miserable holiday stories wins best book award!

I’m thrilled and honored to announce that Miserable Holiday Stories has won a 2021 Best Book Award in the category: Humor! MHS was also a finalist in two other BBA categories:  Fiction Anthologies and Fiction Short Story.

The awards were presented by AmericanBookFest.com which states that “this year’s contest yielded over 2,000 entries from mainstream and independent publishers” including HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Macmillan Publishers, New World Library, NYU Press and Oxford University Press, among dozens of others.

About the book:

No matter what holiday you celebrate, this quirky yet bittersweet compilation will have you longing for mid-January. Featuring Jewish Elvis impersonators, a kidnapped Santa Claus, confused parents, horrific holiday traffic, unbreakable toys and the ever-heroic Bicycle Boys, Miserable Holiday Stories will be sure to have you asking, “who ate all the $#!@% figgy pudding?!”

Miserable Holiday Stories (20 Festive Failures That Are Worse Than Yours)
Publisher: Racehorse (a division of Skyhorse Publishing)
Available from Amazon.com, BN.com, numerous other online retailers, and finer bookstores everywhere.

curtains on fire – live!

For the first time ever – it’s Curtains on Fire – LIVE! Join members of the COF writers workshop for a staged reading of some of their favorite pieces developed in the workshop over the past two years. As featured in the Curtains on Fire Podcast, this is a completely FREE event that will run via ZOOM for approx one hour! Featuring newly premiering works by Jay Strong, Jake Daehler, Dave Doster, Hank Fandel and myself, and possibly some surprise guests – this live event will become episode five of the COF podcast!

Curtains on Fire – Live!
Saturday, October 23 – 7p EST
For Zoom info, please contact us here.

Hope you can join us!

 

the negotiable apology

A new one-act play of mine, The Negotiable Apology, directed by Tamara Alexander will be having its premiere at the Brewster Theater Company’s 2021 Playwright Festival over the weekend of September 24-26. And yes, this falls squarely into yet another Miserable Love Story.

Here’s the blurb info:

One afternoon, a man and woman attempt to reconcile their formerly romantic relationship from 20 years previous.

Seating is limited for all three shows and tickets are going fast. Here’s info on how to get tickets.

And here’s a little teaser to whet your appetite:

MARGOT

So, why are you calling, Danny?

DANNY

Well, that’s the thing, see – you know – I guess – you get to a point in a person’s life, right – where – you start thinking about things – reflecting over – over choices you made, right?  And –

MARGOT

You’re getting divorced?

DANNY

No!  No. Not at all.  Not at all.  That’s the farthest thing from –

MARGOT

Look, Danny – I have to pick my kids up in, like, fifteen minutes.  And this is feeling a little – I don’t know – weird.  Whatever it is – why don’t you just message me on Facebook or –

DANNY

See – see, here’s the thing, Margot.

(beat)

I wanted to apologize.

MARGOT

For what?

DANNY

Okay. Well.  I mean – you probably don’t even remember this, but –

MARGOT

Try me.  I have an awesome memory.

 

 

miserable holiday stories wins independent press award!

Extremely excited to announce that Miserable Holiday Stories has been recognized as a Distinguished Favorite in the Humor category in the 2021 Independent Press Awards!

In 2021, the Independent Press Award had entries worldwide. The competition is judged by experts from different aspects of the book industry, including publishers, writers, editors, book cover designers and professional copywriters. Selected award winners and distinguished favorites are based on overall excellence.

About the book: “Featuring Jewish Elvis impersonators, a kidnapped Santa Claus, confused parents, horrific holiday traffic, unbreakable toys and the ever-heroic Bicycle Boys, Miserable Holiday Stories will be sure to have you asking, who ate all the $#!@# figgy pudding?!”

Miserable Holiday Stories is published by Racehorse, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. For more information on the book, please click here.

For more information on the Independent Press Awards, please click here.

the dog & pony show

Lots of exciting news this week – first of which is the launch of “The Dog & Pony Show“!

The Dog & Pony Show is a hilarious new series about two very different best friends who choose to leave their magical world behind and move to the not-so-magical big city!

D&P was developed for Discovery Kids and should be appearing on Canadian and Latin America TV any day now.  This Red Knot/Little Aiplane production is the second LA project I’ve been involved with over the last few years and it was an utter delight to work on.  It’s aimed squarely at the 4-7 age crowd (think Spongebob on the slightly younger side) and the storylines are fast, funny and extremely smart.  The last LA show I worked on (P. King Duckling) quickly ended up on Netflix, so I expect to hear where this one will be streaming in the U.S. pretty soon.

miserable holiday stories

This old friend is about to become a collector’s item.

chili challis – BAM!

I was heartsick to hear of the passing of comedian Chili Challis last night. Chili was both a friend and hugely inspirational to me. When I was a teenager in Cincinnati in the late 70’s getting my comedy start at d.w. eye, Chili came in (along with John Riggi and Will Durst) with his extremely solid act, raising the bar for every comic that followed.  I was in awe of Chili (he was Bert Challis back then).  Sometimes he was so good I just got angry and jealous – but in retrospect, I realized that it was because of him, Riggi, and Durst that the eye got put on the map in the first place.  While the rest of us were figuring the game out, and wearing training pants, Challis was giving real legitimacy to the club.

So, then about 10 years ago, when I started writing Plrknib – my book about d.w. eye – I found myself back in touch with Chili. He was hugely supportive of the book, and I discovered how much we had in common: we both loved comedy, comedy writing, nurturing and supporting new comics and talent.  (He spent a tremendous amount of time running well-respected comedy Dojos for stand-up newbies across the country.)  And a few years ago, he introduced me to ComedyWire – one of the nation’s fastest growing comedy writing hubs.

We also both had deep root feelings for Cincinnati and getting our comedy starts at d.w. eye.  And of course friends and family were important to both of us.

So, I was thrilled last year, when Chili didn’t just agree to join me, Michael Flannery, and the other comics for the d.w. eye reunion – but also to bring along his brilliant son and comic, Thaddeus Challis, to join us and carry on the tradition. That’s what Chili was about.

So, I won’t say RIP Chili Challis – I’ll say what he said, everytime he ended one of his GREAT bits: Chili Challis – BAM!

Unfortunately, we didn’t get a lot of pics at the reunion show, but here’s a phenomenal selfie Chili took of himself, Drew, and Marty Polio (who joined us at the last minute) back stage.  3 d.w. eye Legends.

And check out the video above for his performance last year at the eye reunion.

prom selected for portland film festival

Exciting News!  My screenplay, Prom on Mars, is an Official Selection at the upcoming Portland Comedy Film Festival.

Wait – what?!  I hear you cry.  Screenplay?

Yes, once upon a long, long time ago Prom on Mars was my retro-futuristic screenplay about a bunch of kids in the year 2053 taking a three-day shuttle ride to Mars for their senior prom.  (Something of a cross between High School Musical (without the music), Star Trek, and Animal House.)  In the 2000’s – back when I was Reviews Editor for PopImage.com – Prom became a long-running webcomic at that site, and this site was created to house the whole thing.  Prom had a nice run for a few years at those two sites, told it’s story, sold a few indie copies of a print run of the first 50 strips, and then called it a day.

Later, when I started planning for a new website to house my writing, comedy, and publishing efforts, I decided to keep the promonmars url, because I kind of loved the name and the branding, and figured I’d also grab any leftover traffic.  The current site has had almost exclusively all new content.  Although I’ve occasionally re-posted some of the non-Prom strips – eg Total Losers, and Young Christo – but no Prom strips…yet.

Young Christo

In fact, for the past 10 years or so, in my brain, Prom was now a brand (and, technically, a publishing imprint), not a property of it’s own.

That is, until I re-read the original Prom script this past summer for the first time in a decade, and thought hey, that’s not so terrible.  So, I cleaned it up and sent it off to a couple places, including the Portland Film Festival.  And well, there you go.

Wish me luck!  I may even post some of the script or the old webcomics up here, if there’s any interest…

eggheads podcast – infinity wars and the new gods

Hey, you know I love comic books, right?  (I was Reviews Editor for the legendary comics-focused website PopImage for about four years in the early 2000s, and Prom on Mars actually started as a webcomic on that site before it morphed into this.)

So anyway, I come back to my fanboy roots in Part 1 of this new Eggheads Podcast talking with prime Egghead Pablo Solano about Infinity War, Adam Warlock, Kirby, the New Gods, and much much more.  Check it out!

miserable review on new pop lit

MISERABLE ADVENTURE STORIES is a variegated collection of pop fiction by one of the best practitioners of the pop story, Alex Bernstein. Three of the stories aren’t miserable, they’re masterful…

Okay, you’re not supposed to draw attention to reviews – because then it’s like cherry picking if you don’t show the bad ones.  But this one is so nice.  (Listen, when Simon & Schuster start publishing my books, we can start a new conversation about it.)

The good folks over at New Pop Lit call the stories in MAS “Masterful examples of the pop genre” and “all entertaining”.  You can read the full review here.  Book reviews are a new sleeve over at NPL, and their other reviews are tremendously insightful about all the books they’re reading, new and old.  And as always, check out the rest of their site for some of today’s best up and coming authors.

Of course, you can easily discover what’s so masterful and entertaining about Miserable Adventure Stories by picking up your own copy here.  You can also find it at many of your better bookstores.  Ask for it by name!