Congratulations to Spencer Dew and Ampersand Books for the release of Here Is How It Happens, Dew's debut novel. The book launch will take place in Pittsburgh tomorrow night at Awesome Books' downtown location. Awesome Books is the only literary bookstore in Pittsburgh's Cultural District and turned up as a "pop-up" store in December 2011. They've quickly gained a reputation for their savvy selection of new and used books (both classics and new indie lit titles), as well as their regular roster of book events that gather lively crowds of small press writers. Awesome's downtown presence has been a welcome surprise to tourists and Pittsburghers alike, and we hope it stays around for a long time.
I'm honored to be involved in the book launch reading for Dew's novel, along with poet Michael S. Begnal, a Salmon Poetry author and former editor of Galway literary magazine, The Burning Bush.
It was also an honor to be asked to write a blurb for the darkly comic Here Is How It Happens. Here's what I said:
"Spencer Dew writes like a quiet maniac who sees the violence under the façade of everyday things, and the beauty under the violence. With X-ray vision and fine-tuned prose, Dew discovers insights and absurdities in the Americana of box stores, elite colleges, poetry students, buffet restaurants, historic plaques, alternative radio, conspiracy theorists, installation artists, and lug-headed drug experimentalists. Here is How it Happens explores the place where the heartland meets the rust belt meets the precarious bubble of academia, and finds redemption in the purity of longing and the shit coffee of an Amish country diner.”
Order the book from Ampersand Books here:
http://ampersand-books.com/here-is-how-it-happens-by-spencer-dew/
Read the first review of the novel at XenoFiles here:
http://ljmoore.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/here-is-how-it-happens-spencer-dew-ampersand-books-march-2013/
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Previously on this blog:
The Next Big Thing Blog Hop: Spencer Dew
The Art of the Book Review: Spencer Dew
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