and platforms devoted to American fiction and culture.
Share on social media and websites.
Add and rate on Amazon, Goodreads, and similar outlets.
Place a copy in Little Free Libraries.

Night School Goodreads Giveaway

If you’re on Goodreads, enter your chance to win one of ten e-book (Amazon Kindle) copies of Night School. The Giveaway runs the 30th of January through the 11th of February. Good luck and thank you for entering and spreading the word.

Pepper’s Ghost Quarterfinalist for ScreenCraft Cinematic Prose 2025

Pepper's Ghost (second edition 2024) is advancing to the quarterfinalist round of the ScreenCraft Cinematic Prose 2025 contest.

BEHOLD THE GORILLA-GIRL! Charlotte Alexandra Long is determined to leave all she knows: her ill-fitting office job, her unreliable boyfriend, and the city she has lived in since adolescence. But leaving that life requires leaving her haunted father who wants nothing but the best for her yet reminds her of a past he’s not ready to let go. After joining a traveling amusement company as a sideshow performer, where an old theater trick blurs illusion and reality, Charlotte transforms into Alex who ascends into a star. While wrestling with a spectrum of coworkers, her evolving identity, her troubled father, and her concerned mother, Alex faces an uncertain future that threatens everything she has established. As Pepper’s Ghost weaves in and out of the South and Midwest, Alex must reevaluate who she is and navigate the crossroads of family, memories, and places that challenge her in times of ambiguity and tragedy.

ISBN (print): 9798986092737

ISBN (e-book): 9798986092744