Stuart Shotwell's Blog

Dear Friends,

This is just to say that Tomazina's Folly (the sequel to Edmund Persuader) has posted on Amazon Kindle at this page. I have said enough by way of caveat and apologia concerning it in the previous blog entry, so I will forbear here.

Meanwhile Tales of Arcadia, a collection of short stories written quite some time ago, has been posted again, at this page. I’m gradually come to some peace with the fact that one’s writing changes as one grows, just as one’s beliefs and understanding take on more depth and scope with time. One would like one’s life work to present a message that is self-coherent in every respect, but that is impossible, or at least in my case. This is all a way of saying that it would be difficult for anyone to track the meaning of the changes in my interests between the writing of Tales of Arcadia and the writing of Tomazina’s Folly, though the changes themselves are quite obvious. There are, however, many underlying principles that are consistent in all of these published books; and I hope it will please kindred souls to encounter them again in various narrative guises.

I offer my respect and affection to all such souls, strangers though you be.

Stuart Shotwell

People have been so kind in their responses to Edmund Persuader that finally I have become ashamed of my own failure to respond in turn. Though a blog is not the best format for a general reply, it will have to do. This may be the only entry I ever manage to post here, so I hope I will not disappoint any expectations if the record goes silent hereafter. I realize that very few people, if any, actually really read Goodreads pages (they have much better things to read), so this will be just for the few diehards who chase these words down.

I should explain that when I refer to “responses,” I don’t mean reviews on Goodreads or elsewhere, since I don’t read them. Such reviews are intended for other readers and not for the writer of the book in question, and they are generally so brief that they do not form the basis for a satisfying communication between the writer and his or her readers. So if you have posted something in response to me in a review, my apologies for not seeing it.

It’s regrettable that Goodreads assigns the term “fans” to those who wish to keep in touch with a writer. That condescending title must turn away a good number of people. So a thanks is owed to those few who brave the wearing of that name and sign up. I’d rather think of us all as “one equal temper of heroic hearts.” There are so few of us. The main news I have to share at present is that the sequel to Edmund Persuader is about to be released; I would imagine it would be online sometime in the summer of 2014. And I need to explain that it is very different from Edmund Persuader, because if it were not, I would not have been interested in writing it. Often readers feel they have finally hit upon just the thing they like, only to discover that an author’s other novels are very different, and they cannot help but be disappointed in their expectations. The fact is that writers’ interests change the way everyone’s interests do. If they did not, there would be something wrong somewhere. I take it as an obvious truth that everyone ought to grow intellectually and spiritually throughout life; and in the case of writers, this means that each book they write is going to vary considerably from the one before. That is what is so reassuring about formula novels, I suppose--they don’t change. But that is exactly why I couldn’t stand writing them.

That said, Tomazina’s Folly (which is what the new book is called) does have at least the virtue, if such it is, of following the story of Edmund Persuader where it left off. It is just more introspective--built more on the inner life of the main character than on event, though certainly plenty happens in it. (As is the case with all my novels, readers who do not like long books are advised to stay away.)

I will try to remember to post again when the book actually is available, and to give advance notice when the other novels that are inching along behind it are due to appear.

Best regards to all who find and read this.

P.S. I don’t seem to be able to get those other books that show up on my page to go away.