I will be signing copies of my latest novel, “Troy Love Story” at Market Block Books in downtown Troy on Saturday, October 26th. This will be coinciding with the Troy Farmers Market, which brings people in from all throughout the region.

The signing will take place from noon to 2pm. There will be a limited quantity of books available, so be sure to arrive early. I will be signing Troy Love Story, as well as any of my books that you may have, so be sure to bring them.

I will be wearing a funny hat. This is important for some reason. If you are interested in knowing the point of my wearing a funny hat, feel free to mention it at the signing. Also, I will tell you how tall I am.

I like to sell myself locally, but all of my books are available on Amazon.

It has a few year’s of toil and journey, but one of my most treasured books, “Troy Love Story,” is available for purchase at Barnes and Noble, and on Tuesday, August 27th, on Amazon.

It’s a story about the overdose death of a cultural leader in the music scene of Troy, New York, a scene that grew up in a city that had been outgrowing them for years. It’s a story about gentrification, and the struggle to reclaim past glory in the face of new glory. It’s a snapshot of the nature of loss.

The release of this book was reflective of the experience of Troy, and other rust belt cities. I had originally signed this book over in 2021, overjoyed that soon, I would make my big break. This was the anthem of a world that has been both forgotten and celebrated in the American narrative: “The Rust Belt.” It sounds rough, the kind of place that might strike a tourist as the new Wild West. A place to test your mettle, if not a place you ever want to belong unless you’re stuck there.

It’s hard work for the simplest measure of survival if you’re just a cog, which many are because the golden knobs and diamond switches live in New York or LA or Dallas or any other big city everyone’s heard of, with the exception perhaps of Detroit. It’s a fierce pride, an exclusion of strangers, and an ongoing battle with those same strangers, who want to make things better at the gleaming blade of a bulldozer.

So it took years to get this book out, years of billowy dreams draped over the wire frames of harsh realities. And it has entered the world not with fanfare, but with a note on an envelope stuck to the bottom of a corroded mailbox. A most fitting release.