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For the latest Maplewoods Mirror newsletter, click here. SIGN UP FOR A NEWSLETTER entitled The Maplewoods Mirror (and it's easy to unsubscribe if you don't like it). A work-in-progress, it's an eclectic news magazine. It includes true and sometimes funny stories and what it means to be a human being. At times there are articles about being creative. Just fill in the form below. If you want to read sample issues, they're listed below the form. I don't sell my list. The newsletter, free and once a month, is a stress-free thing to sign up for. To look at the last issue of the newsletter, click here. For past issues, scroll to the bottom of the page for a complete list. INTERVIEWS: New interviews with Christopher Meeks have recently appeared on the Internet. Click on the following links to read them: For a cool video-streaming interview with Christopher Meeks from Expanded Books on YouTube, click here or on the picture below.
Author R.J. Keller recently interviewed Meeks for Backword Books. To read the interview, click here. For those of you looking for an in-depth profile on Christopher Meeks with a critical analysis and overview of The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea, click here to see Lance Mannion's two-part story. To read an article about story structure by Mr. Meeks for Wordswimmer, click here. * * * For past issues of THE MAPLEWOODS MIRROR newsletter, please click below: Maplewoods Mirror #61 (Clemons, Krulwich, and Goodreading) Maplewoods Mirror #60 (Gunnar's Loves and Woes) Maplewoods Mirror #59 (How to Go Bankrupt issue) Maplewoods Mirror #58 (Las Vegas and Literary Fiction) Maplewoods Mirror #46 (Winning and Rewriting) Maplewoods Mirror #45 (Simon, Savannah, and a Street Vacation) Maplewoods Mirror #44 (Dracula Slinks Into the Night) Maplewoods Mirror #43 (Death in the Desert) Maplewoods Mirror #42 (Love, Dyson, and Do-It-Yourself) Maplewoods Mirror #41 (Celebration and Sadness) Maplewoods Mirror #40 - July 2009 (Glimpses of Life at Its Own Speed) Maplewoods Mirror #39 - June 2009 (Hansel, Gretel, Wright, and O'Connor Issue) Maplewoods Mirror #38 - May 2009 (Engel, Aging, and Bruce Issue) Maplewoods Mirror #37 - April 2009 (Return to Spring Issue) For All the Third Year's Issues, Click Here For All the Second Year's Issues, Click Here For All The First Year's Issues, Click Here 
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AVAILABLE ALSO:
My book The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea,
is
a collection of short fiction, most of which has
been published in literary journals.
Thirteen stories examine life in America from
the viewpoint of those still searching for the
promises they were told.
The Los Angeles Times ran a wonderful review under the headline, “Ordinary People, Unusual Moments.” The reviewer, Carmela Ciuraru, says the author manages to honor his characters’ lives, “treating them with the dignity and introspection they deserve.” (For the full review, click here.) To read more about this book or buy it, you can click here for Lulu.com or click here for Amazon.com. (Side Note: The designer of the above book covers and all my covers is Daniel Will-Harris. If you want to see more of his covers or learn more about him, click here.) Entertainment Weekly's August 11th issue in the Books section highlights five best print-on-demand books, and my book, The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea, is one of them. For an online version of the EW article, click here. A DRAMA IS ALSO AVAILABLE:
To read about the genesis of the cover, click here. To read more about this book or buy it, you can click here for Lulu.com or click here for Amazon.com. * * * BOOKSTORES FOR MY BOOKS: In Los Angeles, you can buy my books at Vroman's Books in Pasadena, Skylight Books in Los Feliz, Book Soup on Sunset, and in the USC Bookstore. Some Barnes and Noble are also stocking them--ask at Customer Service if you can't find them. For addresses and other places to buy the book, click here. For more REVIEWS, click here. * * * Read an Author Chat with Christopher Meeks on LibraryThing (click here)
One of my ongoing obsessions is a newsletter, The Maplewoods Mirror, about life, America, and how to invert the colon (like this ":"). For the latest issue, look in the left column and up a little. * * *
I've never understood pastrami. Where I grew up outside Minneapolis, the pastrami always tasted like cut-rate hot dogs and looked like pink Play-Doh. After driving around Los Angeles and finding many signs boasting "World's Best Pastrami," I did my own investigation. Click Here to find the best of the World's Best Pastrami.
You can hear me interviewed on the radio twice about my books (via podcast) by clicking here for an interview on Kidney Talk (as it relates to the book "Who Lives?") or by clicking here for at interview at Lulu Books. In the latter, I talk about short story writing and how to publish. ON NEWSSTANDS NOW:
The Winter issue 2008 of Rosebud is now on better newsstands, and it has my story, "Dracula Slinks Into the Night." To get a copy or learn about subscriptions to this great national literary magazine, Click Here.
Three of my stories appeared in Issue 26 of the national journal Rosebud. To order a copy, click here. If you have questions, e-mail me at chrismeeks@gmail.com |
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Click on any heading to the left, or read the latest news below (scroll down) For Christopher Meeks's Homepage as an author, please go to: http://www.chrismeeks.com To read his blog, go to RedRoom.com (click here).
EBOOK VERSIONS OF NEW NOVEL "
If you don't have a reader, you can get apps for your computer, phone, and other devices.
Love at Absolute Zero is the story of Gunnar Gunderson, a 32-year-old physicist at the University of Wisconsin. The moment he’s given tenure at the university, he can only think of finding a wife, causing his research to falter. With his two partners, Gunnar is in a race against MIT to create new forms of matter called Bose-Einstein condensates, which exist only near absolute zero. To meet his soul mate within three days—that’s all time they can carve out—he and his team are using the scientific method, to riotous results.
Think of
the book as the romance of Audrey Niffenegger (The
Time Traveler’s Wife), the science of Michael
Crichton (Jurassic
Park), and the humor of Nick Hornby (High
Fidelity).
MEEKS SHORT STORY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE TEXT
Christopher Meeks's short story "The Farms at 93rd and Broadway" appears in the new college textbook English Literature from Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, authored by Lawrence Driscoll. His story joins those by Jhumpa Lahiri, Martin
Amis, Junot Diaz, Sandra Cisneros, Donald Barthleme,
and 11 others. Each of the stories has questions
after it to lead students to a better understanding
of what they just read. The book also contains
poetry and guidelines on how to write the literature
essay.
Besty Wakeman of Boston, MA, reads on vacation The Brightest Moon of the Century wins three "Best" Awards The Brightest Moon of the Century, a comic novel about a young Minnesotan blessed with "experience," has landed at the top on three literary websites. First, the Literary Feline at Musings of a Bookish Kitty selected the novel as one of ten Best Books of 2009, which you can read by clicking here. Second, Sam Sattler at the website Book Chase also placed The Brightest Moon of the Century in his top ten books, which also includes books by Pete Dexter and Jon Krakauer. Sattler says, "Meeks's characters, and his slightly off-centered view of life, continue to remind me of John Irving's early work, definitely a good thing." You can read more by clicking here. Third, The Brightest Moon of the Century won a Noble (not Nobel) Award in MyShelf.com's seventh annual end-of-the-year awards, created by Carolyn Howard-Johnson in her "Back to Literature" column. In listing the award, Howard-Johnson says, "If the world is just, Christopher Meeks is destined to be widely read." To read more about the Noble Awards, click here.
Author R.J. Keller reads The Brightest Moon of
the Century Amazon.com has plenty of copies of The Brightest Moon of the Century. To download or sample a copy of the novel to your Kindle, Nook, other reader, or computer, the book page for The Brightest Moon of the Century is: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/8702 For Christopher Meeks's Smashwords Author Profile, click here. Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena has many signed copies. Vroman's ships all over the country. For a signed copy call the store at (626) 449-5320 or or click here for buying a signed copy online. Now Available for the Kindle: The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea, which was also reviewed for the Kindle by Red Adept, who says, "This book was written by a literary artist with a firm grasp of the English language and knows of all that it is capable." For the full review, click here.
Above, animation geniuses (L-R) Henry Selick (Coraline) and Stephen Hillenburg (Sponge Bob) AVAILABLE:
Meeks's latest collection of short stories is Months and Seasons, and to get a good sense of it, click here for reviewer Diana Raabe's take on it. Examine the book at Amazon.com, where other reviews can help you decide. "The stories in Months and Seasons are like potato chips: you can’t read just one." --Marc Schuster, Small Press Reviews "Poetry and short story collections are two of the hardest writing to sell. With this collection Christopher Meeks proves there is an audience for short stories. His characters are well defined with problems that they can't resolve. There are twelve tales that reveal a lot about our present society. Meeks's stories reminded me of those of John Cheever." -- Gary Roen, Midwest Book Review "[Meeks's] strange creations have just the right amount of "normalcy"' that in our eyes could make them part of the unnoticed woodwork: in Meeks's eyes (and pen) they become extraordinary seeds for terrific stories." --Grady Harp, Amazon Top-Ten Reviewer. To see all the reviews, click here.
To see a short interview and excerpt from Months and Seasons, click here. NEWEST SHORT STORY:
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