ANDREW BISS

Yes, okay, it's a free download, but trust me, getting big downloads, even for free copies, can be quite a challenge. Yesterday I decided to do a 2-day free promotion of my short story collection The Impressionists to see if I could get it some attention that it had been severely lacking. I consider the stories in that collection some of my best writing, and as proud as I am of them, it pained me to see them drift off into that vast sea of obscurity in Amazon's mega slush pile. So imagine my surprise (not to mention happiness) when I saw that it had reached the #1 spot for short stories (free bestseller list) on Amazon US! I just hope that when those who have downloaded it get around to pulling it out of their (probably massive, with all the free books that are available right now) TBR list, that they enjoy them. Meanwhile, I'm just enjoying having reached this little milestone. Back later with my end of year final post!

I received a lovely review for The End of the World this week, courtesy of Jessica Knauss, Famous Writer . Jessica had won a copy of my first person short story collection The Impressionists in a giveaway I'd held at LibraryThing , and had enjoyed it so much she decided to check out The End of the World and subsequently write a review of it on her blog . It's a lovely, smart and insightful review, and I'm so glad she enjoyed it. It's also the first time the book's been described as "cheeky" which I must confess I find rather wonderful.

Here's an extract from the fourth short story from The Impressionists . This one is entitled "One Night Only." In it, Denny, a prisoner on death row in an Alabama State Penitentiary spends his final moments reviewing his career as a serial killer in an interview with himself. One Night Only Hey!...Hey!...HEY! I know you can hear me. You’re not so good at pretending, either…I saw ya flinch on the last one. How thick d’ya figure that glass is then? Thick enough to stop me? Probably. Not so thick as to stop my voice gettin through, though, is it? Your little jump gave that away. Come to think of it, this place is probably more miked and wired than a fuckin TV studio. Mike’s everywhere, right? I bet even your name’s Mike. No wonder you jumped. Bet my voice was really loud, eh? Mike? How about if I whisper? Is this better? Can you hear me now? How about that, eh? All this just for me. The lights, the microphones…my very own little stage on which to give the performance of a li...

Here's the second excerpt from my soon to be released (perhaps as soon as tomorrow) short story collection, The Impressionists . This is from The Replica and concerns spousal abuse. A number of years ago I received an email from a woman in the UK asking if I could send her a copy of my short play Degraded to read. Degraded was one of several plays I wrote at the time in response to the invasion of Iraq. I used the analogy of a former abused wife in a halfway home who receives a visit from the Department of Social Services, who then proceeds to abuse and rape her, all the while telling her that he's come to help her and that it's all for her betterment. The woman who had written to me was a former abused wife and had read the sample of Degraded and was interested in reading the complete play. I sent it to her, of course, but I also l took a big risk and sent her a copy of The Replica also. This was not an analogy of anything - simply a character study of an abused wife....

As I've mentioned before, I'm currently working on putting together a new collection of first person short stories, entitled "The Impressionists." Each story juxtaposes an individual's public face with their private turmoil. I thought it might be nice to preview each of the six stories here on my blog as I'm preparing it for publication, so I'm beginning today with a sample from "Big Girl." It's the thoughts of an overweight young woman, named Peggy, appraising her recently purchased self-help book, “The Bigger the Better.” This is a relatively long sample; others may be shorter. Please excuse the line breaks. Since tabs aren't an option here (that I know of) it seemed the best alternative. I hope you'll enjoy it. PEGGY I weigh 276 pounds and I love every single God-given one of them! I don’t, actually. Not if I were being honest. But that’s what you’re supposed to repeat, according to the instructions in the book. It’s called...