Kings of Broken Things

Kings of Broken Things is a Kindle First Selection!

| Ted Wheeler

wheeler-kings-of-broken-things-final-front-coverThis is some special news I’ve been sitting on for several months–so it’s with great pleasure that I share that my novel Kings of Broken Things is a Kindle First selection for July!

For those who don’t know, Kindle First is a free program that offers early access to select books from across Amazon Publishing at a discounted price. So, while my publication date remains August 1 for the print and audio editions, anyone in the US can get the Kindle edition early for $1.99, or for free if you’re a Prime member.

Anyway, click on the link for more information. It’s a great deal and a special honor for APub authors. Only six books a month are chosen and they must be nominated by their edition to be considered. Thanks so much to my amazing editor Vivian Lee and the rest of the team at Little a for pulling this together.

Here’s what Vivian had to say about Kings and why she nominated it for the program:

“It is 1917 and Omaha is home to a diverse array of refugees and immigrants from war-torn European countries. Jake, Karel, and Evie are coming of age in a time of increasing nationalism, xenophobia, and political corruption. And with wounded soldiers returning from war but finding their jobs have been filled by black migrants from the south, Omaha now looks to be a tinderbox of racial resentment, gleefully stoked by the corrupt, moneyed politicians running the town. Wheeler masterfully creates multiple layers and hidden depths in these characters and the worlds they inhabit in restrained, yet powerful language. Intertwining scenes of the annual Interrace baseball game, a town navigating a false accusation that leads to the real-life lynch mob that burns down parts of Omaha in what is now called the Red Summer of 1919, and the characters’ acts of love and survival in all their complicated forms, Kings of Broken Things is heavy, yes, but will stay with you for a very long time. To quote PEN/Faulkner finalist Julie Iromuanya, ‘This book’s relevance, in the context of today’s concerns, cannot be overstated.'”

 

Kings Named a “Must-Read” by OWH

| Ted Wheeler

Check out today’s Omaha World-Herald, which named Kings of Broken Things one of 13 must-read books for this summer! We’re less than six weeks out before pub day and it’s amazing to see this go out across the city and interwebs. 

Thanks so much to OWH for calling Kings a novel of “special interest to locals” that’s getting “national attention.”  

More soon…

Kirkus Reviews Kings

| Ted Wheeler

The first short review of my forthcoming debut novel Kings of Broken Things was published this morning on Kirkus Review! A thoughtful and generally insightful review, it’s pretty exciting to see my book being critiqued after working for nearly a decade researching and writing. Only 77 days until pub day! Let the sleepless nights begin.

Read the full review on Kirkus–and pre-order your copy now if you haven’t already. Here’s a sample of the review:

“Underlying the novel is a taut racial division, illustrated by the yearly interrace baseball game and culminating in a false accusation which incites a sickeningly vicious lynch mob. For its descriptions of the violent outcomes of prejudice and political misconduct, this novel at once illuminates a savage moment in history and offers a timely comment on nationalism and racism. An unsettling and insightful piece of historical fiction.”

“Folding Nebraska into fiction” from the OWH

| Ted Wheeler

58e8eeebf4180-imageCheck out this article from last month in the Omaha World-Herald by Micah Mertes that explores how Nebraska has been used as a setting by contemporary novelists.

The article focuses mostly on Dan Chaon and his new book, with some choice quotes from Stephen King, Jonis Agee, Timothy Schaffert, Rainbow Rowell, and a hot young new-comer named Wheeler with a new novel coming out this summer. It’s a fun article, and an honor to have my thoughts included with the titans above.

Here’s the full article if you’re interested, and a quote for now:

Depending on the writer’s aim, that emptiness can yield horror, despair or loneliness. It can yield solitude, serenity, God. It can yield mystery.

“And mystery,” said Omaha author Theodore Wheeler, “is what drives almost all fiction in one way or another. Every story needs something to solve, I guess.”

Wheeler’s next novel will explore a different kind of the unknown, and one closer to home: the immigrant culture of Omaha in the 1910s. “Kings of Broken Things,” on sale Aug. 1, casts fictional characters amid precise historical detail and real-life events — like the Omaha race riot of 1919.

Tethered by Letters Author Q&A

| Ted Wheeler

c77vnhlwkaqyaiiCheck out this new interview that features my thoughts on writing, publishing, and MFA programs over at the Tethered by Letters Author Q&A Series!

I’m ecstatic to be featured on the page, as the TbL Q&A Series is a great resource for writers, both beginning and established. It’s well-worth your time to check out the archives, including interviews with Maggie Smith, Dana Gioia,  Sandra Marchetti, Karen Craigo, and Saleh Saterstrom. The Q&As are heavy on the process of becoming an established writer and are great for writing students.

Thanks so much to Tethered by Letters for including my responses, and for Amanda DeNatale for conducting the interview.

Here’s an excerpt:

Probably like most writers, I’ve always had an inescapable urge to tell stories. Some of my earliest memories are of using a George Washington paper-doll my mom made to recreate scenes from a Time-Life series of American history books we had in the house, and I was writing some of these stories down by the time I started elementary school. That’s not a career event, of course, but where things started. For most of my childhood I planned on being either a sports writer for a newspaper or a comic book writer for Marvel when I grew up. What I do now isn’t too far off from that—my day job is as a reporter (but on civil law and politics, not sports) and I write literary fiction instead of super hero comics. Most of my life has been following an impulse to write, which led to different jobs and styles that allow me to keep going in ways that are fulfilling. I don’t think there was ever an epiphany, more just doing what has kept me engaged and happy.

Kings of Broken Things Cover Reveal!!!

| Ted Wheeler

I’m so excited to share with you the front cover of my new novel Kings of Broken Things, out from Little A on August 1!wheeler-kings-of-broken-things-final-front-cover

The cover turned out so well, I couldn’t be more pleased and excited to share the book with you all this summer. Thanks are due to Christina Chung, who did the illustration, and Vivian Lee, my editor at Little A, who painstakingly worked through many versions until this was just right. Their hard work paid off big time, in my opinion. What do you all think?

The book is now available for pre-order in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audio editions. The audio edition is a new addition, for all you road warriors and commuters out there. If you’re so inclined, put in your order now and have the book arrive on August 1.

 

The Uninitiated’s Very Early 2017 Holiday Shopping Guide

| Ted Wheeler

Getting an early start on your 2017 holiday shopping list? Lucky for you, my novel Kings of Broken Things is now available for pre-order on Amazon at 25-40% off! The book really will make the perfect gift for family, friends, spouses, speed-daters, and any other folks you might become close with over the next thirteen months. Whether you’re celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah or X-Mas, or even Labor Day or Veterans Day or National Model Railroad Month–Kings of Broken Things will make the perfect gift for that special someone (or hobby enthusiast) in your life.

And if for some reason your didn’t finish shopping for the 2016 season yet, there are still copies of Bad Faith for sale too! BUY NOW!!!

Omaha’s Armistice Day Parade, 1918

| Ted Wheeler

I found this photo of the Armistice Day parade in Omaha on the awesome web site Influenza Encyclopedia, which has an extensive archive that details how the Spanish Flu epidemic decimated the US during the height of World War I. It’s really an impressive archive and is beautifully put together. Given that it’s Veterans Day today, it seemed appropriate to share a glimpse of what Omaha’s streets would have looked like about 98 years ago.omaha001

 

About Writing and Politics in Six Parts

| Ted Wheeler

1-4-00-courtesy-of-the-durham-museum-600x491Somehow I missed when this essay was posted in September, but it seems so much more appropriate to post here on the eve of Election Day anyway–an essay on the relation of politics and art within my work. So please finds my contribution–“About Writing and Politics in Six Parts”–in Schlossghost #1, a year book for the 2014-16 fellows of Akademie Schloss Solitude.

The essay is a response to two questions posed by the editors of Schlossghost, Paula Kohlmann and  Clara Herrmann. “Would you say that your (artistic) practice is political? If so, how would you describe its political dimension?”

Find the whole response at the link above, and here’s a sample for now:

In May, earlier this year, I covered a Donald Trump rally that took place in an aircraft hangar near the Omaha airport. At first I was a little worried about even going, as there had been quite a bit of violence at Trump rallies the month before and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a party to all that ugliness. But, on the other hand, of course I did. That’s a big part of my job description, the part of the job I like, to be witness to these things.

The rally itself was mostly dull. Trump spoke for a long time about Japanese tariffs without much insight, and the biggest part of his speech was a 20-minute anecdote about this time he handed out trophies at a charity golf tournament. During the rally a few protestors were thrown out. His supporters for the most part looked bored throughout, except at the beginning and end, when his helicopter landed and when they could chant »build that wall.«

I wondered about my feelings of disappointment after the rally. What was I expecting? Wasn’t xenophobia on display enough? Were the protestors dragged out too peacefully? Or did I miss something, the feeling of the event, the undercurrent? Did I feel the way I did because I wasn’t in the crowd? I sat up in the press section – a platform with tables where journalists were corralled behind a fence. By accident I sat between a Fox News anchor and his producer, to comic effect. Seeing their frustration with having to follow Donald Trump made me a little grateful for my obscure lot, for not having to spend all day working a story and then being told to reduce it to a ten-second clip of a long-haired young man shouting »fuck you« at the police.