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Thunderstorm: A Novella, Two Stories & Five Poems
From master storyteller Steven J. Conifer come these, a collection of stories and poems which examine subjects at the heart of human experience but oft-avoided on account of their manic-depression, alcoholism, suicide, mental illness, life-altering traumas, and the like. Yet, as the stories show, it is such themes' very tendency to sting or disquiet which makes them so vitally important to explore as candidly and fearlessly as rare is the individual whom such ugly realities never touch, even indirectly; rarer still is one who could not stand to foster a deeper, fuller compassion for those whose lives they dominate and, in all too many cases, ultimately doom.
From the first page to the last, readers will be jolted by Conifer's brutal honesty in dealing with the aforementioned topics, and (he hopes) struck by the empathy for the tortured characters from whose points of view he weighs them, and through whose eyes, these often blinded by raw agonies, the reader is invited to do the same. While nothing in this volume may be uplifting - though bare threads of hope and glimmers of spiritual redemption are sprinkled throughout - much of it will be eye-opening to large numbers of readers, and perhaps to certain others, oddly comforting in its very acknowledgement of the kinds of mental suffering to which they can all too well relate. Free of any judgment or prescriptions for putative remedies, this acknowledgement strives merely to be sincere, and to call attention to the ways in which, for far too many, life is a decidedly brutal and joyless business. Presenting precious little to make it worthwhile, to justify endurance of the countless blows it deals them, existence as going, profitable concern seems impossible to such people. The very bleakness of their circumstances prompts them, as it does the characters portrayed within, to pose a simple if horrifyingly unanswerable "If there is some virtue in withstanding endless adversity, what is it, and when will I know it, experience the relief that knowing it must surely afford?"
STEVEN J. CONIFER is the award-winning author of numerous novels, novellas, short stories, and poems. His last published book, NO THRU TRAFFIC (itself a compilation of prose and poetry), was released in the fall of 2019. This volume marks his sixth collection of short fiction. He is currently working on a semi-autobiographical screenplay. His first novel since 2013's OUT OF IOWA, entitled A BEAUTIFUL FREAK SHOW, is expected by the spring or early summer of 2022. Conifer, a native of Appalachia, now lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest.
From the first page to the last, readers will be jolted by Conifer's brutal honesty in dealing with the aforementioned topics, and (he hopes) struck by the empathy for the tortured characters from whose points of view he weighs them, and through whose eyes, these often blinded by raw agonies, the reader is invited to do the same. While nothing in this volume may be uplifting - though bare threads of hope and glimmers of spiritual redemption are sprinkled throughout - much of it will be eye-opening to large numbers of readers, and perhaps to certain others, oddly comforting in its very acknowledgement of the kinds of mental suffering to which they can all too well relate. Free of any judgment or prescriptions for putative remedies, this acknowledgement strives merely to be sincere, and to call attention to the ways in which, for far too many, life is a decidedly brutal and joyless business. Presenting precious little to make it worthwhile, to justify endurance of the countless blows it deals them, existence as going, profitable concern seems impossible to such people. The very bleakness of their circumstances prompts them, as it does the characters portrayed within, to pose a simple if horrifyingly unanswerable "If there is some virtue in withstanding endless adversity, what is it, and when will I know it, experience the relief that knowing it must surely afford?"
STEVEN J. CONIFER is the award-winning author of numerous novels, novellas, short stories, and poems. His last published book, NO THRU TRAFFIC (itself a compilation of prose and poetry), was released in the fall of 2019. This volume marks his sixth collection of short fiction. He is currently working on a semi-autobiographical screenplay. His first novel since 2013's OUT OF IOWA, entitled A BEAUTIFUL FREAK SHOW, is expected by the spring or early summer of 2022. Conifer, a native of Appalachia, now lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest.
212 pages, Paperback
Published October 22, 2021
About the author
Steven J. Conifer
16 books3 followersGreetings, fellow readers (and scriveners)!
BASIC BIO & AUTHOR C.V.
Originally from southern West Virginia, I am an attorney by trade and also the self-published author of more than a dozen books, with a combined sales total of over 5,000 copies since January 2013. In 2012, I was awarded two monetary prizes in the annual West Virginia Writers, Inc. competition, 2nd place (out of 96 entries by authors from around the country) in the "Short Story" category and 4th place (out of 46 entries) in the "Genre: Horror/Sci-Fi/Fantasy" category; the winning tales, both collected in PITCH BLACK (2011), were "The Flat" and "Process of Elimination," respectively. In 1997, as a junior in high school, I was asked for a roughly 200-word vignette by a newspaper with a circulation of approximately 250,000 and over 25,000 daily subscribers. The result was the publication in that paper (the Charleston DAILY MAIL, now sadly defunct) of "When God Must Be Sleeping," a short-short which also appears in PITCH BLACK.
IMPORTANT NOTE: For various reasons, to date I have published all but two of my books under a pseudonym, Michael Prescott, and a few of my books ONLY under that pen name. That is why my author page on Amazon, the link to which is supplied above, is for Michael Prescott; I thought it better to link to a page with ALL of my books on it (save the two mentioned earlier) rather than merely most. The two exceptions are a very short (about 30 pp.) compilation of poetry called DECADES, and my fourth and most recent short-story collection, CALL ME ANYTIME. Those can be found at amazon.com (and perhaps BN.com as well).
MORE (FAR MORE EXTRANEOUS) INFO. ABOUT ME + BOOKS/AUTHORS I [INSERT HEART ICON HERE]
My hobbies include tennis, skiing, chess, watching good films, exploring philosophical and metaphysical topics (I was a philosophy major in college), and, of course, reading avidly. I'm also a huge fan of poker, in particular Texas Hold 'Em, and have played regularly for about six years now, once winning a >$1,000 pot. (I won't tell you the size of the biggest pot I lost. :-)
By way of some (largely random) biographical data, I now live on the West Coast and still drive the same car (a 2006 Toyota Corolla) I bought when I was twenty-nine years old. (My book sales, I'm proud to report, have more or less paid for it! So, for that and more importantly your faithful readership itself, thank you to all my loyal fans.) I'm just shy of 6'2" and of narrow frame, bearing a somewhat eerie resemblance to Bill Wilson (a good friend of mine), only with much darker features.
My favorite authors include Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Breece D'J Pancake, Stephen King, John Irving, Raymond Carver, Raymond Chandler, John Cheever, Augusten Burroughs, David Foster Wallace, Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers, Pearl S. Buck, J.K. Rowling, Kathryn Stockett, and Denise Giardinia. My writing HEROES, on the other hand, include most of the usual suspects: Hemingway, Fitzgerald (perhaps my favorite of all time), Faulkner, Steinbeck, Graham Greene, Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen Crane, Ralph Ellison, Aldous Huxley, Kerouac, Mailer, Updike, and Philip Roth.
My five favorite novels of all time, in descending order of awesomeness, are as follows:
1. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (Kesey)
2. THE GREAT GATSBY (Fitzgerald)
3. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE (Salinger)
4. CAT'S CRADLE (Vonnegut)
5. A FAREWELL TO ARMS (Hemingway)
Two honorable mentions (both collections of short stories):
6. THE COLLECTED STORIES OF BREECE D'J PANCAKE (brilliant WV writer who took his own life, tragically, in 1979 at age 27, and is buried about eight miles from my childhood home)
7. WILL YOU PLEASE BE QUIET, PLEASE? (Raymond Carver)
I write in many different genres, including psychological suspense, horror, humor, and mysteries, but my bread and butter tends to be mainstream literary fiction. Among my most popular works are OUT OF IOWA, and DEEP COLD (eight stories and one novella).
BASIC BIO & AUTHOR C.V.
Originally from southern West Virginia, I am an attorney by trade and also the self-published author of more than a dozen books, with a combined sales total of over 5,000 copies since January 2013. In 2012, I was awarded two monetary prizes in the annual West Virginia Writers, Inc. competition, 2nd place (out of 96 entries by authors from around the country) in the "Short Story" category and 4th place (out of 46 entries) in the "Genre: Horror/Sci-Fi/Fantasy" category; the winning tales, both collected in PITCH BLACK (2011), were "The Flat" and "Process of Elimination," respectively. In 1997, as a junior in high school, I was asked for a roughly 200-word vignette by a newspaper with a circulation of approximately 250,000 and over 25,000 daily subscribers. The result was the publication in that paper (the Charleston DAILY MAIL, now sadly defunct) of "When God Must Be Sleeping," a short-short which also appears in PITCH BLACK.
IMPORTANT NOTE: For various reasons, to date I have published all but two of my books under a pseudonym, Michael Prescott, and a few of my books ONLY under that pen name. That is why my author page on Amazon, the link to which is supplied above, is for Michael Prescott; I thought it better to link to a page with ALL of my books on it (save the two mentioned earlier) rather than merely most. The two exceptions are a very short (about 30 pp.) compilation of poetry called DECADES, and my fourth and most recent short-story collection, CALL ME ANYTIME. Those can be found at amazon.com (and perhaps BN.com as well).
MORE (FAR MORE EXTRANEOUS) INFO. ABOUT ME + BOOKS/AUTHORS I [INSERT HEART ICON HERE]
My hobbies include tennis, skiing, chess, watching good films, exploring philosophical and metaphysical topics (I was a philosophy major in college), and, of course, reading avidly. I'm also a huge fan of poker, in particular Texas Hold 'Em, and have played regularly for about six years now, once winning a >$1,000 pot. (I won't tell you the size of the biggest pot I lost. :-)
By way of some (largely random) biographical data, I now live on the West Coast and still drive the same car (a 2006 Toyota Corolla) I bought when I was twenty-nine years old. (My book sales, I'm proud to report, have more or less paid for it! So, for that and more importantly your faithful readership itself, thank you to all my loyal fans.) I'm just shy of 6'2" and of narrow frame, bearing a somewhat eerie resemblance to Bill Wilson (a good friend of mine), only with much darker features.
My favorite authors include Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Breece D'J Pancake, Stephen King, John Irving, Raymond Carver, Raymond Chandler, John Cheever, Augusten Burroughs, David Foster Wallace, Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers, Pearl S. Buck, J.K. Rowling, Kathryn Stockett, and Denise Giardinia. My writing HEROES, on the other hand, include most of the usual suspects: Hemingway, Fitzgerald (perhaps my favorite of all time), Faulkner, Steinbeck, Graham Greene, Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen Crane, Ralph Ellison, Aldous Huxley, Kerouac, Mailer, Updike, and Philip Roth.
My five favorite novels of all time, in descending order of awesomeness, are as follows:
1. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (Kesey)
2. THE GREAT GATSBY (Fitzgerald)
3. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE (Salinger)
4. CAT'S CRADLE (Vonnegut)
5. A FAREWELL TO ARMS (Hemingway)
Two honorable mentions (both collections of short stories):
6. THE COLLECTED STORIES OF BREECE D'J PANCAKE (brilliant WV writer who took his own life, tragically, in 1979 at age 27, and is buried about eight miles from my childhood home)
7. WILL YOU PLEASE BE QUIET, PLEASE? (Raymond Carver)
I write in many different genres, including psychological suspense, horror, humor, and mysteries, but my bread and butter tends to be mainstream literary fiction. Among my most popular works are OUT OF IOWA, and DEEP COLD (eight stories and one novella).
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