Joseph L. Selby

W  elcome to a world of boundless imagination. Joseph L Selby DOT COM! is your portal to the written works of author and playwright, Joseph L. Selby. Whether it is irreverent sarcasm and chicken wings in BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE, unemployed prophets desperate for a break in WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING, or the decline of man and the end of The Third World in CAUSE AND CONVICTION, you'll find everything you need to keep apprised of Joe's writing, his future publications, and his upcoming appearances.       The Inkwell is your first stop to see what projects he is currently working on and those recently completed. It even includes samples of his work! The Queue is where you go to see what's percolating in Joe's brain. Rumors persist that his head is filled with strawberry pudding, but we won't know for certain until it explodes (most likely from writing too much). Please come in and look around. Maybe you'll find some pudding!

In the News!

Two weeks after beginning work at a major publisher in Boston, I invested in an Eee PC so that I might write during my commute. I was unsure of how effective that would be, but one and a half years later, I have my results. I wrote and revised Black Magic and Barbecue Sauce and Help Wanted: Chosen One, Now Hiring. I am soliciting agents for representation. I have finished the first drafts for a new novel, The Triad Society and a graphic novel, "Mistaken." I am currently working on the post-apocalyptic Jehovah's Hitlist. Be sure to check in frequently for any updates on these and future works!

What I'm Reading

Mark Twain is one of my favorite authors, but surprisingly I have never read THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. This book was a big deal when I was young because it was popping up on banned lists all over the country. It was felt that the book's use of the N word made it unsuitable for a classroom situation. I'm torn on this. On the one hand, I find this to be incredibly stupid. It's a matter of context. This is an amazing book to show you the life and thinking of our society 100+ years ago. To think that it's offensive is to deny our history in service of delusional political correctness. On the other hand, I went to a small-town high school and the inclusion of the word in such frequency would have yielded the results those over-protective parents feared.(There were only three black kids in my entire high school and they were all in my class.) Not that I had much say in the matter twenty-some years ago. So I'm reading it now instead. It has lead to some painful realizations in regard to my own writing.

By nature, I avoid stories with dragons in them. Dragons in fantasy are as overdone as vampires in YA. I can't stand how they're used. I can tolerate George Martin's Westeros dragons and the movie Reign of Fire but little else. So I made myself read this one. It seemed an interesting premise. I had been hearing about it for awhile, and there were sequels so obviously publishers had decided to continue publishing the series. I did not make it far into this one. In fact, I didn't even make it off the ship at the book's opening. It was not the dragon, though that would have been a fair guess. No, it was C.S. Forester. If you have never read the Horatio Hornblower novels, you have never witnessed pre-industrial professional seafaring (I specify professional because books like TREASURE ISLAND [which will show up on my next bookshelf entry] deal with pirates at sea, which is a different thing all together). After one has read a Hornblower novel, any other book that sets itself on a British ship of war seems like it was written with the Cliff's Notes. The conduct of the crew was inconsistent and relationship the captain had with the enlisted men is what broke this one for me. (And if you haven't read the novels, check out the mini-series. They're almost as good.)

I had been looking at SHADOW BOUND for awhile. I love the cover. I finally picked it up on suggestion of the book's agent, who I follow. I was finishing the sample pages when the entire ebook was offered for free on the nook, so I snatched it. Wow. A romance/urban fantasy. I like some urban fantasy (see THE WAR OF THE FLOWERS by Tad Williams). I like some romance (see OUTLANDER by Diana Gaboldon). So I can like this, right? Oh, this thing represents a full throated offering of both urban fantasy and romance, neither of which I have truly read before. Now I understand why. Nothing against the author or her work. This just isn't for me. At all. Still love the cover, though.

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