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News

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
We're kicking 2009 off with a virtual blog tour for Breathing Out the Ghost, sponsored by TLC Book Tours.

What is a virtual blog tour? It's a great opportunity for an author to meet readers in the real world of their tastes and interests. One of the more amazing Internet phenomena over the past few years has been the rise of these outlets, most written not by curmudgeonly old hacks with ink-stained fingertips and hatchets to grind but everyday people who simply love books. As newspapers and magazines shut down their book-reviewing sections, blog tours are becoming more and more central to getting novels into the hands of folks. We're very honored to have been invited to be a part of the TLC network by the wonderful Lisa Munley. All told, we'll be stopping by 15 different blogs before the month is out. So, without further adieu, please take a moment to visit our guest appearances and see what folks think of the book. In many cases, Kirk is doing interviews as well.

January 5: Diary of an Eccentric

January 6: Ramya's Bookshelf

BREAKING NEWS! (9/9/08)
It was announced today that Kirk's essay "The Best Cemetery in the South in which to Kiss a Woman" has won the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society Faulkner-Wisdom Creative Writing Competition in the nonfiction category. The piece is about Montgomery's Oakwood Cemetery, the partial setting for the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story "The Ice Palace" (1920) and where Zelda Fitzgerald's parents are buried. The award will be presented November 22 in New Orleans.

BREAKING NEWS! (8/16/08)
Breathing Out the Ghost has won the 2008 Best Books of Indiana Award for Fiction sponsored by the Indiana Center for the Book. The photo shows the obviously dazed and disbelieving Montgomery crew only moments after the announcement on Saturday, August 16. From r to l: River City Publishing managing editor Jim Gilbert, Kirk, bud and personal bartender David "Bubba" Burch (who plays a prominent role in the forthcoming Dixie Noir), and friend and fellow author Marlin Barton (whose novel The Cross Garden will be out in 2009).

(7/9/08)
Kirk's second novel, Dixie Noir, has been sold to Five Star Mysteries. It will be published in Fall 2009. From what we've seen of it, this is a very different book than Breathing Out the Ghost. "More guns and guacamole, less grief," the boss says. Hopefully, it'll have just as much alliteration! Stay tuned....

REQUIESCAT IN PACE (6/30/08)
We'd be lying if we didn't admit that it's been a rough month around the office. In particular, we want to note the passing of three very influential people who were gone by the solstice:

1. George Garrett (6/11/1929-5/25/2008)
A top-notch writer, teacher, and longtime Fitzgerald enthusiast who was kind enough to blurb Breathing Out the Ghost even while ill.

2. Matthew J. Bruccoli (8/21/1931-6/4/2008)
The eminence grise of Fitzgerald studies who comissioned two of Kirk's books, Ernest Hemingway and the Expatriate Modernist Movement and Alienated-Youth Fiction.

3. Dorothea Parker (5/12/1918-6/5/2008)
Kirk's grandmother (at right) and the inspiration for Sis Pruitt's mother in Ghost. Her obit is here.

(5/23/08)
Breathing Out the Ghost has won a broze medal in the Independent Publishers Award (IPPY) for literary fiction.

Breathing Out the Ghost has placed in the top three of the Indie Excellence Awards in the category of general fiction. The book was also named finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the suspense/thriller category.

(5/5/08)
Breathing Out the Ghost has won an honorable mention nod in the Atlantic City Beach Book Festival.

(3/5/08)
Breathing Out the Ghost has been nominated for the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award in the category of literary fiction. Ghost is up against thirteen other finalists from a range of presses, including the Feminist Press, Other Press, and Novello Festival Press. Winners will be announced in May at BEA (BookExpo America).

A new short story about Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and the writing of The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook appears in the May issue of MiPoesias, which is devoted to food. Readers can buy the issue from Amazon or download the PDF.

An essay by Kirk on empathic fiction appears in the Spring 08 issue of First Draft, the magazine of the Alabama Writers' Forum. The piece begins on page 9.

Kirk's review of Oscar Hijuelos appears in the new Cuban issue of MiPoesias. Readers can buy the issue from Amazon or download the PDF.

Breathing Out the Ghost has been selected as a "Highlighted Title" by Independet Publisher, the "Voice of the Independent Publishing Industry." Independent Publisher is the same group that hands out the Independent Publisher Book Awards, better known as the IPPYs.

Breathing Out the Ghost Book Launch at El Rey Burrito Lounge Feb. 24!

If you're in the Montgomery area at the end of the month, please join us at the one cool watering-hole in the Gump to celebrate (as best as we're allowed on a Sunday) the book's arrival in this world. El Rey's is located at 1031 E. Fairview Avenue next to the Capri Theater and across the street from the two Goth-looking mopers who're forever loitering outside Cafe Louisa. We'll be having good clean literary fun from 4 to 7 p.m. Clothing optional, natch. UPDATE: Now that the hangovers from the launch party have faded, we can post this link to pics of the debauchery.

Reader's Guide Now Available: River City has added a guide for Breathing Out the Ghost for book groups to its website. Click here for the scoop.

Key West Hemingway: Coming Soon

The University Press of Florida will publish a collection of essays on Hemingway's South Florida years (1928-1940), edited by Kirk with Gail Sinclair of Rollins College, in 2009. Among them will be a piece co-written with E. Stone Shiflet on the little-known Hemingway Esquire essay "The Sights of Whitehead Street."

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