Frank Bill

Yesterday, Frank Bill's agent released the following statement:

Frank Bill's DONNYBROOK and CRIMES OF SOUTHERN INDIANA will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux!

Last year Elaine Ash and I had the wonderful opportunity to have two Frank Bill stories in our BTAP hands: "Tweakers" and "The Need." Of course, this presented a dilemna, which to run with because as you know we publish one story a week. Thankfully, Frank allowed us to keep both and for the first and so far only time we presented two punches from the same author in the same week. We called it The Frank Bill Double Bill and it remains one of our highlights. Of course, the credit goes to Frank and his unique manner of writing. Ms. Ash summed up his approach best by saying:

His style is defined by direct, sharp, staccato sentences, and I think of him as the Ornette Coleman of the crime short. When Ornette first played horn in the 1950s, he was considered highly controversial with his cascade of bleeps, blats and squawks. Some critics dismissed him as a music illiterate. But jazz musicians and free thinkers recognized something very special in Ornette, and they were eventually proven correct by his exemplary career. Like Ornette, Frank Bill has a rhythm all his own, with a sentence structure that takes deliberate grammatical “license” to create a cadence in his prose.

If you are unfamiliar with Frank's work then I suggest you check out the two stories above and savor what fresh talent is all about.

Congratulations Frank, We're all happy for you and wish you the best of success!