Best-selling and award-winning author Gordon Kirkland returns to the short essay format that marked his first six books in his latest tome My Slice Of Life Is Full Of Gristle.
“Last year we made my back list available to readers using Amazon’s Kindle a reader,” Kirkland said. “The sales were beyond anything I could have hoped for or anticipated. As a result, I started hearing from readers, asking me to write another collection of short humorous essays.”
Three of those earlier books received the Stephen Leacock Award of Merit For Humour. His first book, Justice Is Blind – And Her Dog Just Peed In My Cornflakes – took the award in 2000, and his second book, Never Stand Behind A Loaded Horse, won it in 2005. His third book, When My Mind Wanders It Brings Back Souvenirs, won in 2006.
All three books were based on stories Kirkland had written originally for his syndicated newspaper column that ran in Canadian and American newspapers from 1994 to 2007.
“I was a little hesitant at first,” he said. “I hadn’t written in that format for four years, and didn’t have the pool of stories to draw from the way I did when I was writing the column every week. I started writing a few essays, and found it was like running into an old friend on the street. I just needed to remember those times and situations where I had said that something would have made great material for a column.”
My Slice of Life Is Full Of Gristle features stories on a wide array of topics ranging from the experience of swimming with a nine-foot shark to the news about a company that makes prosthetic testicles for neutered dogs.
It comes hard on the heels of Kirkland’s novel The Plight Before Christmas, which was released last September. In the weeks leading up to the holidays that book hit No. 1 on the Amazon Kindle Parenting and Family Humor Best Sellers List.
“I started work on the new book after completing The Plight Before Christmas,” Kirkland added. “It was a nice way to keep writing instead of delving right back into another novel.”
Kirkland is currently working on a sequel to his comedic mystery Crossbow. He is also drafting a novella for next year’s holiday season, featuring the antics of the ‘less than brilliant’ police dog from that series.
The book is available from Amazon in both paperback and Kindle e-reader editions.
Golden Ears Writers
Golden Ears Writers host a Q&A with Gordon Kirkland on Tuesday, Feb. 21 in the lobby of the ACT from 7 - 9 p.m. Golden Ears Writers was founded last year by Katherine Wagner, Ronda Payne and Andrea Walker. The group hold drop-in critiques for writers on the first and third Friday of each month from 1:45 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. at the ACT. Find them on Facebook @ goldenearswriters.