NEW FICTION: Enjoy my short story "Guestbook" in the May, 2014 edition of the Flyover Country Review!
This is Seven Days, my debut collection of short stories. Please click here to purchase via Amazon.com. In addition, here is what one reviewer (Midwest Book Review) had to say when the collection was released in 2002:
This eclectic collection of short stories is Judd Spicer's first effort. His debut. He is a young author, still new to this world and only starting his writing career, but it is already obvious that he has great talent. He hasn't sanded off all the rough edges yet and he has made a common mistake of new writers, his endings tend to be a little disappointing, but he has a vibrant style and a clear voice. He is a delight to read.
Let me give you an example: "Sunday April 22". A story of a typical day, with a typical family - husband and wife and their faithful dog. "So Tony's chewing [Tony is the dog] on that new rawhide we had just bought him and this (I know you might laugh) this isn't something the dog has time to do during the week. During the week this dog, this animal, he's with the wife! Can you... Hearts like gold, these two. Angie fixes up an I. V. for Delores So-and-So, while Tony makes nice-nice with the rest of the patients in the room. This is the truth! This is a true thing. People love it too, everyone wants to pet the dog the paper even ran a story about The Broken Bones Team, a few months back. By the time the two of them come home the dog's too tired to sit and chew the rawhide. Unbelievable."
Each story addresses a different day of the week and a different date. Hence the Seven Days title. Each covers a slightly different genre. One even reads like a Hitchcock mystery. The sort of story where the character acts on the instruction of another without really knowing why he is doing these things, and whenever he asks, he is told to be patient and it will all make sense later on. The character ends up at a strange party full of artists and celebrities and late in the evening finds his host sitting in a back room in the dark. The story winds up in an art gallery and leaves the reader with more than one possible conclusion.
Another story comes from a man writing a letter to his wife. The man is a professional actor who specializes in chewing gum ads. In his letter he laments the changes that have come in the industry and how he is expected to do the most unprofessional sorts of things to satisfy the director and the sponsor. It is full of tongue in cheek humor - or perhaps gum in cheek humor.
This is breezy reading and the reader will move quickly from story to story, constantly having his sensibilities tweaked and his emotions will run the gamut from laughter to tears - from quiet reflection to awful fear.
Read and enjoy. Then keep your eye out for more from Mr. Spicer. If he continues to work hard and doesn't lose faith he will be a great success. Seven Days definitely goes on my good reading list, and I hope to see more of Mr. Spicer's work in the future.
Robert O. Barclay
Reviewer
This eclectic collection of short stories is Judd Spicer's first effort. His debut. He is a young author, still new to this world and only starting his writing career, but it is already obvious that he has great talent. He hasn't sanded off all the rough edges yet and he has made a common mistake of new writers, his endings tend to be a little disappointing, but he has a vibrant style and a clear voice. He is a delight to read.
Let me give you an example: "Sunday April 22". A story of a typical day, with a typical family - husband and wife and their faithful dog. "So Tony's chewing [Tony is the dog] on that new rawhide we had just bought him and this (I know you might laugh) this isn't something the dog has time to do during the week. During the week this dog, this animal, he's with the wife! Can you... Hearts like gold, these two. Angie fixes up an I. V. for Delores So-and-So, while Tony makes nice-nice with the rest of the patients in the room. This is the truth! This is a true thing. People love it too, everyone wants to pet the dog the paper even ran a story about The Broken Bones Team, a few months back. By the time the two of them come home the dog's too tired to sit and chew the rawhide. Unbelievable."
Each story addresses a different day of the week and a different date. Hence the Seven Days title. Each covers a slightly different genre. One even reads like a Hitchcock mystery. The sort of story where the character acts on the instruction of another without really knowing why he is doing these things, and whenever he asks, he is told to be patient and it will all make sense later on. The character ends up at a strange party full of artists and celebrities and late in the evening finds his host sitting in a back room in the dark. The story winds up in an art gallery and leaves the reader with more than one possible conclusion.
Another story comes from a man writing a letter to his wife. The man is a professional actor who specializes in chewing gum ads. In his letter he laments the changes that have come in the industry and how he is expected to do the most unprofessional sorts of things to satisfy the director and the sponsor. It is full of tongue in cheek humor - or perhaps gum in cheek humor.
This is breezy reading and the reader will move quickly from story to story, constantly having his sensibilities tweaked and his emotions will run the gamut from laughter to tears - from quiet reflection to awful fear.
Read and enjoy. Then keep your eye out for more from Mr. Spicer. If he continues to work hard and doesn't lose faith he will be a great success. Seven Days definitely goes on my good reading list, and I hope to see more of Mr. Spicer's work in the future.
Robert O. Barclay
Reviewer
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