Blank Slate Press, an imprint of Amphorae Publishing Group, is pleased to announce that Graveyard of the Gods written by Richard Newman will be published September 20, 2016.
Graveyard of the Gods is available for pre-order at retailers and online in paperback for $12.95 and in ebook for $6.99. Graveyard of the Gods is a dark tale that travels the landscape of loss: loss of family, loss of the American small town, and loss of one’s personal moral compass. This debut novel by this Saint Louis author is sure to please noir aficionados and mystery lovers generally.
Newman wrote Graveyard of the Gods as an homage to his family and to the small dying towns of Southern Illinois where he grew up. The inspiration came to him when a scene of a farmer waiting in his pickup truck on a hot summer’s night in his cornfield next to a barely pumping oil derrick came to his mind’s eye. He wanted to know why he waited. What had happened to him? What was going to happen to him? From that point, the story seemed to write itself. George Singleton, author of Calloustown, said “Make room on the bookshelf for another great literary noir novel—Graveyard of the Gods should fit in nicely with the works of Donald Ray Pollock, Frank Bill, and Lynn Kostoff. I couldn’t put this novel down, though I did shove my pulled pork sandwich away from the table. Richard Newman has written a beautifully written whodunit.”
Richard Newman will be promoting Graveyard of the Gods at events around Saint Louis, MO where he is active in the poetry scene. Promotions will also be supported by publicity on social media and on his website at www.vacuumpacked.net.
About the Author
Richard Newman is the author of the poetry collections All the Wasted Beauty of the World (Able Muse Press, 2014), Domestic Fugues (Steel Toe Books, 2009), and Borrowed Towns (Word
Press, 2005). His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in Best American Poetry, Boulevard, Crab Orchard Review, Midwestern Gothic, New Letters, Story Quarterly, The Sun, and many
other periodicals and anthologies, and have been featured several times on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry, Poetry Daily, and Verse Daily. His poem
“Bellefontaine Cemetery” won First Place in The Ledge 2010 Poetry Awards Competition. His plays have been performed in San Diego’s North Park Playwright Festival and the Spectrum festival
in St. Louis. A recipient of a 2014 Regional Arts Commission Artist Fellowship, Newman teaches at Washington University, and for the last twenty years has served as editor of River Styx, and
co-director of the River Styx Reading Series. Richard can be reached through his publisher, his website (www.vacuumpacked.net), or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/RichardNewmanPoet).