Now that Dismantle the Sun is out and available for purchase, you might think of me as The Great Author, perched on a throne in a Brobdingnagian abode on an Olympian slope, summoning armies of servants with every clap of my hands and inspiring legions of sycophantic MFA students and Barnes and Noble clerks to sing, all day and all night, psalms of praise to my name. And, of course, you’d be right. Still, even a Literary God-King like myself must needs descend from the throne and do a bit of what the base-vulgar call work now and then. So I thought I’d list some of the things that divert me from my omnipotence:

The Summer of Long Knives: The next novel. It’s 1936. Inspector Rolf Wundt and his wife Klara would like nothing more than to abandon Germany for France, but Rolf promises the family of a murder victim that he’ll track down her killer before he goes. Unfortunately, the Gestapo has its own ideas about the guilty parties, and the former policeman who knows the killer’s identity is too terrified of the Gestapo to reveal the name. The case forces Rolf to  trick and barter his way through dealings with the Communist underground, devious file clerks, his sycophantic boss, the SS, and the upper echelons of the Third Reich in a desperate bid to strike a last blow for sense in an increasingly senseless time. Current Status: 7th Draft.

Denial: A movie script based on the MMIP radio mockumentary about Ari Fleischman, the atheist advocate of intelligent design and the Jewish Holocaust denier, whose sister comes to him to tell him that if he has any peace he’d like to make with his estranged father, a survivor of Mauthausen now crippled by Alzheimer’s, he’d best come home and make it now. Current Status: Completing 1st Draft.

Blood Promises and Other Commitments: An anthology I’m editing consisting of three long stories about the burdens we make ourselves carry, and the costs they exact from us, including Felicity Bloomfield’s story “Blood”, my previously published novella “Escape Velocities” and “Felix’s Rebellion” by William McCormick. Of the three stories, I’m most fond of Felicity’s “Blood”, the first piece I accepted for the MMIP’s reading series. (Listen to the audio version, read by Seattle actor Lezlie Moore). Current status: One week from shipping to review outlets, three months from release.

Ghosts: This production of Ibsen’s play has already been done by the MMIP, but I’m remastering it for the purpose of having the MMIP sell a better version on iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify. You can hear the old, free version here. The new version will go on sale early next year. Current Status: remastering and remixing.

Printed Poison: The next Jim and Larry iRiff, wherein we’ll make fun of this terminally self-righteous exercise in favor of censorship produced by noted securities fraudster Charles Keating.  You can watch the unriffed version here. Current Status: Writing 1st Draft.

You’ll have to excuse me now. I love the hymn my sycophants are about to sing to me, and I’m also in need of yet another foot rub. Ah, my life.