From the Author

In 2016, after getting rejected by over 100 literary agents — many of whom couldn’t be bothered to read a single word of my manuscript — I decided to trust No Frills Buffalo, a small local publishing house, with shepherding my first novel, Nothing Here is Real into the world. Over the course of that process, I came to know the mass-market publishing industry as a business first and foremost. Their goal is to sell lots of books — period — regardless of their quality or the value they bring to the world. Presses like NFB are the last line of defense against the effort to completely commodify the literary arts. I’m happy to support their cause by trusting them with the publication of my books.

When my novel came out, I held several reading/signing events at local/national chain
bookstores and libraries, was featured in a profile in Buffalo Magazine, and participated in a
teaching/speaking engagement at Hobart and William Smith Colleges as part of their visiting author series. I parlayed this notoriety into a gig as a monthly columnist for The East Aurora Advertiser. For over a year, my column, “Lost and Found” told stories of local and national interest, but I shut that operation down after a protest was held in my honor in front of the paper’s office after I wrote a scathing piece about a gun rally that was held at a local church. Some men, you just can’t reach.

In the summer of 2019, my wife and I packed up our kids for a three-week road trip out west — circling through six national parks along the way. My new memoir, Far From The Twisted Reach, is built around the story of that trip but it’s more than just a travelogue. It’s also a reflection on humanity’s relationship with nature, our carcinogenic compulsion to consume, and the effort it takes to sustain a long, loving marriage. Riding shotgun along the way are passages on the pain of aging, an increasingly fruitless search for spirituality, and the challenges that come with being a dad in a country on the brink. Mostly though, its book is about hope.

One early reader described the results as a melding of Thoreau, William Least-Heat Moon, and Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Another suggested I try to sell it as a Netflix series with a soundtrack heavy on Jackson Browne. An old college buddy said, “It’s kind of like Eat, Pray, Love, only for washed-up, still-married, white guys.” I’m still not sure if that’s a compliment.

Either way, it’s a story that needs to be told. One I hope will help readers feel less alone. Because whether it feels like it or not these days, in the end, we’re all in this together.