“…fascinating storyline…”

“…a special feel for writing in ways that stimulate the sensorium and its relation to memory.”

“…a distinctive writing voice: very 21st Century in some ways, but with a 19th Century sense of self-possession and attention to detail.”

“…contemporary; and yet there are aspects to the narrative that are so strongly allegorical… it’s almost medieval.”

“…a very physical and sensory narrative…”

(taken from Jean Vengua’s interview with the author. You can read the entire interview here.)

Promo image. Illustration ©Michael Fink

Promo text. ©Michael Fink

I am looking for a publisher (or an agent) for my novel The Found Diary of Avery Alexander Myer. I envision the story as an illustrated novel, perhaps not unlike The Tattooed Map by Barbara Hodgson.

That said, I am also seeking an illustrator. I am willing to pay for the service. You need to be able to sketch in a realistic pen and ink style. Most illustrations will be thumbnail and margin types, with perhaps two or three larger pieces.

Illustrator found! I am pleased to announce a collaboration with Gromyko Semper, a Surrealist (among other things) hailing from the Philippines. I am quite excited about this and will keep this site up to date on our progress.

Each chapter in the story represents a single entry in a mysterious and increasingly bizarre diary. There are 107 Entries in all; about 48,000 words. Below you will find the first three Entries. Note that the “typos” are deliberate and reflect Avery’s occasionally chaotic writing style.

If you would like more information, please drop a comment here.

I finally found some paper.
I’m not going to be able to write much before I pass out, but the presence of pen and paper, along with light in the form of a couple of fat white candles, has given me a stone to stand on amidst… whatever it is I’m going through.
The food helped, too, it must be said.
My hand is already shaking. It’s been quite a while between meals, so I’m weak (as a blind kitten, my mother quipped inside my head, msrip). I also fear I’m dehydrated. I can’t bring myself to drink the water (yet). The meal I just had — of crackers, potted meat and dried pears — will probably change my mind soon. It was the first food in two days, though; I used to hate potted meat (“potted meat” — I said it out loud), but now I think I’m deeply in love with it. Deeply, deeply. God, I’m tired. Thanks for the paper, you bastard.
More tomor

Aug. 12th, 2004 02:57 pm Entry 2

…row. I actually fell asleep while writing. I have not done that since school.
School was a long time ago.
14 hours of sleep later, I quickly figured out how to use the crazy-huge compost toilet. Either it had not been used in a long time, or it works very well, as there was no hint of odor. There is a tight stack of magazines squashed into an iron rack next to the toilet. It’s funny — I desperately want clues to where I am or what has happened to me, but I have a perverse aversion to reaching for the magazines, or even of searching through the house I found last night. I think I might still be in shock. Maybe I just want to clear my head first, before putting any more into it?
So instead, I just came back from an inordinate amount of time scouting the area outside, now that it is broad daylight. You’d think I would want to stay indoors after two days of stumbling about in the elements.
I seem to have found myself a quaint white house. It has no path, road or walkway up to it. It sits in a friendly manner on a rolling plain covered in short yellow-green grass, dotted here and there with scruffy weeds a little like stubby saw-grass. The whole landscape seems rather arid.
It was not too long before I discovered the cliffs. Almost due east from the house (House) the grassland drops off abruptly, straight down to a thin strip of beach. That, of course, then becomes a shoreline, but I’m not ready to write about that, yet.
Or about the statue.
I need to eat a little and close my eyes.

Aug. 13th, 2004 12:48 am Entry 3

I’m wide awake at midnight, by myself in a strange house. There is no electricty, nor even any outlets. I have 28 candles lit. It’s so dark outside. I just realized I haven’t seen a moon, yet. I meant: the Moon, yet.
start over Avery
Earlier I lay down my spinning head on one of the many pillows that infest this place and actually slept for another six hours or so. I didn’t even eat first like I had intended, so when I woke up I was ravenous. I do not use that word lightly; I have never felt so hungry. I was dreaming of… (later) Maybe it was my body responding to the shock wearing thin. I tore open another packet of crackers (Crandell’s Tea Biscuits — never heard of them, but very dry and oddly satisfying) and opened another jar of the fizzy, tea-colored liquid that passes for water around here (I’d drunk a full one dry in a mad thirst this morning, saying hell with it… )
I stormed out, furious with everything for being so bizarre, and made my way back to the cliffs. It’s only about a fifteen-minute stomp from the front door. I had little difficulty, despite the utter lack of any path, in finding the statue again. And of course the sea.
Jesus Christ. The damned, hissing, tea-colored Sea that had shaken me so badly when I first saw it maybe eight hours before. It’s like the biggest ginger ale spill in the history of humankind. Except it tastes like mineral water with a hint of soap, if what is in those jars is seawater. No salt. Not salty at all.
I giggled when I wrote the words “ginger ale”, as if this were the least bit humorous. This is madness. Let me write it down.
I am 53 years old and I have NEVER heard of a body of water like THIS on Earth. There are at least SOME insects on Earth. ON EARTH. I’VE GONE COMPLETELY INSANE OR THIS IS NOT EA
I am very very frightened. frightened
i don’t know what is real anymore god am i dead?