Search
Browse
  • Endless Joke
    Endless Joke
    by David Antrobus

    Here's that writers' manual you were reaching and scrambling for. You know the one: filled with juicy writing tidbits and dripping with pop cultural snark and smartassery. Ew. Not an attractive look. But effective. And by the end, you'll either want to kiss me or kill me. With extreme prejudice. Go on. You know you want to.

  • Dissolute Kinship: A 9/11 Road Trip
    Dissolute Kinship: A 9/11 Road Trip
    by David Antrobus

    Please click on the above thumbnail to buy my short, intense nonfiction book featuring 9/11 and trauma. It's less than the price of a cup of coffee... and contains fewer calories. Although, unlike most caffeine boosts, it might make you cry.

  • Music Speaks
    Music Speaks
    by LB Clark

    My story "Solo" appears in this excellent music charity anthology, Music Speaks. It is an odd hybrid of the darkly comic and the eerily apocalyptic... with a musical theme. Aw, rather than me explain it, just read it. Okay, uh, please?

  • First Time Dead 3 (Volume 3)
    First Time Dead 3 (Volume 3)
    by Sybil Wilen, P. J. Ruce, Jeffrey McDonald, John Page, Susan Burdorf, Christina Gavi, David Alexander, Joanna Parypinski, Jack Flynn, Graeme Edwardson, David Antrobus, Jason Bailey, Xavier Axelson

    My story "Unquiet Slumbers" appears in the zombie anthology First Time Dead, Volume 3. It spills blood, gore and genuine tears of sorrow. Anyway, buy this stellar anthology and judge for yourself.

  • Seasons
    Seasons
    by David Antrobus, Edward Lorn, JD Mader, Jo-Anne Teal

    Four stories, four writers, four seasons. Characters broken by life, although not necessarily beaten. Are the seasons reminders of our growth or a glimpse of our slow decay?

  • Indies Unlimited: 2012 Flash Fiction Anthology
    Indies Unlimited: 2012 Flash Fiction Anthology
    Indies Unlimited

    I have two stories in this delightful compendium of every 2012 winner of their Flash Fiction Challenge—one a nasty little horror short, the other an amusing misadventure of Og the caveman, his first appearance.

Networked Blogs

 

 

Tweets
Places I Hang Out
Blog Archive

Entries in JT Sather (1)

Sunday
Nov242013

Boo! And a Review

Been lax with this blog again; the balance of writing to editing has shifted toward the latter of late. Which is okay, as I love it almost as much as I do writing. However, a couple of writing-related events have gone unacknowledged, so here:

I have a new story out there. It's one of nine tales by independent writers in a new Halloween anthology, entitled Boo! And although its theme is Halloween, it refuses to be typecast as an outright horror anthology, with the stories ranging deftly across mood and genre... although my own story, with the cumbersome title of "Ambergris, Camphor, Laudanum, Myrrh," is unquestionably horror, and particularly unpleasant horror at that. Grab the book, it's under a buck.

Another activity I seem to find less and less time for is reviewing. Recently, I had the pleasure of reviewing JT Sather's hybrid memoir/self-help book about surviving tough economic times, How to Survive When the Bottom Drops Out. I'll reproduce it here.

Let me first get the negative out of the way. I'll say one word: editing. And pretty much leave it at that, because that one aspect is the only real impediment to the enjoyment of JT Sather's short nonfiction book, How to Survive When the Bottom Drops Out.

Otherwise, this lively hybrid of memoir and how-to book is, in its unique way, both gripping and endearing. As you read through Sather's accounts of good times and bleak times, scary moments and funny ones, you find yourself helplessly rooting for the protagonist thanks to his infectious good cheer throughout. Whether attempting to save a friend on an ATV from an encounter with an onrushing train or battling a sudden storm on the largest manmade lake in the United States while at the helm of a twenty-six foot cabin cruiser, Sather's practical yet genial advice never comes across as smug or know-it-all, always rich with both humour and common sense and expressed in a manner that is unique to the author, a genuine voice I'd probably describe as full of gritty bonhomie if I were far more pretentious than JT Sather.

Simply put, JT Sather is a born storyteller. And a funny one, without a mean-spirited bone in his body.

He covers all the ground you would expect from a man who clearly wants to pack everything he can into this all-too-short life: friendship, pain, love, work (and its absence), sex, couch surfing, Vegas, romance, dogs, dominoes, dancing, karma, cliff jumping, Yoopers, children's health scares, cheap beer, free sandwiches, skiing accidents, kindness, good times, the nostalgic power of music, and a chameleon-like adaptability, all while maintaining a genuine core honesty and refusal to take advantage of others, even in the hardest of hard times. It's the ultimate tale of paying things forward, and it's all true.

Read it; it might even save your hide if, like many, you've been caught through no fault of your own in the economic downturn. It will certainly help you stop feeling sorry for yourself. But at the very least, if you read this book you will come away simply liking people more, and that's a precious thing, however tough the times.