'Evacuation Plan' in Award-Winning Books Week

The folks over at Storyfinds.com are highlighting the new e-edition of my novel-in-stories Evacuation Plan today on their site as part of their Award-Winning Books Week. The novel won the North Texas Book Award and garnered some good attention. (Look on the right of this page for more info!)

They've got an excerpt of the book here. Check it out and spread the word.

'Evacuation Plan' is now an e-book!

First off, I'll be signing my novel-in stories Evacuation Plan during the Texas Book Festival from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday and noon to 2 p.m. Sunday outside the Texas Capitol. Stop by and say "Howdy."

Just as important, Evacuation Plan lives a new life as an e-book is all of the various formats. Thanks to Sisterhood Publications for adding me to their stable of fine writers. You can look in the column on the right for more info on this award-winning tome. The new cover includes a photo I took a million years ago. 


Want to read it for free? Here's how:

Sisterhood Publications is so excited to announce our newest release, the award-winning EVACUATION PLAN: A NOVEL FROM THE HOSPICE by Joe M. O'Connell.

We want YOU to help us spread the word, so we are making it worth your while. There's a free copy of the book, a free DVD where Joe talks about the book and a $25 gift certificate to Amazon to the first person who spreads the word in ten different places on the Web.

Rules:

1. You cannot write "Buy Joe's Book 10 Times on your FB profile.
2. You cannot write "Buy Joe's Book 10 Times on your friends profiles. If you write it on your profile on Facebook, that counts for one time.
3. You must take a screen shot of your comment. For information on how to take a screen shot please visit https://www.facebook.com/SisterhoodPublications for exact details.
4. Once you have visited 10 different Internet locations and posted about Joe's book, please send your screen shots, your name, snail mail address to draneydesign@gmail.com.
5. Example of what to post. "Make sure you check out Joe O'Connell's new book, EVACUATION PLAN. I'm in a contest to win a copy plus a $25 gift certificate" or something like that.
6. Examples of places where you can post: FB (once). Twitter (Once), Tumblr (1), Reddit (1), Google + (1), Pinterest (1), Your website (1), Your Blog (1), etc. See? Not so hard, kind of fun, and you can win a book, a CD and a $25 giftcard to buy MORE books. So let's play.

Terry Harper gets one final word in...

I knew Terry Harper back in the '80s when he was recent college graduate traveling around advising chapters of my college fraternity. At one point we were having lunch in Rivendell's, a San Marcos, Texas, restaurant, when his eyes suddenly widened. He pointed up at the ceiling where a possum was pocking its head through. We both laughed a lot about that moment.

This past week Terry died after a second surgery for brain cancer. What can I tell you about Terry that he couldn't say better? Read his final words as reprinted in The New York Post.

Too cheap to buy my book? Rent it

Steve Booker, appropriately, holding up my book which he got as an Xmas present!

In one of the strangest forms of availability for my novel-in-stories EVACUATION PLAN, you can now rent it here for a paltry $9.99. Hey, for a few more bucks I'll hand deliver an autographed copy to you (my airfare to your door may apply, read fine print for details).

The book review in repose

Here's what no one tells you about being a published writer: people will hate you, be bored with you and sometimes even overpraise you. Yes, I'm talking about the snarky book review, a nasty little secret I've tried to avoid mentioning in the time my novel-in-stories Evacuation Plan has been out. But sometimes you just gotta speak up.

Take the woman who said this about my book:

"The narrative is all first person, but jumps from the main writer, to each of a variety of people he meets at the hospice - some staff and some greiving family members. The whole premise is a bit suspect in the first place as I doubt any hospice just lets a filmaker or writer hang out at its nurses station and sleep on its couches as our main character does here. Most of the, what are essentially short stories, are not interesting, with the exception of one or two."

Ouch! Of course, the book was inspired by my experiences on a very similar hospice couch...

Now here's what the same reviewer had to say about a few other horrifically bad books:

"A good quick read, but the stream of consciousness thing is annoying coming from a teenage narrator and I found the whole premise kinda shallow and uninteresting."
--The Catcher in the Rye

"A few worthy scenes and descriptions. But overall too disjointed, irrelevant, and dare I say...boring at times. It felt like absolutely no movement to any discernable plot, just meanderings around an only vaguely interesting family tree."
--One Hundred Years of Solitude

"I don't usually care for short stories and this collection is no different. Although her descriptive ability is good, short stories have to get interesting or relevant very quickly for me, and none of these did."
==Interpreter of Maladies

"I can't relate to the characters at all and feel no emotional connection or lessens learned. Not even a joy in being placed in another setting and time, since really it's a miserable set of circumstances."
--Great Expectations

"Recommended to me as a friend's favorite book, but I couldn't get through it. Just too unbelievable and I find it easy to lose focus with his writing style."
--Henderson the Rain King

"...it starts interesting, and then devolves into useless dialogue between characters I care little about. It just feels like too much work to read."
--The Sun Also Rises

I couldn't be happier to be in such crappy company.

EVACUATION PLAN wins!

Friday night my novel-in-stories EVACUATION PLAN won the North Texas Book Festival Book Award for adult fiction. The winners in the other two categories were from Texas Tech Press. The award honors books from independent publishers. Woo-hoo!

Me in East Texas; my mother at peace

A Tiara-wearing member of the Pulpwood Queens.


A photo I took in Grand Cane, Louisiana.

What an odd last few days. I've been at the Pulpwood Queen's Girlfriend Weekend talking about my novel-in-stories Evacuation Plan (read my Austin Chronicle blogs about it here), and also visiting the area that spawned my mother. Today I went to Grand Cane and ate chicken and dumplings in the tiny town's lone cafe. It was once a grocery store, and its customers certainly included my mother's father's people--the Castleberrys.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, my mother's best friend and my two brothers today scattered my mom's ashes in the Pampa River in far South India. Somehow there's nice symmetry to this.

EVACUATION PLAN premieres on Kindle!

I have never met anyone who owns a Kindle, but those of you who do can now read my novel-in-stories EVACUATION PLAN on yours, and it's already ranked an amazing 29,236 on Amazon.com. I'm pleased if the print edition gets above 100,000 on Amazon. But could it be there just aren't that many Kindle books to compete with? Anyone own a Kindle? Let me know how you like it.

Buy my book for $100?

Well, not quite, but it's on sale here for $97.65. Probably when you throw in shipping it would be over $100. Um, you could always buy directly from me for a whole lot cheaper. Or might I suggest your favorite independent bookstore?

Great evening last night at the Dougherty Arts Center in celebration of Texas Writers Month (thank you for having me, Writers League of Texas). I was last up out of five writers, but got a strong reaction. Good to see some old friends there, too.

Book critics need an EVACUATION PLAN

The National Book Critics Circle's quarterly list of recommended titles is out. I'm pleased to see my idol Charles Baxter on the list, but otherwise it's very telling. ONE university press on the list and no other independents. Reviewers: Come visit the Dalton Publishing booth at Book Expo America and my publisher will be happy to give you a copy of EVACUATION PLAN.


Heres' what America's book critics say they are reading and enjoying:

FICTION

1. Richard Price, LUSH LIFE, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
2. Jhumpa Lahiri, UNACCUSTOMED EARTH, Knopf
3. Steven Millhauser, DANGEROUS LAUGHTER, Knopf
*4. Charles Baxter, THE SOUL THIEF, Pantheon
*4. Peter Carey, HIS ILLEGAL SELF, Knopf
*4. J. M. Coetzee, DIARY OF A BAD YEAR, Viking
*4. James Collins, BEGINNNER'S GREEK, Little, Brown
*4. Brian Hall, FALL OF FROST, Viking
*4. Roxana Robinson, COST, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
*4. Owen Sheers, RESISTANCE, Nan A. Talese: Doubleday

NONFICTION

1. Nicholson Baker, HUMAN SMOKE: THE BEGINNING OF WORLD WAR II, THE END OF CIVILIZATION, S. & S.
2. Drew Gilpin Faust, THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING: DEATH AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, Knopf
3. Mark Harris, PICTURES AT THE REVOLUTION: FIVE MOVIES AND THE BIRTH OF THE NEW HOLLYWOOD, Penguin Press
4. Honor Moore, THE BISHOP'S DAUGHTER: A MEMOIR, Norton
5. Susan Jacoby, THE AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON, Pantheon

POETRY

1. Grace Paley, FIDELITY, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
2. Frank Bidart, WATCHING THE SPRING FESTIVAL, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
3. Eric Gansworth, A HALF-LIFE OF CARDIO-PULMONARY FUNCTION, Syracuse University Press
4. Marie Howe, THE KINGDOM OF ORDINARY TIME, Norton
5. Robert Pinsky, GULF MUSIC, Farrar, Straus & Giroux

'Emily' graduates...

Her real name is Elizabeth, but in my hospice-set novel-in-stories Evacuation Plan, she sort of is Emily, a young girl on the verge of being kidnapped. The real story is I spent a couple of hours talking and playing with Elizabeth when she was a little girl so I could get the voice right for the character in this story. Congrats, Elizabeth!

Want a free copy of 'Evacuation Plan'?

I've decided that it's easier to do book talks than it is to do in-store signings. The photo above is my view toward the front door when I signed at Barnes and Noble-Round Rock recently. Getting people to stop and talk is a challenge when you're at a table oasis in a bookstore. It's much easier when you have a captive audience at a talk!

I got a nice surprise from this new review. If you follow the link you can also leave a note for your chance to win a FREE COPY of my book!

'The Wager' adapted from 'Evacuation Plan'

What an odd, interesting experience Friday night to go see an adaptation of a story contained in my novel EVACUATION PLAN, which is set in a hospice. It wasn't the same story I wrote, but it was--if that makes any sense. The story is about a gambler and his very scientific wife who end up staying with the gambler's ex-con father at a halfway house he runs for crazy ex-cons. The father and son end up playing a game of Monopoly with the winner getting either cash or to sleep with the son's wife.

Janet Heimlich read my book to review it recently in The Texas Ovserver and asked to adapt this one story. (Yes, she is the daughter of THAT Dr. Heimlich.) She also starred as the wife, which may have been why the wife seemed more to be the viewpoint character in the play while the husband was in my story (in both cases the wife wins out in the end). The actor who played the father was wonderful, and the play overall was great. I must say it was a surreal experience, particularly when the actors were saying lines that I had written! It reminded of when I did a bit of speechwriting years ago and watched someone read my speech and evoke tears.

The play was performed at Frontera Fest in Austin, which is a competition for a wide variety of one-act performances. Hyde Park Theatre was packed. My wife and I left before the fifth and final play to go collect our baby from my sister, but of the four I saw, "The Wager" was surely the best. But, then again, I may be biased. There is a chance it will play again during the best of the fest. Keep your fingers crossed.

Pulling a stunt in Taylor

We had a great event at the Howard Theatre this past Sunday benefitting Hospice Austin of Williamson County. I read briefly from EVACUATION PLAN and Gary Kent showed a pristine print of of his film RAINY DAY FRIENDS with star (and rather famous stuntman) Chuck Bail on hand to tell some tale tales.


That's Gilbert Wildin and family with Chuck, Gary and Bob Ivy outside the theater. Gilbert played some blues guitar to open the event.


Grace Holland of Hospice Austin, Gary, me and my sister Clare.



Gary orders up some goodies at the counter. Cole the manager called the event the best in his time at the Howard Theatre.


Chuck Bail, Gary Kent and Bob Ivy. You may know Bob as the mummy in Bubba Ho-Tep.

Oprah? It's Joe. I've got a book for you...

Good news on the novel front. The San Marcos Daily Record did a great profile in advance of Texas Authors Day there this coming Sunday. And Dawn Papuga wrote a great review.

Meanwhile, my OLDER sister has created a group on Facebook.com aimed at getting Evacuation Plan on Oprah. Join the cause! Start by joining the group. Then send her an email telling her what a great topic it would be...

Nicholas misses his Mommy

Hard to believe he was crying right before this.

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Mommy!



Let's hope Nick doesn't inherit that nose!



The blackmail photo for when he's a teenager.



Vittles be good!

Tiffany is at a conference for a few days, so Nicholas and I and the spotted pooch Spike are toughing it out. I promised I'd post some photos for my lovely bride, so here are some I really like from this past week.

EVACUATION PLAN goes to Denmark!

I spent two hours this morning discussing my novel EVACUATION PLAN with students visiting Austin from Denmark. What a treat. They asked interesting questions and we had a lively discussion of hospice. Best of all, I can be assured that there will be many copies of the book floating around Europe. Speaking of which, my mother's friend had a copy with her on a recent flight to India and accidentally left it on the airplane. I wonder where it ended up?

Two new reviews of EVACUATION PLAN worth checking out by the wonderful Peggy Tibbitts and the good folks at Curled Up With a Good Book. Joe-O sez check them out.

And YES I will be selling the book at the Texas Book Festival this Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Look for the tents!

'Evacuation Plan' is No. 1!

I woke up this morning, grabbed the Austin American-Statesman and saw that my novel EVACUATION PLAN is ranked as the No. 1 local bestseller this week! Woo hoo! The commotion at our house confused Nicholas, but he eventually calmed down.

In other book news:

If you're in Austin and have Time Warner cable, you can catch me repeatedly this month talking about and reading from EVACUATION PLAN. I spoke to the Writers League of Texas recently and it was recorded for their series "Writing Across Texas." It's airing on Channel 10.

And a story from the book titled "The Gambler" has been adapted by Janet Heimlich into a play that will be performed in early 2008 as part of Frontera Fest.

Writers, sharks and hospice workers

It's been an interesting week. I was at the Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers last weekend in Houston. Right before I left I got a wonderful email from the writer Carmen Tafolla, who picked up a copy of EVACUATION PLAN at Langdon Weekend and really liked it. She's offered to help with some events in San Antonio.

On the plane back from Houston I sat net to a woman who described herself as a shark wrestler. She was coming back from Nashville where she'd purchased a few more sharks for Qua, an Austin nightclub that's about to open. People there will dance over a tank of sharks!

On Monday I spoke to my first book club, and it was an important one made up almost entirely of people who work directly with hospice patients (that's me with two of the book club members in the photo. David Zuniga set this event up.). It was very enlightening and reminded me of what I hope to accomplish with my book.

This Saturday I'll be at a book festival in Manor. It's at Jenny Lane Park. Stop on by and say hi!

What a night!

Jesse Sublett jams for the crowd.

I'll post more pix later (hey, Chuck, send me some of yours!), but just a note to say last night's release party for EVACUATION PLAN was awesome. Jesse Sublett rocked the house, the actors were great and we pulled in a crowd of more than 100. Oh, and we sold 74 books!

It was a little steamy at BookPeople in the middle of the crowd, but it was a heartfelt night. Thanks to everyone who came. If you missed it, I'll be reading next in Austin at the Writers League of Texas meeting at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 16 at Barnes and Noble-Westlake. Come on by!

The true star of the night, of course, was Nicholas, who had a harem of attendants.