Books
FOUR FATHERS
June 1st, 2014
by Dave Housley, BL Pawelek, Ben Tanzer and Tom Williams
with a foreword by Greg Olear, author of Fathermucker
There are few subjects richer than fatherhood. I won’t lie, the first time I heard someone use the phrase fatherhood fiction or dick-lit (it was Greg Olear, a couple years ago when Fathermucker was happening), I snorted a little bit. This, of course, is the reaction of a non-father, of a son who admittedly believes that being a dad isn’t all that complicated. Then I read this manuscript. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, other than that I knew two of the authors pretty well and loved their stuff. So I read, and kept reading, and I laughed, and I felt my chest tighten with anxiety, and I might have even cried. How wrong I was.
Four Fathers, and each of its authors, delivers fatherhood in a multitude of thought-provoking, heartfelt ways: from Tom Williams’ pair of long short stories which define a man by who he is as a son in relation to his father, and who he is as a father in relation to his son; to BL Pawelek’s poetry, dedicated to his daughter, Abbey Road. Then you have Ben Tanzer's flash fiction pieces, which all seem to reflect up on the idea of "I'm a dad…what the heck do I do now?" and Dave Housley's novella begging the Osbornesque question "What the f*** is a 'Bieber?'" There are moments of absolute sweetness, and moments of perversity. There are points where you’ll want to laugh out loud, but you’ll stop once you realize you’re only laughing at yourself, your own fears, your own misgivings about what it means to be a dad.
The idea for this book was hatched by its authors at the 2012 AWP conference, and by the same event in 2013, they had put the manuscript in my hands and we were signing the contract. While the works by the individual authors may not seem directly linked in anything other than the general exploration of fatherhood, the connections between the pieces run much, much deeper. An interview series coordinated by Lori Hettler of The Next Best Book Blog during our fundraising campaign is a great example of how these authors work together, despite living hundreds of miles apart. They clearly speak the same language, and they are so clearly dads.
Cobalt Press is honored to have the opportunity to publish Four Fathers as our first full-length book, and we are grateful to all who have helped us to get it off the ground.
-Andrew Keating, Publisher
June 1st, 2014
by Dave Housley, BL Pawelek, Ben Tanzer and Tom Williams
with a foreword by Greg Olear, author of Fathermucker
There are few subjects richer than fatherhood. I won’t lie, the first time I heard someone use the phrase fatherhood fiction or dick-lit (it was Greg Olear, a couple years ago when Fathermucker was happening), I snorted a little bit. This, of course, is the reaction of a non-father, of a son who admittedly believes that being a dad isn’t all that complicated. Then I read this manuscript. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, other than that I knew two of the authors pretty well and loved their stuff. So I read, and kept reading, and I laughed, and I felt my chest tighten with anxiety, and I might have even cried. How wrong I was.
Four Fathers, and each of its authors, delivers fatherhood in a multitude of thought-provoking, heartfelt ways: from Tom Williams’ pair of long short stories which define a man by who he is as a son in relation to his father, and who he is as a father in relation to his son; to BL Pawelek’s poetry, dedicated to his daughter, Abbey Road. Then you have Ben Tanzer's flash fiction pieces, which all seem to reflect up on the idea of "I'm a dad…what the heck do I do now?" and Dave Housley's novella begging the Osbornesque question "What the f*** is a 'Bieber?'" There are moments of absolute sweetness, and moments of perversity. There are points where you’ll want to laugh out loud, but you’ll stop once you realize you’re only laughing at yourself, your own fears, your own misgivings about what it means to be a dad.
The idea for this book was hatched by its authors at the 2012 AWP conference, and by the same event in 2013, they had put the manuscript in my hands and we were signing the contract. While the works by the individual authors may not seem directly linked in anything other than the general exploration of fatherhood, the connections between the pieces run much, much deeper. An interview series coordinated by Lori Hettler of The Next Best Book Blog during our fundraising campaign is a great example of how these authors work together, despite living hundreds of miles apart. They clearly speak the same language, and they are so clearly dads.
Cobalt Press is honored to have the opportunity to publish Four Fathers as our first full-length book, and we are grateful to all who have helped us to get it off the ground.
-Andrew Keating, Publisher