Tag Archives: book-review

HORSE SHOW Reviewed @Barrelhouse! New Interview @Bold Journey!

Washington D.C.’s mighty mighty Barrelhouse showed HORSE SHOW some love on 7/18 with a stellar review by fellow fiction writer Emily Webber! Click here to read her review in its entirety!

Webber writes: “In many stories, Jess Bowers often plucks an actual incident involving a horse from history and re-imagines the surrounding people, resulting in lively and innovative storytelling. Along with these lesser-known horse stories, she includes artifacts and photographs that sent me searching the internet for details on the real story. For many, there isn’t much information readily available except confirmation that the horse did exist. It turns out Bowers’s horse stories also entail examining grief, our complicated relationships with each other and with animals, and humanity’s insatiable need for dominance. No matter how much technological progress occurs, it seems like the darkest parts of the human heart remain.”

Thank you, Barrelhouse!

I was also interviewed by Bold Journey, an online magazine that talks with creative people about the many challenges that can stand in the way of creative practice. You can read the interview, where I compare creative risk-taking to jumping horses over scary obstacles, right here!

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New Interviews at JMWW & Horse Nation!

The Horse Show publicity wagon keeps on clip-clopping along, with new interviews at JMWW and Horse Nation this month, and spurs that jingle-jangle-jingle…

First up, fellow fictioneer, SFWP pressmate, and translator K.E. Semmel and I weighed in on the recent Literary Discourse (tm.) about book promotion in the 21st century at JMWW. It turns out that many writers signed at Big 5 and indie presses alike are feeling considerable pressure to hire outside publicists to get the word out about their titles, sometimes even when their publisher already has a dedicated marketing team!

K.E. Semmel and I both have professional backgrounds in public relations and debuted small press books this year. (FYI, his trippy novel THE BOOK OF LOSMAN is out 10/1/24, and available for preorder now!) So, we felt uniquely positioned to say some useful things about what it’s like to sell a book sans marketing budget in 2024. Read our conversation, “On Book Promotion (When You Don’t Have The Money To Hire a Publicist)” right here!

Meanwhile, over at Horse Nation, I had an absolute blast chatting with fellow fiction writer-who-rides Siân Griffiths about HORSE SHOW for their “Barn Aisle Chats” series, because it meant getting to really geek out about the transition from horses to automobiles, writing what you know (when what you know is horses), and our own beloved animals. You can read our conversation here, then go buy Siân’s debut novel, Borrowed Horses!

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HORSE SHOW is “A Small Press Book You Should Be Reading This Winter” @Electric Literature, AWP Shenanigans, And More…

With HORSE SHOW’s release date of 4/9/24 rapidly approaching, lots of irons are in the fire!

Over at Electric Literature, Wendy J. Fox included HORSE SHOW on her list of “15 Small Press Books You Should Be Reading This Winter.” She writes, “Horse Show has a sweeping, cinematic quality to it, and a thematic cohesion that tightly ties the stories together. A distinctive accomplishment.”

The Associated Writing Programs’ annual conference is being held in Kansas City this year, from February 7-10 at the Kansas City Convention Center. I’ll be camped out at Santa Fe Writers Project’s booth, which we’re sharing with Whiskey Tit Books.

AND I’ll have 50 special preview copies of HORSE SHOW with me for sale and signing!

I’ll be at Booth #3124 from 11:00-1:30 CST on Thursday, 2/8, and from 1:30-2:00 CST on Friday, 2/9. Come say hi and nab your copy of HORSE SHOW months before its official release!

AWP is also all about the nightlife, baby, and the good people at Laurel Review, SEMO Press, Braddock Avenue Books, and Puerto Del Sol have put together an off-site reading at Cinder Block Brewery that all the cool kids are going to attend on Thursday, 2/8 from 6:00-8:00 PM CST.

Come out for tall beers and short readings by some up-and-coming Midwestern authors, including Khem Aryal, James Brubaker, Luke Rolfes, Ron A. Austin, Robert Long Foreman, and yours truly!

The full lineup is listed above. I can’t promise that Taylor Swift will be there, but I also can’t promise she won’t be! I bet she and Travis Kelce love independent literary presses and craft beer!

Last but not least, folks in and around St. Louis should mark their calendars for April 9th!

This is, of course, HORSE SHOW’s global release date, and Maryville University’s ready to celebrate with a reading/Q&A at 3:30 PM in the Morton May Gallery on campus. This event is free and open to the public, so come on down!

More news to come soon. Stay tuned…I may be coming to a bookstore (or horse barn!) near you this spring/summer!

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