Welcome to a Quotable Century (Week 3)

"I think, sometimes, for no reason at all, things just happen."
- from "The Great Physician"
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"My panties can save lives and defeat evil-doers. I got me some super-powerful panties."
- from "Legend of the Blackcats"
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(Quotations from stories/chapters of the forthcoming literary novel Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century by Tony Simmons.)

Welcome to Quotable Century (week 2)

Going to any place else requires of me that I am leaving Century, but staying here does not in turn require that time stands still. It is simply a beginning, without which nothing else follows.
Stay with me here, as time and space intertwine.
- from "Our Place in History: Turning Back Time"
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All stories end the same way.
What will be, will be.
- from "The Shape of Things to Come"
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(Quotations from stories/chapters in Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century, the forthcoming literary novel by Tony Simmons.)

Welcome to a Quotable Century ...

He should have raised more cane when he was still able.
— from “Love and Loss at the Sign of the Pig”
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Ask a woman who crochets about Chaos Theory. She’ll show you her tangled skeins.
— from “A Tangled Skein”
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(We're taking some time off. See you next Sunday with more.)
Peace.

A dream within a dream...

I awoke Monday morning from a dream in which I was sitting down to write at the piano. (I know. Odd.) When I was in elementary school, I took piano lessons from Mrs. Turner, the old woman who played piano for our church, Century First Baptist. We had just gotten to the point of using the sustain pedal when I stopped taking lessons for whatever reason. (Probably because I didn't want to any more.)

Anyway, this little dream I was having when I awoke Monday morning: I sat down at the piano to write. The piano had old-fashioned typewriter keys, round and brown and old, with raised edges like the manual typewriter my grandfather used when he worked for the Alger-Sullivan Lumber Co. in Century, the typewriter my father gave me many years ago and that now sits on top of the old cabinet in my living room.

I began to write and reached for the sustain pedal with my foot. I pressed the pedal as my fingers reached for keys and started to press, and I awoke from the dream.

What do you think that means?

Such a tease...

The following is stuff I recently sent to Pottersville Press for consideration as inside dust jacket copy -- front flap teaser copy and back flap "About the Author" stuff that would run with a photo. It's very similar to stuff that's already on the Pottersville Web site, so you may have seen it already. Or maybe not, if you haven't gone there for a visit. But here you are, anyway.

(Inside front flap copy:)

You may not be from around here, but you know these folks just the same: the thrice-cursed mayor angling for reelection; the Piggly Wiggly meat cutter with the Vegan wife; the small-town Lolita around whom a universe revolves.

Century is a real place in northern Escambia County, Florida. A small town with a magical name and a unique spirit of its own, one of sawdust and Florida panthers. Like all small towns, it’s the place every kid promises he’ll leave at the first opportunity and never go back. But it’s also the kind of place that doesn’t let go of you that easily.

Thus we find ourselves in Century at the end of the 20th century and the dawn of the 21st — the eve of celebrating its centennial in the first week of April 2001. There’s a parade to plan, and a murder to plot. There’s a marriage to save and one to let go, loves blossoming and lives rotting on the vine.

Caught in the midst are the regular folks of Century with their everyday world-shattering problems. Folks like Mary Anne, who crochets beside her grandmother’s deathbed and weaves new cosmologies; Gil, the high school science teacher whose visions of possible futures have fled, leaving him nothing but empty facts; Simone, whose columns for the local newspaper explore her love/hate relationship with where she’s from and whom she has become.

In the process, secrets will get out, and they tend to take on a life of their own — especially in small towns. Secrets are the seeds of revelations, revelations lead to transformative experiences, and that’s about as close to a whack upside the head by God’s holy two-by-four as you might find even in Century First Baptist Church.

This is Century at the dawning of a new century.

Welcome to it.

(Inside back flap copy with author photo)

Tony Simmons

Tony Simmons was born and raised in Century, Florida, a real town very much like — but absolutely not — the one in this book, his first published novel. He’s the assistant managing editor for news at The News Herald in Panama City, where he lives with his wife, Debra, and their children, Nathaniel and Jessica. He graduated from Century High School in 1982, and eventually received various college degrees. He has won numerous state and national awards for his newspaper work.

A Web log (or “blog”) about this novel — including insight about his inspirations and steps the work followed between the writing and publication process — is on the Web at www.tonysimmons.info.

He drinks too much coffee.

***

("Aha!" you say, "What's this? 'tonysimmons.info'?" But yes! I just put out the dough for a real honest to goofiness domain, which is currently being redirected to the "dawning of a new century" blog site. Soon, it will be a real Web site, promoting the "Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents" book alongside the upcoming Century book, with a link to the blog instead. Will wonders never cease! --- That was a rhetorical question.)