Eduardo Pavez Goye Book Review

One of my favorite YouTube creators is the Chilean playwright, author, musician and photographer Eduardo Pavez Goye. If you’re unfamiliar with him then I highly recommend that you subscribe to his channel when you visit the video below. A month or so ago I sent him a copy of If Only The Names Were Changed as a thank you for all of the amazing content he’s been putting out into the world. I was thrilled to find he’d given my book a very positive, brief review on his 2016 year-end video. While this video may not be his norm – they’re usually about photography instead of books – I love to hear what other writers are reading and really loved his list.

Besides the video, he sent me his first self-published book of photography titled A Parade of Strangers that has some poems and reflections in it from a project he undertook called 30 Rolls in 30 Days (you can click through to those videos as well). It is a beautiful piece of work and I hope he might consider a second pressing so that I can recommend you pick up a copy – as for now though, they’re all sold out.

So how about you, what are you reading these days?

2016 Beachie Award

I’m really excited to announce that my book was chosen by alt-lit reviewer Beach Sloth for a 2016 Beachie Award.
 
“Best Novel (Male): Andrew Miller’s If Only The Names Were Changed– I began the book knowing nothing and by the end I knew it all. This is a book that consumes the reader whole and I liked the unusual multi-layered, multi-faceted life that lives within the pages.” 
Check out the full post and other amazing awardees here.

Ploughshares reviews “If Only The Names Were Changed”

“The Beauty of Self-deprecation in Andrew Miller’s IF ONLY THE NAMES WERE CHANGED” reviewed by Nicole L. Reber

“Fasten your seat belts. Andrew Miller’s alternative lit style is about to take you on a bumpy ride. His memoir in essays, If Only the Names Were Changed, vacillates between hyper-masculine and tender in terrain that traverses parental concerns about raising a daughter, drug and alcohol abuse, and how much of a jerk he is.”

Read the whole review here: http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/the-beauty-of-self-deprecation-in-andrew-millers-if-only-the-names-were-changed/

 

Pro-choice Agitation in Ohio

What began as an off-the-cuff idea I posted to Facebook has turned into a movement getting some serious news coverage. Here in Ohio our legislature has used the last days before the holiday recess to pass some very controversial laws regarding guns as well as women’s health choices. These laws have been previously found unconstitutional and will likely have to be revised or revoked if they take effect; the calculus being that a Trump SCOTUS appointment may overturn Roe v Wade via an attack like this one.

If Gov. John Kasich chooses to sign the legislation into law, or chooses to not take any action before Dec. 17, these bans will become law. So our hope is he will veto the bans, or line item veto them out of the otherwise no controversial parts of the legislation.

After days of calls into his office being ignored it felt as though something more visual and visceral needed doing. My thought was that we use the most gruesome image of the pre-Roe days; the wire hanger as abortion tool. In a similar manner as the pro-life movement parades photos of bloody fetal tissue to shock people into action,  why don’t we shock our Governor into action. Perhaps reminding him of his youth prior to Roe; perhaps reminding him that he has daughters of his own.

More than anything, I wanted to take action for my own daughter’s future.

Since posting the idea to Facebook on Friday afternoon fellow pro-choice agitators gravitated to it. My friend Jess Matthews spread the word and by Saturday we had hundreds of wire hangers adorned with heartfelt messages pleading for the Governor to veto the so called Heartbeat bill.

Wob & organizer Andrew Miller with activist Jess Matthews

Saturday night the hangers were taken but activists quickly replaced them on Sunday as well as marching en mass with the media paying attention. Then again on Sunday night the hangers were once more removed but this time several of the activists reacted with a brilliant plan to order up hundreds of wire hangers to be delivered to the Governors office.

The list of local and national media coverage is growing but the short list below is what I’ve been involved in:

NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/opinion/rolling-back-abortion-rights-after-donald-trumps-election.html

NY Magazine: http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/12/people-are-protesting-ohios-abortion-ban-with-coat-hangers.html

WSYX ABC-6: http://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/protesters-use-wire-coat-hangers-to-protest-heartbeat-bill

A-plus: http://aplus.com/a/ohio-heartbeat-abortion-bill-wire-hanger-protest-veto-john-kasich

ThinkProgress: https://thinkprogress.org/the-coat-hanger-comes-of-age-c592682a987#.z2g46kyp7

This is a link to the original Facebook event page I had setup that included more photos and commentary: https://www.facebook.com/events/357579031278485/?ti=icl