Reported For Duty

Some very big things happened in the last months of 2019 that I let slide by without even mentioning them on my blog. I know. These things are important. I should have gotten them on here, but this one honestly makes me feel like a bad friend.

You heard me, I'm a bad friend. Sorry Mike. I've known Mike since we were teenagers, and he's wanted to be an author as long as I've known him. For anyone wondering...I'll just say it's been more than just a few years. 

But, when he got his first short story published in a book put out by Happy Duck Publishing (which published my novel As It Ends.) The book is: Reported for Duty: Poems and Stories from the War Zone, Home Front, and Beyond. I failed to shout it from the rooftops.

This book was published in November 2019. I've let two months go by without bragging on my blog that my friend Michael Lewis Beesley had his story "The Diagnosis" published. 

​His story is a futuristic science fiction tale that I thought was wonderful. 

Oh, and the most important thing I can mention to all you future collectors of the works of Michael Lewis Beesley, (who will one day be a wildly successful novelist) I have the first thing he ever signed. 

My copy was the first book he ever signed as an author. 

"That's not fair!" I hear you gasp.  "Why do you deserve to have the first book he ever signed!"
​I'll tell you. Because, as his friend, I took my job very seriously. I nagged him relentlessly until he submitted it to the publisher. 

How annoying was I? Only Michael Lewis Beesley can tell you the answer to that, but I'm sure it was pretty darn annoying. He submitted a story to a publisher just to get me to leave him alone.

You're welcome buddy. I can't wait to snatch up the first signed copy of your first published novel as well.