An absurdist take on writing a book, first time author Josh Rolph lays out in humorous, self-deprecating form, a sit-down comedian's dream of writing so many words that he can declare to the world he is an author. The book is an exaggerated memoir and self-help parody on book writing. It exposes how his desperation to become an author far exceeds his desire to write a book, yet after an impossibly long stretch of time making and breaking all self-imposed rules, he manages to get the job done. The wannabe author does all he can to type words in order to produce a book so he can carry the "author" title for the rest of his life. "Just like becoming a mother," Rolph authoritatively declares, "once an author, always an author." He continues, "The author credential can only be taken away if it's proved that you plagiarized. And believe me, the only thing plagiarized in this book is chapters four through twenty-one." In a familiar, conversational style, the book showcases everything from the joys of writing a preface – at great length in the preface itself – to the travails of upping the word count. Woven throughout is a collection of “filler” material with essays ranging from yogurt to pants, adapted from his obscure blog and podcast. Two subsequent volumes will continue to follow the story of becoming an author of books (vol. 2) and a multi-volume series (vol. 3). Full of essays on meandering topics, "Now I Can Say I'm an Author" proves that literally anyone can write a book. Featuring essays on yogurt, pants, the death penalty, tattoos, the word "pizzazz," nakedness, and much, much, oh so much more.
An absurdist take on writing a book, first time author Josh Rolph lays out in humorous, self-deprecating form, a sit-down comedian's dream of writing so many words that he can declare to the world he is an author. The book is an exaggerated memoir and self-help parody on book writing. It exposes how his desperation to become an author far exceeds his desire to write a book, yet after an impossibly long stretch of time making and breaking all self-imposed rules, he manages to get the job done. The wannabe author does all he can to type words in order to produce a book so he can carry the "author" title for the rest of his life. "Just like becoming a mother," Rolph authoritatively declares, "once an author, always an author." He continues, "The author credential can only be taken away if it's proved that you plagiarized. And believe me, the only thing plagiarized in this book is chapters four through twenty-one." In a familiar, conversational style, the book showcases everything from the joys of writing a preface – at great length in the preface itself – to the travails of upping the word count. Woven throughout is a collection of “filler” material with essays ranging from yogurt to pants, adapted from his obscure blog and podcast. Two subsequent volumes will continue to follow the story of becoming an author of books (vol. 2) and a multi-volume series (vol. 3). Full of essays on meandering topics, "Now I Can Say I'm an Author" proves that literally anyone can write a book. Featuring essays on yogurt, pants, the death penalty, tattoos, the word "pizzazz," nakedness, and much, much, oh so much more.
Metafiction has long been associated with the heyday of literary postmodernism-with a certain sense of irresponsibility, political apathy, or outright nihilism. Yet, if (as is now widely assumed) postmodernism has finally run its course, how might we account for the proliferation of metafictional devices in contemporary narrative media? Does this persistence undermine the claim that postmodernism has passed, or has the function of metafiction somehow changed? To answer these questions, Josh Toth considers a broad range of recent metafictional texts-bywriters such as George Saunders and Jennifer Egan and directors such as Sofia Coppola and Quentin Tarantino. At the same time, he traverses a diffuse theoretical landscape: from the rise of various new materialisms (in philosophy) and the turn to affect (in literary criticism) to the seemingly endless efforts to name postmodernism's ostensible successor. Ultimately, Toth argues that much contemporary metafiction moves beyond postmodern skepticism to reassert the possibility of making true claims about real things. Capable of combating a “post-truth” crisis, such forms assert or assume a kind of Hegelian plasticity; they actively and persistently confront the trauma of what is infinitely mutable, or perpetually other. What is outside or before a given representation is confirmed and endured as that which exceeds the instance of its capture. The truth is thereby renewed; neither denied nor simply assumed, it is approached as ethically as possible. Its plasticity is grasped because the grasp, the form of its narrative apprehension, lets slip.
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography In this critically acclaimed true crime tale of "welfare queen" Linda Taylor, a Slate editor reveals a "wild, only-in-America story" of political manipulation and murder (Attica Locke, Edgar Award-winning author). On the South Side of Chicago in 1974, Linda Taylor reported a phony burglary, concocting a lie about stolen furs and jewelry. The detective who checked it out soon discovered she was a welfare cheat who drove a Cadillac to collect ill-gotten government checks. And that was just the beginning: Taylor, it turned out, was also a kidnapper, and possibly a murderer. A desperately ill teacher, a combat-traumatized Marine, an elderly woman hungry for companionship -- after Taylor came into their lives, all three ended up dead under suspicious circumstances. But nobody -- not the journalists who touted her story, not the police, and not presidential candidate Ronald Reagan -- seemed to care about anything but her welfare thievery. Growing up in the Jim Crow South, Taylor was made an outcast because of the color of her skin. As she rose to infamy, the press and politicians manipulated her image to demonize poor black women. Part social history, part true-crime investigation, Josh Levin's mesmerizing book, the product of six years of reporting and research, is a fascinating account of American racism, and an exposé of the "welfare queen" myth, one that fueled political debates that reverberate to this day. The Queen tells, for the first time, the fascinating story of what was done to Linda Taylor, what she did to others, and what was done in her name. "In the finest tradition of investigative reporting, Josh Levin exposes how a story that once shaped the nation's conscience was clouded by racism and lies. As he stunningly reveals in this "invaluable work of nonfiction," the deeper truth, the messy truth, tells us something much larger about who we are (David Grann, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon).
In the 1940s, before March Madness, the frenzy of the NBA draft, and multimilliondollar professional contracts, college basketball players played simply because they loved the game. This is the story of a group of kids who loved to play basketball: the underdog 1943-44 University of Utah men's basketball team and their unlikely path to the NCAA championship, who came out of nowhere to upset heavily favored Dartmouth for the title. Josh Ferrin and Tres Ferrin, grandson and son of Arnie Ferrin, both grew up hearing stories of Arnie's illustrious basketball career at the University of Utah. Josh established himself as an award-winning illustrator and author before deciding to research and write the story of Arnie's championship season. He resides in Bountiful, Utah, with his wife and two sons. Tres is a physical therapist who has practiced in the area of sports medicine for thirty-five years, an adjunct faculty member at Weber State University, and an avid cyclist. He and his wife, Sherry, live in Ogden, Utah. The original and unlikeliest of Cinderella stories
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