Famed New York Times columnist (now retired) posted this review of Curveball on his website:   
Here's the link:   https://www.georgevecsey.com/home/the-pitcher-has-a-secret

The celebrate this review and the publication of Curveball, I'll be attending the Mets-Dodgers game at Citi Field tomorrow.   I'll be sitting in Section 114, Row 16, Seat 12.  If you're at the game, stop by and I'll buy you a beer!

June 2, 2-4 pm.  Trumansburg Conservatory of Arts, Trumansburg, NY.  This is a benefit reading.  I will donate $10 from the price of each book sold to the Conservatory.   Light Refreshments served.

June 18, 7 pm.  Prairie Lights Books, Iowa City, IA.   I will share the stage with dear friend, Christine Hemp.

June 28, 4 pm.   The History Center, Ithaca, NY.   110 Tioga St.   My reading is part of the History Center's 2024 Exhibit:  A Sporting Chance.   Come for the reading and be sure to check out the exhibit.  Book sale partner: Odyssey Books, Ithaca.

Curveball will be published in just about two weeks!  It's available via pre-order wherever books are sold.  If possible, support a local independent book store.   Copperfield's in Santa Rosa, CA, and Odyssey Books in Ithaca, NY, will be stocking Curveball.
 

I've just been notified that Cuppy and Stew was named a 2020 Indie Book Award Finalist in General Fiction by Forward Reviews, which annually recognizes the best books published each year by small, independent and university presses.


     Woo-hoo.

Friends, Americans, and Country People,
      Lend me your ears and eyes.   A new interview with me, recorded two days ago on the literary website Author Groupie, is now available for viewing both on http://www.dmbarr.com/author-groupie and YouTube.  Here's the Link:   https://youtu.be/-UemBbwesVY

The interviewer, Dawn Barr, is a novelist herself, smart and literary.   If you have 35 minutes or so, please check it out.  And of course, if you haven't yet purchased your copy of Cuppy and Stew, now's the time.  It's available through SPDBooks.org or through Amazon.

       In other upcoming Cuppy and Stew news, next Tuesday, September 29th, at &:30 pm, I will be doing a virtual book event for Miami University.  Those of you who know me through Miami University or the Miami University Low-Res MFA should have received your Zoom invitation already.  Margaret Luongo, the current director of Miami's Creative Writing Program, will interview me, and I will read for 10-15 minutes.  There will also be time for Q & A for the audience.   I'll look forward to seeing you there.
       One more thing.  I'm voting early today here in New York--an absentee ballot.  I encourage all of you to vote as soon as you can.   This is the most important election of our lives.  Democracy itself is on the ballot.  Please, vote.
           By the way, if you'd like me to sign your copy of Cuppy and Stew, contact me via email ([email protected]) and we can work something out.

I came upon this Conrad quote--reputedly in response to a bad review--while in in the Stanford Creative Writing workshop, working on what became my first published novel: High on the Energy Bridge (1980).  I printed the quote and taped it on the wall above my writing desk, and referred to it often during several decades of teaching creative writing workshops.  Former students may  remember my admonition: praise first, then critique when we considered student work.   It's much easier to respond well to criticism after praise.  Writers, after all, are only human, and never more so than when their work is being considered, assessed and perhaps shredded by appraising eyes.

I was thinking about the Conrad quote after  _______'s review of Cuppy and Stew appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on June 10th.  

This morning, Friday, June 12th,  I woke up to this lovely review in Book Life.   https://booklife.com/my/project/cuppy-and-stew-46768

Because the review is so good, here it is in its entirety: 
Creative writing professor Goodman (Twelfth and Race) merges memoir and historical fiction in this engrossing tale of love, tragedy, and perseverance. In Vancouver, during the spring of 1937, Suzanne “Anne” Kerr meets Stewart “Stew” Morgan and flirtation eventually leads to love. Stew’s wife and father refuse to let him leave his unhappy marriage, so Stew moves to South Africa with Anne to live as a couple. Their daughters, Sharon and Susan, are born there. They return to Canada in 1945 only to discover that scandal still hangs over their heads. A move to the U.S proves fortuitous, and the family thrives until the 1955 bombing of United flight 629 kills Anne and Stew, leaving Sharon and Susan at the dubious mercy of their estranged extended family.

Stew and Anne’s younger daughter—whose character is based in part on the diaries of Susan Morgan, the author’s wife—provides an engaging narrative voice for this seamless crossover of memoir and historical fiction. Descriptions of Anne and Stew’s more intimate moments are tasteful, though odd to hear about from their child’s perspective. Although the Great Depression and WWII both affect the narrative, historical events mostly fade into the background of the family’s personal struggles. Social norms of the period play a stronger influence on the story. Minor discrepancies arise during the time spent in South Africa.
An overriding sense of overcoming the odds unites the romance of part one with the more tragic circumstances of part two. Clear descriptions coupled with entertaining internal dialogue and concise, expressive characterization make the pages fly by. A marvelous narrator and eventful plot make for an entertaining and moving tale that’s sure to please readers seeking inspirational narratives about hard times in history.
Takeaway: Goodman’s unconventional blend of fact and fiction will be a hit with historical readers who like stories about overcoming adversity.
Great for fans of Edward Rohs and Judith Estrine’s Raised by the Church, Lindsey Jane Ashford’s Whisper of the Moon Moth.

Today is the official publication day of Cuppy and Stew: The Bombing of Flight 629, A Love Story.   It's been a long time coming.  Four years of research and writing the manuscript, a year of my agent marketing the manuscript, and another year of waiting for the book to come out.  But there's another way of thinking about the timeline of this book.  I met Susan Morgan, the person (and inspiration for the narrator) in the fall of 1976 at a sherry hour at Stanford University.  We were married on May 8, 1982:  38 years.  The blink of an eye.

Cuppy and Stew is now widely available on-line.  During the month of May it is a Handpicked Book at www.SPDBooks.org, where it is 20% off.  It's also available for order through your local bookstore, as well as on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

If you've already purchased a copy, I'd be grateful if you'd recommend it through your own social network.  Word of mouth marketing is especially important this year when all live bookstore events and readings have been cancelled.   I'd also be very grateful if you would post a review on Good Reads or Amazon.  I've read reports that a single excellent review on Amazon can lead to the sale of 100 additional books.  Is that true?  I'd love to find out.

Stay safe, and keep checking this space. I hope to have some exciting news about reviews in the coming weeks.