Enter Stage Write: Stories to Enjoy While We Wait in the Wings

by Clyde Edgerton, Josh Bailey, K. Robert Campbell

These fifteen original stories, donated by authors to help keep local theater alive, are fun, quirky, imaginative, and bold - the perfect way to tide over audiences until local stage curtains can once again rise! Each tale turns the spotlight on some unusual snapshot of life or imagination. Your purchase of this book will help local theaters survive and eventually thrive despite this most unfortunate "intermission." With new shows - and the resumption of those shows forced to pause during the pandemic - casts and crews will be once again ready to entertain you, and to bring the laughter and applause back to our stages and our lives. Until then, sit back, let us entertain you, and know that your purchase has made a big difference for local artists...while we all wait in the wings. Includes the following Very, Very by Melissa Randall Stars of Stage and Screen by Joel Perry A Ring of Truth by K. Robert Campbell 8 Minutes, 20 Seconds by Josh Bailey John Willis Hostler by Skip Maloney Potty Stop Perils or The Trials and Tribulations of Public Restrooms by Charlotte Hackman The Sarpy County Incident by Kenneth Vest Emma’s Mission by Shawn C. Sproatt Smiles in Stormsville by Kim Henry Coppy by Gwenyfar Discovery by Eduard Schmidt-Zorner A Quiet, Decent Place by Anne Russell Grenadine, the Kudzu Queen by Wiley Cash Ace by Philip Gerard Arrival and Departure by Clyde Edgerton

200 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 30, 2020

About the author

Clyde Edgerton is widely considered one of the premier novelists working in the Southern tradition today, often compared with such masters as Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor.

Although most of his books deal with adult concerns--marriage, aging, birth and death--Edgerton's work is most profoundly about family. In books such as Raney, Walking Across Egypt, The Floatplane Notebooks, and Killer Diller, Edgerton explores the dimensions of family life, using an endearing (if eccentric) cast of characters. "Edgerton's characters," writes Mary Lystad in Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers, "have more faults than most, but they also have considerable virtues, and they are so likable that you want to invite them over for a cup of coffee, a piece of homemade apple pie, and a nice long chat."

Raised in the small towns of the North Carolina Piedmont, Edgerton draws heavily on the storytelling traditions of the rural south in his novels. Without the distractions of big-city life and the communications revolution of the late twentieth century, many rural Americans stayed in close touch with their relatives, and often shared stories about family members with each other for entertainment.

Among Edgerton’s awards are: Guggenheim Fellowship; Lyndhurst Prize; Honorary Doctorates from UNC-Asheville and St. Andrews Presbyterian College; membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers; the North Carolina Award for Literature; and five notable book awards from the New York Times.