The Night Before the Night Before Christmas

’Twas the night before the night before Christ­mas,
And all through this writer’s head,
Not a bad thought was stir­ring, not even dread.
The writer was thank­ful, most of all for Alexas,
And his many read­ers and fans, from Lon­don to Texas.
Thank­ful, too, for advance read­ers Hillary and Tony,
Upon whom he could always count not to be pho­ny.
Cov­er artist Elis­a­beth Pinio and book design­er Lisa DeSpain,
Work­ing ever so assid­u­ous­ly even though he’s a pain.
And of course tal­ent­ed voiceover artist Jill Cas­sidy,
Who turned his mod­est book trail­er into a mys­tery rhap­sody.
Helped this year by pros of the air­waves and the almighty pen,
By radio hosts, review­ers and news­pa­per­men.
The scin­til­lat­ing Pam Stack of Authors on the Air,
Who con­duct­ed her inter­view with great charm and care.
Steve Camp­bell of The Author Biz host­ed him bril­liant­ly too,
And let him dis­cuss his new mys­tery and his quirky world view.
He talked about his bipo­lar on Empow­ered Liv­ing Radio,
With host Tori Eldridge—mas­ter of the micro­phone and To-Shin Do(e).
He did a Q&A with Authors in the Spotlight’s Lucie Dunn,
An inter­view this writer found gra­cious, thought­ful and fun.
He was fea­tured in a short doc­u­men­tary by his friend Jason Scott,
To whom he is grate­ful, even though 20 years ago Scott broke his cot.
Review­ers Kate Gold­smith, Nina Shein­gold, Ann La Farge,
In prais­ing One Hun­dred Miles they led the charge.
Kirkus Reviews favor­ably com­pared him to his hero John Cheev­er,
In a review so stel­lar, it gave him a fever.
IndieRead­er declared his books Best Books both last year and this,
“There’s a new word sher­iff in town,” they said, “and his name is Chris.”
Then Stu Shinske and John Bar­ry of the PO-kipsee Jour­nal
With a long fea­ture made this for­mer reporter feel ver­nal.
The writer is thank­ful also for his fam­i­ly and friends;
They are much bet­ter than scu­ba div­ing and get­ting the bends. :)
And so this writer says to every­one, “You made this year out of sight!
Now please excuse me while I sharp­en a pen­cil and sit down and write.”

By Chris Orcutt

CHRIS ORCUTT is an American novelist and fiction writer with over 30 years' writing experience and more than a dozen books in his oeuvre. Since 2015, Chris been working exclusively on his magnum opus. Bodaciously True & Totally Awesome: The Legendary Adventures of Avery “Ace” Craig is a 9-episode novel about teens in the 1980s. It’s about ’80s teens, but for adults (in other words, it’s decidedly not YA literature), and he’s applied this epic storytelling approach to the least examined, most misunderstood, most marginalized narrative space in American literature: the lives and inner worlds of teenagers.

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