My first blurb. I'm so proud.

I just wrote a blurb for a new book of short stories by a Michigan writer, Adam Schuitema. FRESHWATER BOYS is a fine book coming out in April 2010 from Delphinium Books. It was a pleasure to read, but it was also cool since no one has ever asked me to write a blurb before. (Okay, I did write one for a friend's chapbook once, but I'm not so sure anyone ever saw it.) I'm hoping that this means that I am now moderately blurb-worthy (at least in Michigan and possibly the midwest).

It's actually kind of nice to do it for someone else after all the time I've spent hounding other writers to get them to blurb my work. Good to give a little something back. I've always been very thankful when someone writes a blurb for the back of one of my books. (Have I told you that you're awesome, Pagan Kennedy? Well, you are.) But I always feel like I need to do more. "Should I send them a muffin basket or one of those little bouquets in a coffee mug?" I never get around to doing that, mind you, but I do feel guilty about it. I guess the best thing to do is to just pass the blurb along and do it for someone else. Strange business, this world of literature.

Anyway, here's the blurb. I think it turned out well. Maybe a tad long, but I figured his editor could just cut it down and use whatever s/he wanted. I like to give people a choice. It's the copywriter in me.

“Travel brochures, postcards, and license plates from decades past touted Michigan as ‘The Water Winter Wonderland!’ And in Adam Schuitema’s stories, it is just that: a wonderland where men and boys collide with sand and snow, flora and fauna; where nature is not only somewhere to explore, but a place to hide. In his Michigan, deer frolic through urban areas, old men pilfer sand dunes, and the woods are the best place to hide your Playboys. From childhood to adulthood, these guys struggle to do the right thing — searching the woods, gazing out at the lake, sifting the ashen sands — for a clue as to how to become the men they need to be. Schuitema’s Freshwater Boys is the literary equivalent of an early spring leap into the still icy waters of the bay: shocking, refreshing, cleansing. The best way to rouse a spirit drowsy from an endless, arduous winter.”

—Michael Zadoorian, author of The Leisure Seeker and The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit

And if you'd like to learn more about Adam's book, go here.