*FARAWAY » daniel sawyer

I ate a big ass burrito

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:07:56 +0000

The burrito in question

I ate about half of it.

: And then I passed out.

This bad boy came from El Tepeyac in Los Angeles. It runs about $20 and is likely to be the biggest burrito you’ll ever come across. You can pick up your own at 812 N Evergreen Avenue, in Los Angeles. Good luck!

Excerpt on 6 Sentences

admin — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:52:34 +0000

I was introduced to a website called 6 Sentences by Joseph Grant, a prolific writer whose work has appeared in Faraway. In lieu of new work on Faraway, I present to you a six sentence-long excerpt of my novel-to-be: Sail excerpt. It contains the longest sentence I’ve ever written, a matter of pride with me, although this section doesn’t quite give an accurate taste of the tone of the rest of the novel. I was reading a lot of Faulkner at the time and trying to emulate his style.

In the near future, we will also have a new issue of Faraway available, featuring a LOT of writers new to our site.

Happy Winter!

admin — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:25:31 +0000

Initially when I wrote this poem I didn’t have anything specific in mind. Now I guess it can apply pretty well to the Great Deprecession of 2008 – 200?. The only things missing are cardboard and corrogated iron Bush- and Cheneyvilles. When will it end? Nobody knows. And for the record, I coined two new words in this blog post alone!

Happy Winter!

With many thanks . . .

admin — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:19:20 +0000

I want to draw attention today to our many supporters, whose donations keep this journal up and running. We’ve recently received much-needed financial help from Alfred Scolari, Kyle Hernandez, owner of Second Story Books of Claremont, and Gay Degani, Michael Woodcock, Vic Fortezza, and Joseph Grant, all of whom have stories or art appearing in the latest issue of Faraway. I received the following letter from Joseph Grant, which I wanted to share with you all:

Thank you so much for including my story in your fine review. I am honored to be included in it. The typesetting and graphics look great. Keep up the good work. . . . I believe in what you’re doing, so keep doing it. Therefore, here is a small contributions towards the next issue. Best of luck in your literary efforts.

Sincerely,
Joseph Grant

To contribute to Faraway and help keep this independent journal alive, please click here.

And remember, we are currently serializing the novella Doing the Dead – 1983. We just published the first chapter, with the second chapter to follow on the 13th.

The Route by K. C. Wilson Reviewed

admin — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:00:11 +0000

After K. C. Wilson submitted his novella, Doing the Dead – 1983, for publication in Faraway, he sent me a signed copy of his novel The Route. I was blown away by both pieces of writing. Throughout December, Faraway will be serializing Wilson’s Doing the Dead – 1983, but as a preview of Wilson’s talent, read my review of The Route below:

In The Route, author K. C. Wilson brings 1980s North Florida alive as he follows would-be writer Peter Foster on an unending quest to see his screenplay turned into a movie. Foster, divorced and long estranged from his children, is a failure in the eyes of the world. But as Wilson weaves a delicate tapestry of friendship, music, comedy, and tragedy, Foster is developed into a lovable, memorable character.
As Wilson explains, “the ‘route’ presents a series of distractions from [Foster’s] long range plans. . .” These distractions range from the mundane to the tragicomic: begging a place to sleep each night from his friends, wrestling with his conscience over snagging money no one will miss, wrestling with a deranged neighbor over a gun. But as he travels the route, Foster learns valuable lessons about his life, his friends, and his children.

What is perhaps most interesting about Peter Foster is that he is based on a real person, Bruce Kerr. Wilson described him as “Scheherazade, telling stories to stay alive one more day, only in his case, it was to keep living in my house. Through him I came to see into the microcosm of the neighborhood. Behind every door was another world, complete unto itself. He would enter those worlds and pass through them in a slow walk and bring their stories back to me.” And this is essentially The Route, a Floridian Arabian Nights in which Foster plays a part in all 1,001 stories.

Many of the tales are inconsequential or even embarrassing for Foster. But at times they are transcendental, and can leave the reader on the brink of tears. And through the lowly Peter Foster, author K. C. Wilson skillfully reveals truths about time, disappointment, success, failure, and even love.

Wilson’s writing is superb. The Route is humorous but bittersweet, vulgar but sublime. The writing is simultaneously reminiscent of the works of Kerouac, Vonnegut, and, to this reviewer, the films of Wes Anderson. Wilson paints a world in which there are many non sequiturs (a fish falling from the sky) but within that world, everything seems to make sense.

The Route is available from Amazon. Faraway is also proud to publish K. C. Wilson’s newest original novella, Doing the Dead – 1983.

New Issue of Faraway Now In Print!

admin — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:24:20 +0000

For those of you who have been waiting to get your hands on a copy of the latest issue of Faraway, today is the day! Copies still warm from the presses are now on display at Second Story Books of Claremont, California. In the coming days there will also be copies in Borders Bookstore in Montclair, California, and in Needlesandpins Records of Pomona. Now you can read all one hundred splendid pages without burning your retinas off looking at a computer screen.

Allow me also to take this opportunity to plug Second Story Books of Claremont, which has been one of our staunchest supporters. They’ve got a great selection of new, used, rare, hard-to-find and interesting titles to choose from. More importantly, they are one of a rare breed of independent bookstores. If you’re tired of going into Barnes and Nobles and seeing a million copies of the latest James Patterson or Dean Koontz book, stop by Second Story. More importantly still, the proprietors of Second Story support writers and artists like those who contribute to and publish Faraway.

So stop in to pick up the latest copy of our journal and browse around for a book to read afterwards. And don’t forget to let us know what you think!