MUST Reads

Yay for turning 30 (I guess)!! I had all these plans for taking this time to look back and reflect blah blah blah. But instead, I wanted to take a moment to tell you, once again, how much JP rocks. Yes, he rocks for helping me edit and being all around wonderful (and for getting up early to look over some last minute edits for me), but he also rocks because he is an amazing writer and I don't talk about that enough around here. Seriously, his writing has made cry before because it is so beautiful.

One of his short stories, Elohim, was just published in Ideomancer. I have loved this story since he first read it to me -- it's so complex and wonderful. He brilliantly captures the Southern voice in the same way as all of our great Southern writers have -- yep, that's right, I'm comparing him to Faulkner (if Faulkner had more of a speculative edge). Best of all, other people are starting to find out what a great writer JP is. Elohim was reviewed recently and I don't want to post the whole thing since it gets into the plot, but here are some choice tidbits: "Davis skilfully brings his characters and their situation to life, such that I was compelled to keep reading to find out how it would resolve." and "I found the story morally evocative without being heavy-handed."*

Yes that's right -- JP's got rave reviews! If only I can get reviews like that!

Seriously, go read Elohim here.

And if you want a faster treat, he has another piece that was the Editor's Choice at Flashquake called The Pirate, Landlocked. This is also a very poignant story -- I've always been amazed at how he can capture so much character and longing and history in such a short about of space (whereas I need a whole novel to do that).

JP's also had a bunch of pieces up at SixSentences.blogspot.com AND even more of them have been accepted for the new Six Sentences anthology (the trick is writing a short story in six sentences -- again it's pretty impressive that he can say so much in so little space). Here's a link to the three published so far.

Go forth and read him! Seriously, you will not regret it. Everything I write, I hope to reach his skill level -- he's definitely been an inspiration to me.


*Excerpted from here.