This review of Trust Issues by Bob Kunzinger talks about strong women, and one of the main ones is a character called Nell. Nell appears in three different stories in the book. The review came out today on the Vox Populi website. I love it when authors I respect “get it”! I feel humbled to have them even read my work, but then to say nice things? Imagine me blushing… Many thanks to Bob for writing the review, and for Michael for publishing it.
And there’s this thing I really enjoy about Vox Populi… Editor Michael Simms is such a good curator. To accompany this review, he shared a short story from the book, with my permission of course.
I still remember the morning of January 7, 2025. I awoke to an odd scent of burning … both natural and chemical. I went downstairs and opened my kitchen door, like I do most mornings. Typically, I’m greeted with the joyful sounds of children heading to school, but this time I found the air thick, the density burning to my eyes and seemingly layered onto my skin, my clothes. The streets were oddly vacant.
I hadn’t heard about the fires yet. Something inside me said to close my doors and windows, and do whatever I could to stay inside. Later, I saw the reports. Friends desperately texted one another for days to ensure each other were okay. Each moment, we reiterated to one another that no matter what, if anyone was impacted, they always had a place to stay … a second home.
Later, dear friends had a need for that second home and continue to do so. The loss caused by such devastation so much more than a physical home, but a place of emotional strength, stability, comfort, joy. All gone in what felt like mere moments.
This anthology is for those who have experienced such loss. To continue to provide a place of solace, words of comfort, and knowledge that somewhere, somehow, others continue to have them in their minds, hearts, and prayers.
The International Impact Book Awards have just informed me that Trust Issues is a winner in their Contemporary Fiction category for 2025.
I am delighted to extend my heartfelt congratulations to you for being selected as a winner at the International Impact Book Awards! Your exceptional talent, dedication, and creativity have set you apart in a competitive field, and it is an honor to recognize your remarkable achievement.
This award is a testament to the impact your work has made in the literary world. Your story, your voice, and your commitment to excellence have resonated with readers and judges alike, and we are proud to celebrate your success. Winning this award is not just a moment of recognition but a significant milestone in your journey as an author. A reflection of the countless hours, passion, and perseverance you’ve invested in your craft.
I’m not sure what post directed me to a song by Willie Nelson today. It has led to hours of me listening to a YouTube playlist based on Willie Nelson and a really touching song called “Last Leaf on the Tree.” My folks were country music fans, so I was NOT a country music fan. Willie Nelson, once his hair grew out, crossed that boundary for me. He started making music that was not strictly country. He hosted a wild party for his birthday in Austin every year. (Man, oh man! That was a wild time for sure… I got to attend a Willie Nelson picnic one time…)
While you play the song, I’ll give you a little personal backstory.
One of my earliest short stories of the fictional variety to be published is titled “Chumming for Sharks.” You’ll find it in my new collection, Trust Issues, (still available at a pre-order discount!). Click the link to the story to read a scanned version from the original publication. Consider it a teaser for the book!
Music evokes memories
Willie Nelson singing “Georgia,” from his 1978 Stardust album, composed of old standard tunes, takes me to a sport fishing boat in Florida. I crewed aboard that boat for a season, and the skipper had one tape that he played over and over, Stardust. He popped that baby into the 8-track every time we went out and he never changed it.
That sport fishing boat and that skipper provide the scaffolding on which I built my story. They make up the set and offer a preliminary sketch for characters in the story. Here’s a picture of me, shark, kid, and boat.
As in the story, we really did catch a big shark one day. This kid fought that shark for about three hours while two other men watched. They cheered him on and pointed me which way to steer based on which way the shark was going. I stood at the wheel for three hours too, and it was quite a fight. Me, the kid, and the shark. I can’t recall the real guy’s name, or even the name of the boat. I embellished a lot with many nefarious details that never happened!
During the COVID 19 pandemic–2020 and 2021 to be precise, I did a lot of writing. Madville was young, and relatively easy to manage. I had time on my hands, and a lot of friends who are writers as well as creative writing teachers. I was fortunate to be invited into some really dynamic workshop groups with amazing coaches leading them.
Writers need opportunities to workshop
We had time in those years, and everything went quiet for a while. It was perfect for those of us who don’t get enough time to let our imaginations run wild. Workshops also give us opportunities to meet others and read their work. One such group was called Tell Us a Story and it was led by Siobhan Wright. I didn’t know her except as a friend of a friend. I knew another friend of mine knew her well, and had recommended me to Siobhan. It was an invitational sort of group, as was the next group I had the good fortune to be invited into. That one was led by Jodi Angel.
I got so much out of those groups and those years writing. I gained confidence. And this morning, I received one of those gold star rewards that keep us writing… an acceptance. One of those little pieces I wrote with Siobhan’s group was picked up by Story Circle for their September Journal. It’s the third piece from the Tell Us a Story years to be picked up. There was magic going on there, I believe!
We have a pre-order link for my short story collection which makes its debut November 15 of THIS year! (Note, beloved friends and followers, that this will get the book into everyone’s hands in time for Christmas.)
Isn’t it funny how we behave when the tables are turned?
As a publisher, I’m often the one in charge of making these things happen… like updates to website with news about books… And now I am getting a big dose of what it feels like to be the author impatiently waiting to be able to holler about her new book!
I’m so excited with the way this book has turned out. Under the direction of Ross Tangedal at Cornerstone Press with managing editor Karlie Harpold, it feels like a cohesive whole now.
We hope it entices librarians, bookstores, and regular readers alike to order early. Number one, it helps the press with cash flow. It helps everyone to know how many books to print in the first run. Cornerstone tells us that these books that sell via the pre-order link will be shipping on November 11.
In addition, if we can sell a lot of books before the launch date, this can have a strong impact on the book’s sales rank and visibility. Strong early sales can make it more visible to potential buyers and potentially boost it onto bestseller lists. Conversely, poor first-week sales can result in a low ranking and limited exposure.
(I’ll keep everyone posted as we have additional points of sale to offer.)
We have a full cover! This past week, my publisher at Cornerstone Press shared the full cover for Trust Issues: Stories. I’m thrilled. I think we’ll have another blurb on the final copy. My publisher and his team have done such a great job. It was a pleasure working through the edits with them.
We will begin taking pre-orders July 15.
I knew the full cover would be here soon, because, as you probably know, I do this for other people’s books. I’m the publisher at Madville. I’m trying hard not to be an annoying author. I usually sit on the other side of these deals, so I want to avoid doing things that make more work for me, like late edits. Well, I did not quite succeed with that. (Sorry team!) I made a correction to the Acknowledgments after review copies of the book were already printed. (Side note here… this is a hidden advantage to working with a university press: they have a printing press on campus!) So, if you happen to receive a review copy, know that the acknowledgments will be a little bit different in the final version.
So what’s the big deal about pre-orders?
The importance of pre-orders is something a lot of indie authors question. The practice enters the publishing sphere with the old traditional publishing model. It’s the way we used to do things before self-publishing became so prevalent, and I think that overlooking this step hurts many self-published authors who rush to market their books.
From the point of view of the publisher, pre-orders are the best indicator of how successful a book will be. And they help us to estimate how many to print initially.
For any book, the first week’s sales determine whether or not that book makes it onto bestseller lists. And all pre-sales count toward that first week’s sales.
Pre-orders give us something to get excited about. And once we have a button people can click to actually order a copy, we can shift our efforts into gear and start making actual sales.
Bookstores can see how many preorders we are getting, and they may be encouraged as a result to order more copies for their shelves.
Pre-orders teach Amazon that your book is in demand even before it launches. It also begins to chart before it’s release if pre-orders ramp up, and when it does release, it leaps higher on the charts and in Amazon’s estimations, meaning Amazon shows it to more people organically.
And for readers? Pre-orders generally arrive a little early, and that helps readers to avoid any spoilers that may come out.
There’s another reason we want a book to be ready months ahead of the actual release date: early reviews
Another thing I know because I’ve done this many times as a publisher, is that once we have that full cover and a completed text file for the book, we can share with early reviewers. This is another important step in the publishing process that is often overlooked by indie authors in their rush to get to market. I am happy to report that my publisher has already sent out copies of my book to potential early reviewers.
Where do they find such early reviewers?
Where do authors find early reviewers? That is a loaded question! My publisher is an established teaching press, with relationships with the “Trades” as folks call them. These are old-school reviewers attached to publications librarians and bookstore buyers rely on for news of upcoming releases. They include names you know like The New York Times Book Review and Washington Post Book World, Midwest Book Review, and Shelf Awareness, but increasingly even the old standard trade publications are fading away or becoming pay-to-play. Kirkus Reviews, Forward Reviews, and even Publisher’s Weekly have all gone to a paid model for reviews.
I started talking about Trust Issues quite a while ago, so it might be time for an update.
We are officially in the edit stage
It’s edit time, and I find it all terribly exciting to be on the other side of the desk. I’m getting to be the author responding to editor comments and working on my own manuscript! I’ve passed it back and forth once with my editors, and their reactions are favorable so far. What surprises me is which stories they like… little unassuming stories that have been hiding in the back. You’ll see. I’m going to be interested to find out which stories different people like for what reasons.
It works as a collection–and it’s surprisingly timely
What I find as I read these stories again is how they hang together as a collection. That surprises me, and it also surprises me how topical the stories are. That’s sad. I’ve been writing this stuff for a lot of years, and it means not much has changed.
As I began assembling a collection of short stories, I discovered a few things. One of those was that I had written quite a bit over the last decade or two. I had to prune away a bunch of fun little stories that may or may not ever find a home. But what was left is … a lot of strong women on their own. Hardheaded, I like to call them.
Tell your friends to subscribe to my substack for Trust Issues updates. I’ll keep you posted when you can order the book. https://kim4true.substack.com/
Easter Bunny costumes are weird. I mean, did you ever see a human-sized rabbit costume that wasn’t frightening?
Easters through the years…
I wrote a post earlier today on my new Substack about Easter egg hunting, so I won’t repeat it here except to say that if you are a friend, you’d be helping me out if you’d subscribe to my Substack (It’s free.) and share it with your friends. I have a new book coming out, and I’m trying to build a following, so every little bit helps. I do my best not to overdo it or send too many posts, but you can always opt out or mute me if I get out of control! Click the button below to go to my Substack account.
The featured image for this post is one I searched high and low for this morning. For whatever reason, I could not find it, but when I looked for it just now, there it was. Right where I thought it should be. The universe? Algorithms? Have they started talking to each other and deciding what I should post where?
While I was searching for the quintessential Easter Bunny photo, I came across another one that wasn’t scary… THIS bunny belonged to my younger daughter, one of those special toys that took on a life of its own like The Velveteen Rabbit. Younger daughter turned up without Bunny one day, and swore she never knew what happened to him. I think he went down the potty, but at least Jacqui captured a good likeness before it was too late!
Trust Issues received a blurb from Maurice Carlos Ruffin! This will go right on the back cover of the book:
Kim Davis is a master of moments. In Trust Issues, she brings her keen eye to the lives of ordinary people not often seen in literary fiction. With great skill, Davis shows how even the most mundane moments are fraught with meaning.
I almost forgot to share this fantastic blurb that I received for Trust Issues. During most of the month of March, I was traveling with a car full of books. I went from home base in North Texas, across New Mexico, Arizona, and California, all the way to Los Angeles. It has been such a busy time!
As I mentioned with my previous blurb post, this is something authors do for each other. And it happens through a process of getting to know other authors. Conferences like AWP and Southern Festival of Books and many, many others are currently under attack because they have lost funding they’d been counting on. Therefore, we must work ever harder to support each other.
A great place to get to know Maurice is through his podcast Sitting in Silence which has a free version.
Paperback
