SciFi and More from Duane Simolke

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Science Fiction Adventure.

For a limited time, the Kindle eBook of Degranon is available at a special low price, to introduce new readers to my science fiction adventure series, Sons of Taldra. I’m currently writing the second book in the series. Readers can also order Degranon in paperback and hardcover through Barnes & Noble and many other bookstores.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Sordid Lives: The Series

And speaking of returning TV series, it still looks unlikely the wonderful Sordid Lives: The Series will ever return. Still, you can enjoy clips from the show, thanks to creator Del Shores.

SordidLiveschannel

Shores based Sordid Lives on his play and movie about a West Texas family. I still hope he gets the movie version of his play Southern Baptist Sissies made!

V Returning Sooner (Updated 8/11/09)

From SyFy: ABC announces V will debut in November and V producer on who might return and other homages.

The original miniseries and its sequel included some interesting parallels to Nazi Germany, but the series lacked a budget and direction. Will the new series be better, or worse?

ABC’s V Preview makes it look better.

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Sherwood Anderson News

KevinFromCanada Blog: Sherwood Anderson Category Archive.

Blogger Joel J. Miller references what Anderson and others say about book marketing: Don’t Just Blame The Marketing.

All Free Essays: Winesburg, Ohio.
Midwestern Literature: Sherwood Anderson (a great man from ohio).
Blogcritics.org: Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson.
BookLoveAffair: Friday Focus: Sherwood Anderson.

University of Toledo professor Clarence Lindsay has released a new book, Such a Rare Thing: The Art of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio. According to the synopsis, “This critical study of Sherwood Anderson's most famous and perhaps most widely taught work, Winesburg, Ohio, treats it as a thoroughly modernist novel examining the aesthetic nature of romantic identity.”

Monday, August 03, 2009

The historical West Texas town of Acorn was founded by the Briggs family or the Carsons family, depending on who you ask. Just slide on over to the Turner Street Café and you’ll find some cranky old geezer willing to give you an earful about that. The pictures you see here are of our historical Seventh Street district and of one of the many oak trees planted here during the 1950s by the Fischers, a family of German immigrants that nearabouts bankrupted what little water supply we had back then…but who can argue with the results? You don’t see this many trees in Lubbock!

Founded: 1934.

Area: 25 square miles (includes recent annexation).

Current population: 21,001.

Altitude: 3,245 feet above sea level.

Geography: flat, flatter, and flattest.

Weather: mostly mild winters (except for the occasional ice storm), mostly mild spring through fall (except for the occasional dust storm, Easter freeze, or tornado).

Worship: Catholic or Presbyterian for some, Baptist for the rest of us.

Wild Life: prairie dogs, squirrels, ground owls, various widows. The horses and cows are mostly *outside* the city limits, but some Acornians like to dress up as cowboys and cowgirls anyway.

Night Life: Three bars, open from 11 AM to 2 AM. A movie house/restaurant. Concerts are no longer encouraged in Acorn, but sometimes happen at the bars. We also don’t encourage the presence of a certain “adult” establishment, which we’ve managed to rezone outside our city limits. We do encourage and support Acorn College Football, day or night games!

Reasons to visit:

(1) German festival!

(2) The best chicken-fried steak and apple pie this side of Throckmorton!

(3) Close to Lubbock and Amarillo!

(4) Antiques shops and an art gallery!

(5) As far as we can figure, no film students have ever turned up missing here.

(6) Acorn College, and more importantly, Acorn College Football!

(7) How 'bout those sunsets?

(8) Unlike the people in Happy, Texas, we wouldn't mind if you made a movie about us, as long as you gave us lots of money.

(9) A short drive to Roswell, New Mexico.

(10) A short drive from Roswell, New Mexico, if you get tired of the alien hunters.

(11) We’re nothing like West Texans in movies or that ***** Greater Tuna play. (The preceding sentence was edited for a word that made me have to put a quarter in the cuss jar.)

(12) We have a more “normal” name than Shallowater, Levelland, Muleshoe, Throckmorton, or Earth, Texas. We love to brag about our beautiful name.

(13) Though he may deny it and tell us to take this off our Web site, rumor has it that a certain famous West Texan who now lives in D.C. attended a frat party or two here. Maybe he just doesn't remember.

(14) None of our citizens have been on that Survivor TV show or American Idol, but we have a daily Wheel of Fortune Viewers Club, over at the Ice Cream Dream, and you don’t know Fear Factor until you’ve been to Acorn’s Cow Palace on Karoake Night.

(15) According to the latest recount, we still have more marriages than divorces.

(16) Trees! We’ve got ‘em!

(17) Acorn Lake! It ain’t big (we had to fight over the right to call it a lake), but it’s pretty!

(17) Have we mentioned the sunsets?

(18) The Dixie Chicks have never written a song about us. No, really, we don’t want them to.

(19) Friday Night Lights! Not the book, movie, or TV series—just the real deal!

(20) We all talked about voting for Kinky Friedman, even before he thought about running for Governor of Texas and replacing Governor Goodhair!

(21) No, really, our mayor isn’t gay. Well, the old one said he wasn’t either, before he ran off with that fellow Whathisname.

(22) Community organizers, and re-organizers. Between the Carsons family and the Briggs family, you never know who’s buying what!

(23) Lubbock author Duane Simolke wrote a book about us! Read the reviews at Kirkus, Amazon.Com, Amazon.Com (1st edition), bn.com (2nd edition), and bn.com (1st edition).

Kindle Edition.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

This scene opens Fat Diary, a comical short story I wrote for the book The Acorn Gathering.

January 20, 2001
Dear Fat Diary,

My nutritionist told me to write in you every day, until I can come to terms about why I’m not happy with my weight, and why I want to change. I’m supposed to call you my “love diary,” but I’m not trying to get rid of love; I’m trying to get rid of fat. We’ll talk about love later.

No, on second thought, we’ll talk about love now. I don’t have love because I have fat. If I didn’t weigh 260 pounds, I might be writing a love diary, and teenage girls would read it and swoon, while listening to the latest boybands and dreaming of that guy who sits in the second row of their American history class. Wait, that’s what I did at the University of Texas in Austin.

My name is Pamela Mae Willard, named after my Aunt Mae and my father, Samuel Carsons (yes, as in “Carsons Furniture, Acorn’s best-kept secret”). He wanted a Samuel Carsons, Jr. He had to settle with a Pamuel, which became Pamela, due to the mercy of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, and my passive-aggressive mom. She kept “accidentally” referring to my father as “Samueluel,” and when that bothered him, she said she “didn’t give a damnuel,” and when he wanted supper, she said he could fry some “Spamuel,” and if he wanted someone to keep him warm, he could “buy a cocker spaniel.” Even though she never actually said how much she hated the name “Pamuel,” the message came through clearly enough, and he eventually asked if Pamela Mae would be all right.

Pamela Mae sounded sufficiently dignified and Southern for a member of Acorn’s beloved Carsons family, so she consented, and soon began cooking meals that weren’t primarily composed of meat byproducts. Harmony soon returned to our home, and my parents adopted an unwanted newborn baby just over a year later, naming him Samuel, of course, but calling him “Sam.” If they were going to go through all of that just to call someone “Sam,” they probably could have named me Samantha! Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite in a position to impart my keen sense of logic at the time.

My parents were very happy with Sam, who would eventually join the Air Force. I taught Sunday school for a time and, after returning from college in Austin, managed the library.

Our childhood went by with very little trauma or disaster. Meteorites, tornadoes, and general flying debris never hit our house, unless you count acorns, pecans, and the occasional dust storm. Daddy wasn’t a drunk, though he always liked touring the wineries that keep popping up around West Texas. Mom didn’t have a secret past, unless it’s still Acorn’s best-kept secret, to use that tired catch phrase I mentioned before, the one Daddy’s store shares with most of Acorn’s local advertisers. And my adopted brother didn’t turn out to be a space alien, despite my early suspicions; in fact, he and I remain the best of friends. Regardless of how some people around here make it sound, the sky isn’t always falling in Acorn, at least not for our family. I had loving parents and a happy, well-rounded childhood.

“Well-rounded.” Bad word choice.

I grew taller fast during my early teens, so much so that my mom worried I might have some sort of thyroid disorder, and it seemed like I needed to eat a lot for my body to keep up with its own growth. But then I stopped growing. Upward, that is. Then I got fat, and I stayed fat. So here I am, writing in my fat diary. Worst of all, I’ll probably wind up writing about my joke of a short-lived marriage.

I’m supposed to examine key moments from any of my amazing thirty-something years, and find reasons to love myself, all the while congratulating myself for the conclusions I reach.

Do I get a lollipop for that?

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

From The Huffington Post: New Twist in Bisexual Sailor's Murder.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Bio, With Links. Updated 10/19/25

Bio, With Links. Duane Simolke (pronounced “Dwain Smoky”). Education: Belmont University (B.A., ‘89, Nashville, TN), Hardin-Simmons University (M.A., ‘91, Abilene, TX), and Texas Tech University (Ph.D., ‘96, Lubbock, TX), all with a major in English.

Writing published in nightFire, Mesquite, Caprock Sun, Midwest Poetry Review, International Journal on World Peace, and many other publications.

I also wrote the preface to Ronald L. Donaghe’s gay novel Lance: The Continuing Journals of Will Barnett.

Who’s Who Among America’s Colleges and Universities, 1988-89.

At the Conference on Christianity and Literature, presented papers, "Pilgrim's Progress As Satire" (1990) and "C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces" (1991).

1991, Masters Thesis, This Present Darkness and Its Influences.

Two Texas Tech University English Department Harbinger Awards for Excellence in Short Fiction.

1996, Doctoral Dissertation, Stein, Gender, Isolation and Industrialism: New Readings of Winesburg, Ohio.

At the 2001 Convention of The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), spoke on the panel “Writing with a Texas Twist.”

Two StoneWall Society 2002 Pride In The Arts Awards. Acceptance for The Acorn Stories. Acceptance for Holding Me Together.

2003 StoneWall Society Pride in the Arts award for Degranon.

Dann Hazel used Reactions to Homophobia (a long essay from Holding Me Together) as one of the resources for his book Witness: Gay and Lesbian Clergy Report from the Front. Kris Coonan, UQ Union, University of Queensland, used it as a resource for his article Sexual Prejudice: Understanding Homophobia and Heterosexism, Biphobia and Transphobia. The Queensland Government's Community Benefit Fund and PFLAG Brisbane used it as a resource for the PDF booklet Assisting Those Who Come Into Regular Contact with Lesbian and Gay Youth. November 2003: at the Texas Book Festival, signed copies of The Acorn Stories.

October 2005: lead the discussion Gay Symbols and History.

Three of my books recognized as iUniverse Editor’s Choice books: The Acorn Stories, Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure, and Holding Me Together.

February 2006: part of View from Brokeback Mountain panel discussion.

June 2006: The Acorn Stories and Holding Me Together featured in discussions and spoken word presentations at the first StoneWall Society Pride in the Arts Festival, Walton, West Virginia.

Noted a few times during Jed Ryan’s interview with StoneWall Society’s founder.

The Return of Innocence received a 2007 Allbooks Reviewer’s Choice Award.

March 2007: Featured author at Razor Pages.

July 2009: Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure discussed in Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States.

May 2010: Featured in books Belmont University People: Belmont University Alumni, Belmont University Faculty, Trisha Yearwood, Kimberley Locke, Brad Paisley and Hardin-Simmons University Alumni: Doyle Brunson, Buddy West, Rupert N. Richardson, Dan Blocker, Victor G. Carrillo, George H. Mahon.

September 2010: Featured Writer, Bitsy Bling's Book Review.

October 2016: Sons of Taldra Interview at Prism Book Alliance.

September 2016: Interview at Our Queer Art.

October 2016: Sons of Taldra Interview at Prism Book Alliance.

March 2017: The Acorn Stories at Book of the Month Club.

April 2017: Our Epic Worlds SciFi Interview: The Epic World of Valchondria by Duane Simolke.

June 2017: Fire and Ice: Fiction Feature and Author Interview: The Acorn Stories by Duane Simolke.

June 2017: Sons of Taldra Review at Enas Reviews.

July 2017: SelfPublishingReview.Com Reviews Taldra. “A highly-imaginative sci-fi adventure set in an alternate universe.”

August 2017: The Acorn Stories featured in Publishers Weekly.

December 2017: The Abstract reviews The Acorn Stories, saying it “reminds us that nobody is perfect and that everyone is just trying to get by in life either it be by hurting others or by trying to change their life for the better.”

January 2018: Interview about my books in Gay Webcast Two Gay Geeks.

February 2018: Interview About Sons of Taldra and More at BooksGoSocial.Com.

March 2018: Genre Spoof Gay Cowboy Vampire Highlander at Who Writes Short Shorts.

June 2018: Patchwork story published by Gay Flash Fiction.

January 2021: Trailer for The Acorn Stories appears during morning shows in Palm Springs and three Texas television stations.

February 2021: Sons of Taldra reviewed at Doctor Who Online.

March 2021: Featured author at humanmade.net.

February 2022: Nominated for a QueerIndie Award.

Early 2022: Featured at Feed My Reads, BookClubPro, and eBookLingo.

March 2022: Character interview with Becky Blake from The Acorn Stories at Feed My Reads.

April 2022: Character interview with Taldra from Sons of Taldra: A Science Fiction Adventure at Feed My Reads.

June 2022: Featured in the #IndiePride Book Spotlight 2022 Celebration with an Author Interview and a look at The Journey to Sons of Taldra.