Archives for 2024

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Let’s give a warm welcome back to Chris Gerrib, who has a new book available for order.

Author posts for two previous books: Pirates of Mars and One of Our Spaceships Is Missing.

My name is Chris Gerrib, and I’ve been reading Balloon Juice since John Cole was complaining about how we were in the process of hosing up the occupation of Iraq.  When I comment (very occasionally now) it’s under the nym of cgerrib.  (Yeah, original).  This is my third appearance as an Artist in Our Midst, so hopefully I’ve got this thing figured out. I will let you be the judge of that.

My previous appearances were for my science fiction novels, of which I have four published.  Now I’m here to shill talk about my first non-SF novel, Strawberry Gold, out this week.

I blame my dad for this novel.  Don’t get me wrong – he’s a great person and dad, but not much of a reader.  He finds science fiction especially difficult.  So the first two or three times he told me “you should write a regular book” (meaning not science fiction) I ignored him.  But one day I thought, “you know, he taught me how to use a spoon.  Maybe I ought to humor him.”

I grew up in and my parents still live in Westville, IL, a small East Central Illinois town.  On one of my visits back home, my parents suggested that I should visit the Westville Il Depot and Historical Museum.  The museum is in a small railroad depot and there’s not much to see.  However, I did learn something from that visit, namely that the earliest mention of Westville in the broader world was a one-paragraph news article from 1894 about a railroad strike and the strikers blocking the tracks.  At the time I thought it was just a neat bit of trivia.

Then, in March of 2018, I got laid off and was unemployed for nearly eight months.  One fine summer morning I found myself in the Geneva, IL Public Library with Don Hunt, leader of my writing group, participating in a Writing Jam.  This is, for the uninitiated, an event when writers get out of the house, go somewhere, and write.

Sitting in the sunny main reading room, I wrote what is now Chapter One of this book. A gunman, externally presentable but full of violence, is taking a suitcase full of gold coins to Chicago.  We don’t know why but given the man’s past it’s presumably not entirely legitimate.   The striking railroad workers have put up a barricade to block the tracks, with a handful staying nearby to prevent the train’s engineers from clearing it.

Our gunman’s not happy – what he thinks is indigestion is bothering him – but to move things along he decides to get off, walk past the blockage, and resume his journey.  Unfortunately for him, it’s what’s ailing him isn’t indigestion – it’s a heart attack.  He dies and is buried in an anonymous grave, but not before he hides the gold.

The rest of the story revolves around that gold, hidden somewhere in Strawberry Creek.  In 1986, Patrick Kowalski needs that gold to prevent his parent’s house from being foreclosed.  Vincent Bisceglie III thinks that gold represents money that was stolen from his grandfather.  (Note to self: next time, pick an easier name than “Bisceglie” to type!)  Neither young man is sure the gold ever existed, let alone if there any of it left. But they’re both desperate enough to give it a go.  During this hunt for the gold, both of them, high school seniors in the fictional small town of Eastville, learn a lot about their respective family histories.

Authors get asked two questions.  The first one is “where do you get your ideas?” and I’ve hopefully answered that.  The second one is “how did you get published?”

When I get asked this question, I always feel like the person asking me is expecting an answer that involves eye of newt, candles, Latin, and a moonlit night.  The reality is much less exciting.  I paid for a subscription to Doutrope, a site that lists agents and publishers.  I searched for people who handled mysteries, then went to their websites and followed the instructions on how to submit.

Looking at my records, I sent this out to eight publishers.  Finally, Karen Fuller, owner of World Castle Publishing accepted it in January of 2024.  We’ve never met in person or even had a phone conversation – it’s all been via email.  This slow and unglamorous process is how most books get made.

There’s some salty language and violence, so the book is not for little kids, but Juicers and high schoolers should be able to handle it.  I hope the gang here finds it to their liking.  You can visit my website to buy this book and my other books via Amazon or Indiebound.

Thanks to John Cole and Watergirl for this opportunity and keep up the faith!

 

Authors In Our Midst – Chris Gerrib – A Novel This Time, not Science FictionPost + Comments (41)