Media Kit & Contact Info

Wel­come to the offi­cial media resource for nov­el­ist Chris Orcutt and Boda­cious­ly True & Total­ly Awe­some—a 9‑book episod­ic nov­el and lit­er­ary saga that took a decade to write. Every­thing you need—from bios and book info to media assets and con­tact info—is here.

| About the Author  |  About Boda­cious­ly  |  Episode I Sum­ma­ry  | Book Club Cat­nip | Inter­view Angles & Talk­ing Points  |  Media Assets  |  Audio and Video Gallery | Advance Praise | Series Roadmap  |  Behind the Scenes  |  Boda­cious Mix­tape | Con­tact Chris Orcutt |  Sub­scribe |

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About the Author

Chris Orcutt, author of Boda­cious­ly True & Total­ly Awe­some—a nine-book, ana­log-craft­ed teen epic.

Short bio:  Chris Orcutt is a pro­fes­sion­al writer with over thir­ty years of expe­ri­ence and more than a dozen metic­u­lous­ly craft­ed nov­els to his name. A delib­er­ate throw­back, he writes ear­ly drafts in pen­cil or on a type­writer and rarely goes online. He loathes bad writ­ing, stop­lights, Gram­marly, and pre­ten­tious people—but loves old movies, Peanuts comics, Jamaican Blue Moun­tain cof­fee, and cross-coun­try ski­ing. Orcutt lives qui­et­ly in New York’s Hud­son Val­ley with his wife and Muse, Alexas, and their dog Dashiell Ham­mett.

Extend­ed bio: 

Chris Orcutt is a pro­fes­sion­al writer with over thir­ty years of expe­ri­ence and more than a dozen metic­u­lous­ly craft­ed nov­els to his name.

Born in Maine, he has spent most of his life in New York. He attend­ed col­lege in Boston, grad­u­at­ing sum­ma cum laude, Phi Beta Kap­pa, with a degree in phi­los­o­phy. His pro­fes­sion­al writ­ing career began at Tacon­ic News­pa­pers (where he was hon­ored by the New York Press Asso­ci­a­tion), fol­lowed by free­lance report­ing for the Pough­keep­sie Jour­nal, New York’s old­est news­pa­per.

In his 20s and ear­ly 30s, while hon­ing his craft as a fic­tion writer, Orcutt earned a liv­ing as a high school Amer­i­can Stud­ies teacher, col­lege writ­ing instruc­tor, and speech­writer. His ear­li­er fiction—including the Dako­ta Stevens Mys­tery Series and One Hun­dred Miles from Man­hat­tan—has earned praise from Pub­lish­ers Week­ly and Kirkus Reviews.

For over a decade, Orcutt immersed him­self in ’80s teen cul­ture and shunned the inter­net in monas­tic devo­tion to his mag­num opus, Boda­cious­ly True & Total­ly Awe­some, a 9‑book episod­ic nov­el debut­ing in Jan­u­ary 2026. Writ­ing drafts on type­writ­ers and vin­tage com­put­ers, blast­ing every­thing from A‑Ha to ZZ Top, and drink­ing enough cof­fee to fill a swim­ming pool (seri­ous­ly), he set out to craft an authen­tic and fear­less explo­ration of the sub­ur­ban teenage expe­ri­ence in 1980s Amer­i­ca. The result prompt­ed one cul­tur­al his­to­ri­an to dub him “Lord of the ’80s” and anoth­er “The Amer­i­can Tol­stoy.”

He loathes bad writ­ing, stop­lights, Gram­marly, and pre­ten­tious people—but loves old movies, Peanuts comics, Jamaican Blue Moun­tain cof­fee, and cross-coun­try ski­ing. Orcutt lives qui­et­ly in New York’s Hud­son Val­ley with his wife and Muse, Alexas, and their dog Dashiell Ham­mett.

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About Bodaciously

Author:  Chris Orcutt

Title:  Episode I: Bad Boy

Series:  Boda­cious­ly True & Total­ly Awe­some
(9‑book com­ing-of-age epic, 1980s-set)

Genre:  Fic­tion / Com­ing-of-Age • Romance (His­tor­i­cal – 20th Cen­tu­ry, New Adult) • Sub­ur­ban Fic­tion • Lit­er­ary Fic­tion

Release Date:  Jan­u­ary 20, 2026

For­mats and ISB­Ns:  Trade Paper­back (9781965999011) / Hard­cov­er (9781965999004)  / Kin­dle and ePub (9781965999028)

Prices: $19.99 (Trade Paper­back) / $35.99 (Hard­cov­er) / $9.99 (Kin­dle and ePub)

Trim Size: 6x9 inch­es

Page Count: 386

Pub­lish­er:  Have Pen, Will Trav­el

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Episode I Summary

The ele­va­tor pitch: “If you tossed The Odyssey, War and Peace, and Fast Times at Ridge­mont High into a super­col­lid­er, you’d get Bodacious­ly.”

The alter­nate ele­va­tor pitch: “It’s Remem­brance of Things Past meets Fer­ris Bueller’s Day Off. ”

The short descrip­tion:  Avery “Ace” Craig, an Amer­i­can teenag­er com­ing of age in the mid-1980s, nav­i­gates teen romance, sex­u­al awak­en­ing, and high school life against the back­drop of his­tor­i­cal events includ­ing the Chal­lenger dis­as­ter, the Cher­nobyl nuclear dis­as­ter, Hal­ley’s Comet, and Pres­i­dent Rea­gan’s Berlin Wall speech. Com­ing-of-age and teen romance col­lide in a boda­cious, authen­tic, and epic odyssey through 1986–87. Boda­cious­ly: Episode I, Bad Boy kicks off a 9‑part lit­er­ary series fueled by teen dra­ma, heart­break, and a sound­track that defined a gen­er­a­tion.

The stuck-in-an-ele­va­tor pitch: “Are you long­ing to escape the chaos, divi­sive­ness, and dig­i­tal over­load of our mod­ern world and go back to a sim­pler time? How about return­ing to the MTV-pow­ered decade that defined cool? To a time when Pac Man fever swept the nation; leg warm­ers, Mem­bers Only jack­ets, and Way­far­ers were the height of fash­ion; and the big hair just kept get­ting big­ger?

Boda­cious­ly True & Total­ly Awe­some, an epic nov­el in 9 parts about a group of sub­ur­ban teens, is a sweep­ing and so choice com­ing-of-age sto­ry that cap­tures the essence of teenage life. (It’s a nov­el about teens, writ­ten for adults; it’s not YA lit­er­a­ture.)

Through these 9 books (or episodes), you can leave behind the mod­ern world of AI, algo­rithms and the inter­net, and step into a quaint yet fresh world of mix­tapes, hand­writ­ten notes, rotary dial pay­phones, VCRs, videogame arcades, flop­py disks, and Trap­per Keep­ers. You’ll expe­ri­ence the heart-swelling joys and strug­gles of teens dur­ing a decade for­ma­tive for a gen­er­a­tion. This 9‑episode nov­el is not just a nos­tal­gic trip down mem­o­ry lane; it’s a ban­gin’, bad to the bone immer­sive expe­ri­ence that will trans­port you to a bygone time.”

The book jack­et blurb: In Feb­ru­ary 1986, once-invis­i­ble sopho­more Avery “Ace” Craig sud­den­ly becomes the most mag­net­ic guy at Han­cock High. Armed with a Walk­man and mix­tapes packed with every­thing from A‑Ha to ZZ Top, Avery charges toward man­hood with con­fi­dence, charis­ma, and a genius IQ—but has no clue how to han­dle what’s next.

On a school trip to D.C., a hand­shake with Pres­i­dent Rea­gan, a glimpse of his future, and a sex­u­al awak­en­ing set off a chain reac­tion. Girls notice him, his hor­mones det­o­nate, and his friends are clue­less. With no adults to turn to, Ace must nav­i­gate the thrilling, ter­ri­fy­ing ter­rain alone—with only a Boy Scout Hand­book, his instincts, and a Princess Leia poster to guide him.

Boda­cious­ly True & Total­ly Awe­some, the prod­uct of ten years’ relent­less crafts­man­ship and an immer­sive explo­ration of teen expe­ri­ence, takes a sen­su­al and unflinch­ing look at teenage rela­tion­ships. A saga about the free­dom, romance, and epic adven­ture of sub­ur­ban life in Cold War Amer­i­ca, Episode I: Bad Boy is for read­ers seek­ing a time machine back to the last great Amer­i­can decade.

 

Short Book Trail­er for Boda­cious­ly — Episode I: Bad Boy:

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Book Club Catnip

The nine books of Boda­cious­ly True & Total­ly Awe­some are per­fect for adult book clubs and dis­cus­sion groups. While the nov­els are about teens in the 1980s, they’re writ­ten for adults. The lan­guage, mature themes, and inti­mate sit­u­a­tions make it unsuit­able for younger read­ers. (Boda­cious­ly is not YA.) The books are sure to be con­tro­ver­sial and prompt debate on a range of sub­jects:

• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of being a teen in the ’80s.
• How under-par­ent­ed or out­right unpar­ent­ed teens were in the ’80s.
• The fash­ion, trends, music, movies, and TV shows from the ’80s, and what your favorites were and why.
• The many types of cliques in high school life, and which one(s) you were a part of.
• Teen Sex: in lit­er­a­ture and real life.
• Why most com­ing-of-age nov­els gloss over uncom­fort­able issues like sex, alcholism, drug use, dan­ger­ous or ille­gal teen behav­ior, domes­tic abuse, or kids rais­ing each oth­er.
• What it’s like to par­ent a teenage boy.
• How cur­rent events affect­ed you when you were a teen—whether in the ’80s or anoth­er decade.
• The dif­fer­ences between being a teen in the ’80s and being a teen today.
• How a book about teens in the ’80s can take you back to what­ev­er decade you were a teen: the com­ing-of-age expe­ri­ences that all gen­er­a­tions have in com­mon.

Here are a few dis­cus­sion ques­tions sug­gest­ed by the author to be a cat­a­lyst for your next Boda­cious­ly book club get-togeth­er:

• What parts or char­ac­ters took you back to when you were six­teen, sev­en­teen?
• Which char­ac­ter were you back then?
• How did cer­tain scenes make you feel—for real?
• Were there moments where you said, “Yup … Orcutt nailed it. That’s exact­ly how it was”?
• Were there moments where you said, “Nope … that was­n’t my expe­ri­ence at all”?
• What were the parts that made you want to throw the book out the win­dow?
• What were the parts that made you clutch the book to your chest and say, “Final­ly … some­body wrote down what I’ve always thought”?
• What aspects of life were bet­ter then than they are now? Which aspects are worse today? What about 40 years ago do you miss? What don’t you miss?
• If you’re a young per­son and did­n’t live through (sur­vive) the 1980s, what most sur­prised you?
• If this book gave you a time machine for one do-over—what would it be?

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Interview Angles & Talking Points

Because he’s been work­ing on Boda­cious­ly in iso­la­tion and monas­tic devo­tion for a decade, now that he’s resur­faced, Orcutt has a lot to say. In print, on pod­casts, radio, or TV, he can speak from the gut. Top­ics include:

The Book, the Culture, and the Process

• The 1980s Teen Epic Amer­i­ca Didn’t Know It Need­ed
• If Homer Wrote The Odyssey in a Time of Teens, MTV and the Sub­urbs
• How the Music of the ’80s Shaped a Gen­er­a­tion
• The Gloss­ing-over of Sex in Most Com­ing-of-Age Lit­er­a­ture
• Writ­ing About Teen Sex While Wor­ried About What Your Moth­er Will Think
• How We Came to Be Known as “Gen­er­a­tion X,” Why It’s an Idi­ot­ic Label, and Orcutt’s Alter­nate Nick­names for Us
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Being an Unpar­ent­ed, Free and Fer­al Gen­er­a­tion

Writing, Publishing, and Cultural Critique

• The Trend Toward Writ­ing for the Algo­rithm; F‑ck the Algo­rithm, Orcutt Says
• The Nov­el­ist as Auteur: Han­dling Every Aspect of a Book Your­self
• Doing Some­thing That the Rest of the World Con­sid­ers Impos­si­ble: Writ­ing 1.25 Mil­lion Words Over a Decade—with No Likes, No Pub­lish­er, and No Advance
• How Gram­marly and Oth­er Online Ser­vices Are Harm­ing Aspir­ing Writ­ers
• Who Needs to Be Afraid of AI: Authors and Edi­tors of For­mu­la­ic Fic­tion
• The Real Threat of AI (and It’s Not AI Get­ting Con­trol of the Mis­sile Silos)
• The Laugh­ably Out­dat­ed Memes in Book Pub­lish­ing and Pro­mo­tion

Personal Origins & Philosophy

• An Auto­bi­og­ra­phy in Libraries: How Libraries Made Me Who I Am
• The Ulti­mate in Deep Work: Writ­ing Nine Nov­els in a Decade, and Doing It Offline
• “It Always Seems Impos­si­ble Until It’s Done” and Oth­er Inspi­ra­tional Thoughts

Pro­duc­ers and jour­nal­ists: Feel free to use any of these angles—or pitch some­thing else.

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Media Assets

Extend­ed Media Kit (Print-ready and Low-res Author and Book Pho­tos, Q&A, Book Info, Word Files with text, etc. Also includes sin­gle-file PDF.):

.ZIP File of Chris Orcutt & Boda­cious­ly Media Kit (154 MB)

 

Sin­gle-File PDF Media Kit (for view­ing or print­ing, not for con­tent cut and paste):

PDF of Boda­cious­ly Media Kit (7.7 MB)

 

ARC (ePub) of Boda­cious­ly, Episode I on Net­Gal­ley:

Request an ARC of Boda­cious­ly on Net­Gal­ley

 

Print Arti­cles:

A Q&A inter­view in Kirkus Reviews Mag­a­zine about Orcutt’s path as a proud­ly self-pub­lished writer.

An in-depth inter­view with WorldClassPerfomers.com about writ­ing and life lessons.

A fea­ture in The Pough­keep­sie Jour­nal about Orcutt’s writ­ing career.

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Audio & Video Gallery

Below is a sam­ple of Orcutt’s radio and pod­cast guest spots, and some short doc­u­men­tary appear­ances.

Orcutt on the Art Unknown Pod­cast with Jim Wills:

 

Orcutt on WRHU-FM, Long Island, NY (jump to 7:46–8:33 for some­thing fun­ny):

 

Orcutt on The Phil Cow­an Show, KTKZ, Sacra­men­to, Cal­i­for­nia:

 

With Roger Wen­dell on KGNU, Den­ver, CO:

 

With Pam Stack on Authors on the Air:

 

With Stephen Camp­bell on The Author Biz:

 

Orcutt on Pos­i­tive Talk Radio with Kevin McDon­ald:

 

“Pen­cil” — A Mini-Doc­u­men­tary by Jason Scott:

 

Read­ing at Mill­brook Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val, Mill­brook, NY:

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Advance Praise

Advance Praise for Boda­cious­ly True & Total­ly Awe­some:

“Read­ers of com­ing-of-age sto­ries will find this explo­ration quite dif­fer­ent from the norm, which makes it a stand­out. … Replete with stu­dent assem­blies, trysts and field trips, musi­cal notes and foot­notes, and the return of Halley’s Comet, the 1980s comes to life in a way few oth­er nov­els could achieve…. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed … a dif­fer­ent com­ing-of-age nov­el that sim­mers with dis­cov­ery.”

— D. Dono­van, Senior Review­er, Mid­west Book Review

 

“With its … over-the-top (vir­ginal) sex­u­al encoun­ters, the book might seem just a par­o­dy of every ado­les­cent boy’s fan­tasies. But it’s so well-writ­ten that the near-sex­u­al encoun­ters lend depth to Ace’s ado­les­cent strug­gles. Avery can be dis­arm­ing one minute, disin­gen­u­ous the next as he tries to resist the sirens’ call but is still young enough to want to impress his friends by teach­ing them the Zom­bie Walk from Thriller. … This is the first in Orcutt’s nine-part series. At the end, read­ers are left on a cliffhang­er, like those of ’80s soap operas…. All nine books are appar­ent­ly writ­ten…. As Ace him­self might say, ‘Awe­some, Dude.’”

— Blueink Review *Starred Review*

 

“A com­i­cal teen com­ing-of-age nov­el set in the 1980s from author [Chris] Orcutt. … As his name sug­gests, Ace is cool. He works out every day, has the lat­est music his Walk­man (Van Halen’s “Pana­ma,” Duran Duran’s “The Reflex”), and, at least late­ly, teen girls seem to throw them­selves at him. … [Ace] must nav­i­gate the intri­ca­cies of teenage crush­es and fool­ing around while also pulling off seem­ing­ly impos­si­ble stunts such as mak­ing Pres­i­dent Rea­gan laugh. … But the fun comes … in the fast paced, steady action on the page. The ques­tion that always hangs over the nar­ra­tive is what sort of sit­u­a­tion Ace will get him­self into next…. A light-heart­ed, swift adven­ture that sees its young pro­tag­o­nist woo just about every­one he encoun­ters.”

— Kirkus Reviews

 

“Immersed in 1980s pop­u­lar cul­ture, Boda­cious­ly True and Total­ly Awe­some is a fun and nos­tal­gic nov­el.”

— Fore­word Clar­i­on

 

“Like oth­er ground­break­ing nov­els, Boda­cious­ly defies and tran­scends exist­ing labels. It’s a com­ing-of-age sto­ry, a love sto­ry, an adven­ture sto­ry, a thriller, and an odyssey; it’s what you’d get if you put War and Peace, The Odyssey, and Fast Times at Ridge­mont High into a super­col­lid­er; it’s an epic-length tale about an age group that has sel­dom been tak­en seri­ous­ly in literature—teenagers—and it’s writ­ten for adults.”

— Sum­mer Jensen, Ph.D., from the Fore­word

 

Praise for Orcutt’s Ear­li­er Work:

“Orcutt’s writ­ing style is light­heart­ed and conversational…[readers] are sure to find him a vibrant char­ac­ter and enjoy­able writer.”

— Kirkus Reviews

 

“Orcutt’s Per­pet­u­at­ing Trou­ble is an absolute­ly fas­ci­nat­ing and enter­tain­ing read from cov­er to cov­er….”

— Mid­west Book Review

 

“Orcutt’s use of lan­guage and deft abil­i­ty to switch into mul­ti­far­i­ous voic­es and writ­ing styles cap­tures the nuances of time, set­ting and men­tal­i­ty of each protagonist…making each sto­ry unique, engag­ing and insight­ful.”

— IndieRead­er

 

“He is so exquis­ite in his writ­ing that I couldn’t wait to finish.…I can­not tell you the joy it gives me to read lit­er­a­ture that is so well defined. The prose is exem­plary.”

— Pam Stack, Authors on the Air Glob­al Radio Net­work

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Series Roadmap

Here are the cov­ers, titles, and pub­li­ca­tion dates for all nine episodes of Boda­cious­ly True & Total­ly Awe­some:

 

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Behind the Scenes: Ten Years, Nine Books, One Vision

For an in-depth look at Orcutt’s process over the 10 years he was writ­ing Boda­cious­ly, check out these blog pieces:

“It Always Seems Impos­si­ble Until It’s Done”

“Anoth­er Draft Bites the Dust”

“The Nuclear Sub­ma­rine U.S.S Boda­cious­ly Resur­faces After Six Months of ‘Deep and Silent’ ”

“The Sev­enth Year”

“Alone­ness”

“Hard(ish) Times”

“Come What May, the Writ­ing Life Rolls Along”

Or, if you’d pre­fer sim­ply to see some pho­tos Orcutt took dur­ing the decade he was writ­ing Boda­cious­ly, here you go:

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Official Mixtape for Bodaciously — Ep. 1: Bad Boy

Each episode fea­tures a mix­tape (1980s for playlist) at the back of the nov­el, and there are music “cues” in the text to sig­nal what song accom­pa­nies the scene. Lis­ten to the songs from the nov­el before the book comes out, or wait and lis­ten along while you read.

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Contact Chris Orcutt

For media requests / inter­views / event or pod­cast book­ings / advance review copies / or oth­er inquiries, use the form below.

 

Pre­fer email? You can reach me at Chris {at}- Orcutt {dot} net.

Social Media: Chris Orcutt on Face­book

Net­Gal­ley: Request an ARC of Boda­cious­ly on Net­Gal­ley

Buck­le up and rock on! You’re wel­come. :)

Boda­cious­ly Yours,

Chris

P.S.:Consider sub­scrib­ing to my web­site below. Sub­scribers, in addi­tion to instant noti­fi­ca­tions of new blog posts and alerts about new titles com­ing out, will receive exclu­sive con­tent unavail­able to non-sub­scribers, includ­ing bonus sto­ries, writ­ing tips, and insid­er essays on the world of a writer.

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Thank you for your inter­est in Chris Orcutt and Boda­cious­ly True & Total­ly Awe­some.