Scott Muskin, Writer

for info on my upcoming readings, click here.

A lot of people have asked me, fortunately for me, “where can I find your novel?” And the simple answer is to tell them which bookstores in what towns have it in stock. I don’t care much for simple answers. So I’m making videos.

for info on my upcoming readings, click here.

A lot of people have asked me, fortunately for me, “where can I find your novel?” And the simple answer is to tell them which bookstores in what towns have it in stock. I don’t care much for simple answers. So I’m making videos.

for info on my upcoming readings, click here.

A lot of people have asked me, fortunately for me, “where can I find your novel?” And the simple answer is to tell them which bookstores in town have it in stock. I don’t care much for simple answers. So I’m making videos.

Seems they have taken the Mary Ann Grossmann review down from the Pio Press site, so here it is in all its amateurishly scanned glory.

(For info on my upcoming readings, click here.)

I am a very fortunate writer. Writers tend to dwell in solitude. Even if you’re lucky enough to get published and enjoy real substantive collaboration with an editor or agent, it’s only a fraction of the years spent hacking away on your own, entirely uncertain that anyone, anywhere will actually read what you are doing. It is lonely, frustrating, and humbling.

So when you get a weekend of barely-can-be-believed reviews, it’s indescribable. I am very proud to share both Emily Carter’s review from the Star Tribune and also Mary Ann Grossmann’s from the Pioneer Press. That’s on top of a nice piece in this month’s Mpls/St. Paul Magazine.

The downside is pretty much everyone else’s downside: it’s the economy, stupid. I have been told by a long-time distributor rep that “this is the worst bookselling environment I’ve ever seen.”  Oy. Nice timing, Muskin. It feels like I’m lighting a match in a hurricane.

But some perspective here: Compared to getting laid off, having to take your kids to the food shelf, or going without health care, facing an uphill battle to get my book read is no catastrophe.

And I decided a long time ago that if I get published, great, but if not,  I will write anyway. I had that perspective when I got disdainful rejection letters, and I still have it now that I’m doing readings and getting good reviews. If Hooded Friar does a second print run, I’ll be thrilled. If the Times does a review, I will be catatonic. But if none of that happens, and only a handful of readers plunk down the $20 to read my book and are moved or otherwise appreciative, I will still be happy. Very, very happy.

In the meantime, if you feel like it, you can always call your bookstore and ask if they have “that Scott Muskin book everyone’s talking about.” And as for actually buying a book, any book, in these tough times, it’s actually an incredible value…all that blood and all those tears and all that work, for only $20? It’s like pennies a page. You really can’t afford not to read a book.