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Day #5 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with Time Is Irreverent 3: Gone for 16 Seconds. Part of this novel was inspired by an amazing class I took on the Middle East during my senior year in high school. I wrote this novel in 2019, […]
Day #3 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. After writing two nonfiction books, I switched to fiction. Time Is Irreverent is both hilarious and irreverent, and it introduced me to the concept of “review bombing.” Despite open-minded people loving the novel, conservative Christians (many who never even read […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3683: You are looking at the Weber Music Hall, in the University of Minnesota Duluth. This excerpt from my latest book, Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer, explains the shot: My two favorite performances—so far—have been homecoming shows. The closest college to me is the […]
In Time Is Irreverent, my Trump-like character, President Handley, manipulates the system to turn America into a theocracy and become Supreme Leader for Life. In real life, the attorney general of Texas (joined by 17 red states) has filed a Supreme Court lawsuit to overturn Biden’s victories in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. The chances […]
I love writing the Time Is Irreverent series of novels, because the characters allow me to demonstrate how things would be different with a single change to history. For instance, in the first novel time-traveling protagonists Marty Mann and Nellie Dixon show how life today would be different if Christianity hadn’t taken hold, and in […]
Yay! I just sent Time Is Irreverent 3: Gone for Sixteen Seconds off to my editor. After I wrote my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents (published in 2007), it took me nine years to publish Endangered Edens: Exploring the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica, the Everglades, and Puerto Rico. […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3055: I recently read a blog about how important it is for writers to have a special writing room. I think I have that covered. During the day, I have a stunning view of the snow-covered mountains, and at night I work by candlelight. Regarding my writing: Time Is Irreverent […]
Yesterday I posted a couple 1-star reviews to demonstrate the difficulties of writing liberal books when conservatives, who haven’t even read the story, try to bring them down—as if they were doing a favor for Trump. Today, I’d like to post some of the shorter 5-star reviews for my latest novel Time Is Irreverent 2: […]
Marty’s photo of the day #2837: Other than when Marty Mann and Nellie Dixon land on places like Pluto or the moon, I’ve been to the vast majority of the locations the two visited in the “Time Is Irreverent” series. After all, it’s easier to write vividly about places I’ve experience myself. In Time Is […]
Are unicorns in the Bible? Because I grew up with a conservative evangelical Christian father, I learned the Bible quite well—though not the passages he wanted me to learn. Instead, I learned passages that contradicted his passages, or at least his interpretation of them. Now, as an adult who writes satirical novels that include Jesus […]
Audiobooks are wonderful, but they’re time consuming to produce. I’m currently working with Nate C. Maughan, the great narrator for my new novel, Time Is Irreverent 2: Jesus Christ, Not Again! I know a lot of authors do their own narration, but I don’t do multiple voices, and I think audiobooks should be performances, not […]
Yay! Last night—after thousands of hours of writing, entering editing, and proofing, proofing, proofing—I finished the sequel to my Amazon #1 Best Seller, Time Is Irreverent. The aptly named, Time Is Irreverent 2: Jesus Christ, Not Again! is scheduled for publication in February 2019. In Jesus Christ, Not Again! the timeline change Marty Mann and […]
Big news for both Time Is Irreverent and the sequel, Time Is Irreverent 2: Jesus Christ, Not Again!: I just received word that Time Is Irreverent will be reviewed in the next issue (Oct/Nov) of Free Inquiry magazine. This is huge! If you’re not familiar with the magazine, it’s the publication from the Center for […]
Last week I finished the second draft of Time Is Irreverent 2: Jesus Christ, Not Again! and I’m already well into the third draft. I’m really excited about the new novel—it’s so much fun! Whether it’s better than the first in the series, I’ll let the readers decide, but as an author, I naturally think […]
Despite quite literally putting a warning on both the Amazon and Goodreads pages for my science-fiction political-comedy, Time Is Irreverent, conservatives keep buying it and are then surprised when they hate it. I should have thought of this marketing tactic years ago: Tell someone not to buy your book and they go, “Oh, yeah? You […]
Marty’s photo of the day #2553: Yesterday, I was at MisCon (Missoula’s Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention) for several events. First I did a reading from “Time Is Irreverent.” I read the section where Nellie Dixon handles the cops expecting a sexual favor in her own “special way” and shocked the audience. But hey, I […]
I understand that there are dedicated, ethical cops out there. Nevertheless, I’ve had some bizarre encounters with cops over the years: When I ran the Bitterroot Baseball League and managed one of the teams, a cop who was on my team called me drunk one night and tried to intimidate me because I didn’t give […]
I expect bigotry from conservative Christians and from the Republican Party, but I have to say that I’m surprised by the bigotry I’ve witnessed in the book promotion business. Books reach the top of the charts in three ways: the author is already a celebrity, everything goes right and the author gets a big publishing […]
With just one day left to the end of my Kindle Scout campaign—and a chance for you to win of free copy of Time Is Irreverent—I’m featuring some of the new liberal Ten Commandments Marty Mann and Nellie Dixon present to the people of Galilee in AD 31 when they crash the Sermon on the Mount. […]
With just two days left to the end of my Kindle Scout campaign—and a chance for you to win of free copy of Time Is Irreverent—I’m featuring some of the new liberal Ten Commandments Marty Mann and Nellie Dixon present to the people of Galilee in AD 31 when they crash the Sermon on the Mount. […]
