Floyd will visit the Winston County Library on Tuesday, May 21 at 11:30 a.m. Autographed, first-edition copies of The Barrens are $24.95 plus tax. This is Floyd’s seventh book-length collection, all of which have been published by Dogwood Press of Brandon.
“The ideas, as I always tell my students, come from anyplace and everyplace,” Floyd said of his fiction. “People you know, headlines you see in the newspaper. Things that happen to you or your friends and family. And if the situation doesn’t sound quite interesting enough, ask yourself, ‘What if such-and-such happened?’ and go from there.
“With The Barrens, most of the fun in writing these was in creating plot twists and reversals that I hoped the reader wouldn’t see coming. That’s the kind of thing I myself like to run into when I’m reading a story.”
The work of Floyd, who has written well over 1,000 published short stories and features since 1994, can be found in nationally-read publications like Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Woman’s World, The Strand Magazine, and the Saturday Evening Post.
“John set the bar awfully high with Rainbow’s End, his first story collection, but The Barrens just might be his best,” said Joe Lee, Editor-in-Chief of Dogwood Press. “From the first page to the last keystroke, it’s remarkably visual writing that never once loses momentum from story to story, genre to genre. If you’ve never read short stories, this is the place to start.”
“We are thrilled to host John Floyd at our library!” said librarian Beth Edwards. The Friends of the Library will offer free brown bag lunches to the first twenty participants.
The Winston County Library is located at 100 W. Park Street. To reserve signed copies of The Barrens, call 662-773-3212. For information about all Dogwood Press titles, visit www.dogwoodpress.com.
