Kentucky author Ed McClanahan (The Natural Man, Congress of Wonders, Famous People I Have Known, I Just Hitched In From the Coast) has a new project hitting Kickstarter on June 1, 2012.
The McClanahanianarama Cometh
BY ED MCCLANAHAN
As long-suffering McClanafans know all too well, I love to read my work aloud, and am liable to do so at the drop of a hint. And because I believe my writing has reached a great many people by way of the countless public readings I’ve done over the last 50 years or so, I’d dearly love to leave a few nicely packaged, meticulously produced CDs of my favorite readings as a significant portion of my personal literary legacy.
With your help, I would like complete two audio CD projects. The first is a reading of Fondelle or: The Whore with a Heart of Gold, a fictionalized memoir of my adventures in the summer of 1954—my last summer as a college undergraduate—, when I went out west for the first time, to work on a road crew in Yosemite National Park. The story mainly concerns an encounter I had with an extraordinary couple—a West Virginia-born “showgirl” from New York City and a one-armed WWII vet from Oklahoma—while hitch-hiking between Beaumont, Texas, and New Orleans on my return trip to Kentucky.
The second would be a multi-disc reading of all three stories in A Congress of Wonders (Counterpoint 1996), the book I want to be represented by when I stand before that great literary panel in the sky. “Juanita and the Frog Prince,” “The Congress of Wonders,” and my personal all-time favorite, the novella “Finch’s Song: A Schoolbus Tragedy”—incorporate all manner of improbable stuff, from witchcraft to clairvoyance to metempsychosis (the transmigration of souls) to spontaneous combustion to a guy with two noses to ascension unto heaven on the wings of a million tiny birds. “Artfully told,” said Publishers Weekly, “these droll, neo-gothic fairy tales are richly embroidered with threads of alchemy—and love.”
I will be working with professional musician and audio producer Jack Wright and publisher/designer Nyoka Hawkins of Old Cove Press to produce these studio-quality, one-of-a-kind recordings of my stories. The Fondelle CD will feature artwork by the great Canadian woodcut artist Wesley Bates (taken from his original illustrations for the Larkspur Press edition of the story) and liner notes by Dr. Tom Marksbury, the University of Kentucky film scholar and documentarian, who is currently writing a screenplay of Fondelle.
These spoken-word CDs will be limited editions; they are not and will never be commercially available in this form, so this is a one-time-only chance to own them. Best of all, we offer them here in conjunction with your choice among a wide variety of other signed and personalized-to-order McClanahaniana, including both current and rare first editions of my books and rare prints of my artwork (as rendered by the renowned Lexington printmaker Joe Petro III), along with “guided tours” of my (very interesting) studio/office and unique opportunities (An O’Round at Lynagh’s! Brunch at Alfalfa! A day-trip to Maysville!) for you to hear more, perhaps, about Ed McClanahan than you ever really wanted to know.
Info, EdMcClanahan.com/News.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Ed McClanahan Reader Hits Shelves, Ace coverstory, October 11 2011
In Memory of James Baker Hall, Ace coverstory July 1, 2009
A Long Strange Trip: Ed McClanahan Turns 70. Ace coverstory October 10, 2002
Ed McClanahan’s O The Clear Moment Ace November 2008
Old Hippie Gets New Hip, by Ed McClanahan Ace coverstory Nov 29, 2001
The Congress of Wonders, Filmmaking in Lexington by Brad Becker, Ace November 1994
Ed McClanahan and Little Enis, the KET Signature Series April 1994
