Courtesy George Singleton.
George Singleton will be signing copies and reading his newest collection, Stray Decorum (Dzanc Books), at the Georgia Center for the Book on Wednesday, November 14, at 7:15PM.
Singleton told me through email that “public reading events are more and more important, seeing as newspapers and their Sunday book review sections are dying off faster than ‘We Sell Meat Plugged with Chemicals!’ butcher shops.” Audiences are sure to be entertained by Singleton’s stories which have been praised on NPR’s Morning Edition and the New York Times Book Review. His work has also appeared in the The Georgia Review, Oxford American, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Playboy, and numerous others. Singleton won a Guggenheim fellowship in 2009 and the Hillsdale Award for Fiction from the Fellowship of Southern Writers in 2011 and is heralded as one of America’s finest humor writers.
Stray Decorum is Singleton’s fifth collection and wonderfully reflects his wild sense of humor. In these hilarious stories, a dog named Tapeworm Johnson gets an annual veterinary check-up. A man tricks a class of fifth graders into digging a moat around his house. The owner of a large machete collection talks with a distrustful salesman with a spotted tongue over beer and schnapps.
Singleton’s approach to readings, as he says, is “to get some laughs.” It’s easy to see why Singleton says writers like Barry Hannah and Larry Brown, two of the South’s most acclaimed short story writers, were among his favorites to see read in person. Singleton is a well-practiced raconteur and master of the short story. He has a unique ability to unravel tales as though he were sitting next to you in a smoke-filled bar. While his written work certainly shines, his live readings will leave audiences choking on laughter.
