So today, some awesome dropped into my lap, by way of Litreactor reviewer Keith Rawson, who did the Bookshots for Bones Are Made to be Broken.  It’s not a gushing review, but it’s a solidly positive one, and when Rawson dings me, he dings me fairly–the novella maybe faring as a standalone book, which was (for those looking for some inside-baseball) something editor Michael Bailey and I discussed when I turned in the full manuscript at the beginning of the summer of 2016.  The novella is a novella, in terms of length–though the first draft was very much a full-fledged novel (I, uh, overwrite)–but it’s an anchor for the book; if you don’t dig my stuff, it’s gonna be a drag, something to flip over, and there are a lot of pages to flip, y’know? Moreover, novellas as standalones are becoming more and more common (just take a look over at This Is Horror, which recently published Josh Malerman’s “The House at the Bottom of a Lake” and T.E. Grau’s “They Don’t Come Home Anymore”).

For about a week, it was a serious discussion, but I held forth that I wanted the novella as part of the collection–the collection was why I had written the novella instead of letting the idea simmer in my head, inspired by Pat R. Steiner’s art and the title combined together.  Whether this turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing, that’s left for the reader to decide (he said, loftily).  I can’t argue if someone says the novella should’ve been a standalone, even if I’m still happy with the decision I made.

In other news, Bones is now on Goodreads (so go add it as “Want to Read”, okay?) and that’s kinda cool.  Completely irrelevant to anything else, it’s nice that, automatically, when a book is listed as Paul Michael Anderson, it gets added to me; before I began publishing by my full name, editors and publishers had to add something like twelve spaces between my first and last name for it to link to me directly (oh, the fun trivia of small-time publishing you learn by reading me, right?).  Also, those who pre-ordered the book as eBook or trade paperback–or backed the Dark Regions Press campaign earlier this fall and picked Bones as a perk–are starting to get their books, which is also kinda cool, although weird when family members gush because my immediate thought is, “Wait until you read this before gushing.”

Michael Bailey, editor extraordinaire, pointed out that, along with my book popping onto shelves, Other Music by Marc Levinthal, and The Eighth by Stephanie M. Wytovich, was also released.  I’ve only read a few pieces of Marc’s short fiction, but it’s left me intrigued at what he does with a full-length.  Stephanie, however, is my sister from another mister.  I’ve read oodles of her poetry, published her a few times when I’m in an editor’s chair somewhere, and I cannot wait to read this book.  Click the link and tumble down the rabbit hole.

Finally, I’ve finally begun updating this site to accommodate the book release: you can now peruse the blurbs, details, some of the art on the Bones Are Made to be Broken page, and as reviews and interviews role in, you can check them out on the Press page (after I’m done gushing over them in a blog post, of course).  Both are these are evolving as new info comes in (and I, uh, get better at doing this).

Now, this site is officially called “The Nothing-Space” and I like talking about my writing–uh, it’s why I have a site in the first place–but it’s not all I like to talk about.  My problem has always been, though, that, by the time I articulate my thoughts on something–usually politics, sometimes music or pop culture–the initial oomph to write about it leaves me.  It’s a change from my old journalism days, where my job was literally to write about whatever popped into my head (I once wrote a column about the music and organization of my funeral, for example).  I kinda miss that.  Might have to change that.  We’ll see.

In the mean time, feel free to pick up Bones Are Made to be Broken here or here.