Got to Love It When a Reviewer Really Gets it! SPILL: Take That Big Oil!

Great five-star review for SPILL from Valerie on Amazon:

In this clever, hysterical novel, by Randy Attwood, absolutely nothing is sacred. Sometimes political spoof, often a parody on big business, Attwood even takes a swipe at the health/insurance industry. ALWAYS a satire on life, Attwood takes us on a riotous journey that begins with one man, Fred Underwood's, dream for riches. This means running for political office. His scheme gets him far more than he bargained for but it is not the center point of this plot.

His running platform is "we don't trust big oil." This becomes a near mantra, not only to Fred's political career...I love the debate scene... but to a whole new, young generation by sending them the message in the form of a video game--a language they understand--which may sound sad, but I believe they are a stewing pot just waiting to boil. All it will take is the right person sending the volatile message. And that's how our political system was created, isn't it? It's not set in stone. It is a wondrous creation, a huge social experiment.

But this book clearly shows us how deeply broken this system really is and how close to an oligarchy we truly are. One of my favorite quotes in this book is: "If Jefferson were to hear that football teams worth multi-millions of dollars charge ticket prices high enough that a working family can’t attend a game and couldn’t build their own stadiums without the people’s help, he’d puke."

Can we, little men and women, still win? Will we take back our own governmental reins and save ourselves and the world we are so recklessly destroying in the name of, "Big Business?" I think so, if we just take a giant step away from our own tiny comfort zone and make our collective voices heard and scream..."Take that, Big Oil!"

Click here to go to SPILL

Two Works Nominated for Local Literary Honor

Happy to report that I'm among 25 authors nominated for a respected local literary honor here in Kansas City, the Thorpe Menn award sponsored by the American Association of University Women-Kansas City. Two works published by Curiosity Quills--the political comedy SPILL, and Heart Chants, no. 2 in the Phillip McGuire mystery/thriller series--were both accepted as nominees.

Update on Reaction to Political Comedy "SPILL"

I wrote SPILL in a state of major creative doubt. My fiction wasn't having any traction with agents or publishers. I thought the stuff was pretty good, but I could be self-delusional. I had always been reluctant to share my fiction with friends because if they said they liked it, could I believe them? If they didn't like it, could they tell me? Seemed unfair to put a friend in that position.

So, I pursued an idea for a comedy, a form I had never tried. A bar friend was working as a small package contract delivery person and he came into the bar and related how that day he had delivered the head of a dog to the vet school for rabies testing. That image stuck in my head and so I started with that scene. Dang thing wrote itself in three months. Nothing had taken such a short time. I thought if I wrote something that made people laugh, then you couldn't deny the writing was successful.

SPILL was released Sept. 11 by the small press Curiosity Quills. Here is a comment that came from a former co-worker, a wonderful writer and excellent editor:

"Hi Randy - "I just finished reading SPILL in one sitting - once I started, I couldn't put it down. The more I read, the funnier it was, until I was laughing so hard my husband could hear me from the other end of the house."

And here is the first review placed on Amazon: "Randy Attwood's done it again with SPILL -- a knife-edge ride on a political snowball thundering downhill at high speed. It's the story of a decent-enough guy scraping his living together who finally reaches the breaking point over the ever-escalating price of fuel. His pockets are so regularly plundered by Big Oil, that in a flash of clarity, he devises a way to get back at them and make some money along the way. His allies are the unlikeliest "think tank" you could imagine. Sarcasm drips from these pages in wide, viscous streams. Like all of Mr. Attwood's other political writing, you're laughing out loud at the moment you begin to understand he's making a point here. Spill is a must-read for anyone who has had it with the lobby-spin that is running out lives and the self-righteous pols who reap its rewards. If we're not laughing, we're crying, so we might as well laugh. And think." -- Richard Sutton

Curiosity Quills helped me do a giveaway of a copy of SPILL through Goodreads. Go there if you want to enter.

SPILL: Take That Big Oil Now Published

Curiosity Quills released my political comedy, SPILL, today.

Here's what John Marshall, veteran Kansas newspaper guy, had to say about it:

"Think all politicians are creeps, the rules are locked in against you and the world is forever in the grip of big politics and Bigger Oil? Think again. Attwood has. SPILL is a what-if adventure, starting with a  couple of insurgent citizens who con the establishment and get rich along the way. In Attwood's world, all the old clichés are real and the system is rigged from the start - until it's un-rigged by good guys bad to the bone - the funny bone. From page one to the end, SPILL enlightens, amuses and instructs us that, one day, someone just might game the system - and get away with it. Attwood, brilliantly, shows us how."

Small Press Curiosity Quills Accepts SPILL

Email arrived last week:

Dear Randy,

 I've just joined Curiosity Quills and it was my great pleasure to read SPILL. I found it to be a fascinating and entertaining read. I am pleased to inform you Curiosity Quills would like to offer you a contract for SPILL. To capitalize on the marketing potential, we'll be looking to publish closer to the end of next summer, when the primary season is in full swing for the elections.

 Erika Galpin

SPILL is a political comedy, only comedy I've attempted. I wrote it out of deep frustration. Over many decades of writing fiction, with little publishing success to show for it, I thought: "Look, if you can write something that makes people laugh, you can't deny the writing is successful." SPILL—about a fired English teacher who scams the political system and gets the girl, the money, and a killer skateboard computer game—poured out of me in three months. Never written any novel that quickly. I laughed as I wrote it; many readers have laughed as they read it.

It got me an agent. We came close with traditional publishers. Here's the final rejection from an editor at Ecco, a highly respected imprint with Harper Collins. You make sense of it for me. I can't.

Thanks so much for thinking of me and of Ecco for Randy Attwood’s political satire, SPILL, which I enjoyed digging my teeth into. Fred and Zoe share a kind of chemistry on the page that goads the imagination and leads the reader to be genuinely interested in the outcome of their electoral shenanigans, and Attwood very capably lampoons contemporary aspects of America’s current political situation, like the oil industry, gun regulation, and unemployment. Unfortunately, as compelling as I found this read, in the end it just didn't capture my heart and attention to the degree where I would feel confident taking it on. Attwood has a sure command over language—my overarching issue, though, is that that language seems to be employed towards the end of being current; my instinct tells me SPILL exists less in and of itself and more for the audience it is fashioned to attract, and so I am sadly going to have to pass on this one. Attwood clearly has an accomplishment on his hands, and I wish you and him the best of luck finding a home for this debut elsewhere.

I self-published it in 2011 because editors at other traditional publishers advised my agent to encourage me to do so. It got me into this whole new business of epublishing and saved my creative life. I was really ready to just give up writing. Now I'm back at it. I haven't had huge self-publishing success, but I've got some wonderful reviews from people I don't know for my short stories, novellas and novels that are all over the genre map.

The small press Curiosity Quills picked up the dark suspense work Blow up the Roses." Then they accepted two works I have not self-published: Tortured Truths, released just this week, and Heart Chants, scheduled for Dec. 20. Both are part of a Phillip McGuire mystery/suspense series. And I was proud to be the only author to have two stories published in their recent anthology, PrimeTime.

Now they've acquired SPILL.

I have the contract on my desk to sign. When I do so, it means I have to un-publish SPILL from my self-publishing platforms.

So, if you want an early copy, here's the Amazon Kindle and paperback site.

And a favor. Although we are at least eight months away from SPILL being published by Curiosity Quills, it not too early for me to network and find nationally known political type folks who would read this comedy and, if enjoying it, provide a blurb endorsement. If you have a connection (or if you are such a person!), do please let me know. randyattwood@hotmail.com

Really, Really Close for SPILL, but no Cigar

As you can imagine, I have really mixed emotions about this reject notice for SPILL my agent sent me from an imprint with one of the Big Six traditional publishing houses:

"Thanks so much for thinking of me and of **** for Randy Attwood’s political satire, SPILL, which I enjoyed digging my teeth into. Fred and Zoe share a kind of chemistry on the page that goads the imagination and leads the reader to be genuinely interested in the outcome of their electoral shenanigans, and Attwood very capably lampoons contemporary aspects of America’s current political situation, like the oil industry, gun regulation, and unemployment. Unfortunately, as compelling as I found this read, in the end it just didn’t capture my heart and attention to the degree where I would feel confident taking it on. Attwood has a sure command over language—my overarching issue, though, is that that language seems to be employed towards the end of being current; my instinct tells me SPILL exists less in and of itself and more for the audience it is fashioned to attract, and so I am sadly going to have to pass on this one. Attwood clearly has an accomplishment on his hands, and I wish you and him the best of luck finding a home for this debut elsewhere."