Connor Coyne

I will be discussing and reading from Hungry Rats at Pages Bookstore in Flint, MI: 132 W. 2nd St., Sat. Nov. 13, 1-3 PM. I’d love to see you there!

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First news first. And it’s good news! A suspect has been arrested in the Flint Serial Killer case. If you want you can read the news here.

But I’m also writing today with a HUGE announcement about Hungry Rats. Mark your calendars!

Wed. 9/1/2010:
Hungry Rats will be available for order from Lulu.com.

Fri. 9/10/2010:
CHICAGO, IL launch party.
Details TBA.

Fri. 9/17/2010:
FLINT, MI launch party.
328 N. Grand Traverse
810.237.GOOD
12-1 PM — lunchtime book signing
7-9 PM — launch party

Late 10/2010: Hungry Rats will be available for order from Amazon.com and retail booksellers (Barnes and Noble, Borders, independent booksellers, etc.)

A few other dates/events:

10/2010 ongoing: I will be touring the Midwest for readings and book signings.
Late 2010 or Early 2011: I will be hoping to make a quick tour of the Bay area, California.
12/31/2010: All profits I earn from Hungry Rats by this date will be donated to the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan.
Early 2011: I will be making a quick tour of the New York area.

As of today, the pace of things is going to pick up quickly. Remember, I don’t have a conventional marketing apparatus: this is all grassroots and DIY, and I’m counting on you! 5-6 times a week for the next couple months, I will be posting little things you can do to help me bring this book into the world: it might be sharing a link or recommending a bookstore, but it’s all important and I can’t do it without you.

If you are very interested in helping me out and wouldn’t mind receiving a short optional activity in your or Facebook email Inbox each day, please message me or email me at connor [at] connorcoyne [.] com.

I will be posting all of these activities on the Gothic Blog as well as on the Facebook Group Friends of Hungry Rats.

It has been a long road for this novel — 7 years — but the end is in sight! In fact, we can see it from here, and it’s only a few weeks away.

Your friend,

Connor

Elisabeth Blair has been doing a great job in her role as Editor, and I have posted the revised version of Chapter One on the Hungry Rats website. You can read it here.

While Elisabeth and I have been working hard on the edits to get the manuscript into perfect shape, Sam Perkins-Harbin of Forge 22 has created a masterful and beautiful cover. It features his sister, Emily, as a stand-in for Meredith. You can also see Emily in our two promotional videos.

As with the edits, the cover is an ongoing project, but I am delighted to know that, even if we went to press tomorrow, we’d have a cover to be proud of. Scroll down to see Sam’s work.

Hungry Rats is scheduled to be available to the public late this summer.

Throughout this process I’ve had to wear a lot of hats: printer, administrator, marketer, and fundraiser. In the upcoming weeks and months, more hats are going to enter the picture. Today it was nice to put on one of my old favorites: writer.

One of the most critical relationships any writer develops is with his editor, and by self-publishing I shouldered the risk and responsibility of choosing someone for this position. Ultimately, I approached Elisabeth Blair, a writer who has worked brilliantly in a variety of media including prose, poetry, singing, songwriting, photography, and more. I chose her for her literary discernment. I’ve known Elisabeth for a near decade, and she’s demonstrated a keen and empathic eye for writing. She is able to perceive the trajectory and aspirations of experimental work; its direction and emotional resonance. This is key because so much “avant-garde” writing devolves into literary mumbo-jumbo without coherent points-of-connection. If, on the other hand, the writing can hook its readers and appeal to them on a gut level, the more experimental elements work all the better.

Today Elisabeth sent me her notes on my sixth revision of Hungry Rats and I am thirsty to implement her suggestions. From voice to metaphor, deployment of plot to evocation of setting, she has covered immense ground in her edits, and her insights are striking and illuminatory. I am hungry to start writing again. The result will be a stronger, tighter novel more ready to come into the world.