Todd James Pierce

Jan 22: The first pre-publication review for Las Vegas Noir came out earlier this week.

Publisher's Weekly said: Just because mystery fans will be unfamiliar with many of the 16 contributors to Akashic’s latest entry in its acclaimed noir series (Brooklyn Noir, etc.) doesn’t mean the quality isn’t up to volumes boasting bigger names. The late John O’Brien, best known for his novel-turned-film, Leaving Las Vegas, offers a typically warped and nihilistic vision of the city with “The Tik,” about a thrill-killing duo, narrated by the male half, whose indifference to his prey is chilling. Columnist Tod Goldberg’s “Mitzvah” makes good use of the Las Vegas myth that people come to the city to bury their past identities and reinvent themselves. His antihero, mobster Sal Cuperine, has for years posed as Rabbi David Cohen, managing to handle the demands of the pulpit until the strain of his charade becomes too much to bear. While some readers might regret that no tale other than Janet Berliner’s “The Road to Rachel” explores Las Vegas’s past, this anthology does a fine job of illuminating the dark underbelly of Sin City. (May)

Las Vegas Noir will be released in May.

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Jan 22: Here's a big batch of news... (1) Las Vegas Noir is up on Amazon as a pre-order with a pub date of May 1, 2008. Advance Review Copies are on their way to reviewers as I type this. (2) The nonfiction book about the theme park "wars" in the 1950s is not done, but over the past five months, I've completed a dozen new interviews, including members of Walt Disney's family and executives at companies who competed with Disney. I've also drafted out another 100 pages. So know this: it will be a big, exciting book when finished. (3) The Indiana Review just published a fantastic review of Newsworld . And for those of you who would like to see the Soviet Newsworld, just click on this video . And lastly (4) The Columbine Story Site has been vastly updated. I know of 15 college creative writing classes that are using the "Class Assignment," but based on actual web activity, I suspect the number is significantly higher. The page is there for whomever would like to use it.

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Aug 31: Here's an early mockup for the cover of Las Vegas Noir , which will be published Summer 2008. I promise--PROMISE!--to spend the next four months finishing up the theme park book. The interviews are mostly done, though I hope to get to Florida one more time this October. Aside from that, it's mainly laying information from the most recent round of interviews (Texas, New York, Nevada, and Colorado) into the existing pages.

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Aug 10: Here's a great review of Newsworld , published in a hipster magazine called Stop Smiling. My favorite line: "With their assured delivery, smart subject matter and artful textural development, Pierce's stories really nail our guts to the fence." Just click and read it. The reviewer does a great job of laying down what the book is about. Link .

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June 24: So along with being a finalist for the 2007 Paterson Fiction Prize and the winner of the 2006 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, Newsworld is also a finalist for the 2007 John Gardner Book Award. Not bad for a book of stories! It was announced this morning.

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June 16, 2007: Over the past week a lot of people have been dropping by this page because my name has appread in a number of theme park blogs. Which is really cool. For the past few years, I've been working on a narrative history of the early theme parks--specifically how the development of Disneyland inspired the creation of other early cinematic theme parks, specifically Pacific Ocean Park, the partially completed Magic Mountain in Golden, Colorado (not the one in California), Pleasure Island outside of Boston, and Freedomland in the Bronx. The book also covers theme parks that were designed but never built, such as Bible Storyland (which was overseen by Nat Winecoff, who was also the very first WED employee) and Discoveryland in Miami, Florida (which was overseen by C.V. Wood, who was the first general manager of Disneyland and its first vice president).

I am presently 75% finished with the book. The section on the development of Disneyland (1952-1955) is complete and clocks in at 225 manuscript pages--all of which I've already shown to my agent, who is excited by the project. For the next couple months, I'll be working on a second draft of the 1956-1959 section because, over the past year, I've been able to conduct dozens of new interviews which have helped develop the specificity of this section. I'm folding in new material to make the earlier draft richer and more exact. I've been able to assemble a lot of great new stories to add--such as how Freedomland bribed city officials to get permits to build rides, the way C.V. Wood tricked Walt Disney into meeting an independent financier who wanted to build a park billed as "the Disneyland of the East," and what happened when William Zeckencorf (owner of Freedomland) asked Roy Disney to take Freedomland off their hands.

The book also will include a short third section, which briefly follows the men who designed and built these parks through the 1960s, but that section is only half complete--though most of the research for it in done.

I've been able to find a great deal of information on the building of Disneyland and the subsequent parks that has not been included in any book or any article--much of it through original interviews. I've also been lucky enough to find (on the original reel-to-reel tapes) many hours of interviews conducted in 1970 with men who worked with C.V. Wood, which has shed a great deal of light on the actual development of both Walt Disney's park and the parks that followed. I've been to the original sites, have worked through the local archives, and have talked to people that designed and built each park.

As you probably already know, I'm a novelist and short story writer by training. I have three published books. My last book won the 2006 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, which in the world of fiction is a fairly big deal. So give me until the end of 2007 to finish up. At that time, I hope to have a full draft to give my agent. After that, it's up to the publishers. But usually it takes about a year or so to sell, edit, and publish a book--assuming the book manuscript is finished at the time of sale.

And since a few people have asked, I do have a working title: The Artificial Matterhorn and the Other Walt Disney. But as titles are both a representation of a book and an aspect of its marketing, don't be surprised if that title is changed a few times before the book is published. For each of the books I've written, the publishers and I have talked at length about the title.

And if you'd like to pick up one of my earlier books, my first novel (The Australia Stories) has recently been reissued as a paperback under the title A Woman of Stone . (As a hardback, the book developed a following in book clubs and my publisher felt it would gain a stronger following if it could remove the word "stories" from the title--as book clubs tend to adopt novels over collections of short stories. They were under the impression that the word "stories" confused possible readers.) And my most recent book, Newsworld , is available in hardback. You can find both at most bookstores and of course at Amazon.

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Last week (June 1, 2007) it was announced that NEWSWORLD earned the title of finalist for the 2007 Paterson Fiction Prize, which is pretty decent considering that in the past three years other finalists have included William Boyd, Alice Munro, Cynthia Ozick, Anne Tyler, Joy Wiliams, and Tobias Wolff. Each year the prize committee announces one winner and five or six finalists

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As of today (Feb. 18, 2007), a beta-version of a new teaching-related website for "Columbine: The Musical" is live. The site features a printable pdf of "Columbine: The Musical" (for personal or classroom use) from the book, NEWSWORLD, an audio reading of "Columbine: The Musical" (recorded in California), a video reading of the same story (recorded at the Miami Book Fair International), a 40-minute craft talk video on how to write a first scene (viewable in a small online window or in a large window for classroom projectors), and a few other goodies. You can check it out here .

A recent interview with WebDelSel can be found here . Thanks go out to all the people who helped with this site.

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The new collection of stories, Newsworld , is now out, winner of the 2006 Drue Heinz Literature Award. Yes, this is the book that finally collect "Columbine: The Musical," "Wrestling Al Gore," "Arise and Walk, Christopher Reeve," those two stories set at the Newsworld theme park, and seven other tales exploring America's love affair with entertainment and news culture. Joan Didion recently called this book "ambitious and exhilarating, an original collection awake to the larger world.” Also, on the same day, The Australia Stories will be re-released as a trade paperback, now called A Woman of Stone , directed at reading groups.

I'm finally live on MySpace (Aug 28, 2006), so send me a friend message. It's lonely in the friend space below.

TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF - The Author Survey
Name: Todd James Pierce
Birthday: Sept. 15
Birthplace: Covina, California
Current Location: a little town called Orcutt, which is in the north part of Santa Barbara County, California.
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Brown
Height: 6’2”
Your Heritage: European mix with a little Native American for flavor
The Shoes You Wore Today: Sandals, as always
Your Most Recent Dustjacket Pic: The most recent photo for a dust jacket was taken in Bubble Gum Alley in San Luis Obispo, CA--a little outdoor alleyway with hundreds of thousands of wads of bubble gum stuck, like gooey confetti, to the brick wall
Have You Ever Illegally Photographed Columbine High School? As a matter of fact, yes. A few months after the shootings, I knew I wanted to write a short story based on the obsessive (and frankly disturbing) media interest in the Columbine shootings. I also wanted to respect the events surrounding the Columbine incident. So in August, 1999, I visited the Columbine area for three days, spending time in the state archives and working with a local library clipping service to better understand the events as they appeared locally. I felt I also needed to visit the school itself, but as the school year was already in session, I decided to visit it after hours--long after even football practice had ended. I drove into their parking lot around 1am with a small digital camera. Alone I walked past the library, the cafeteria, the upper classrooms, the entire time trying to focus on the reality of the place, its connection to those lives lost. On each window was a yellow sign prohibiting photography. I spent an hour there, believing that the cops would probably find me, before I returned to my rental car and drove to my hotel. The short story, "Columbine: The Musical," is in no way an attempt abuse the Columbine incident. Rather, it's a critique of America's impulse to turn television news into brassy entertainment
Your Perfect Pizza: Chicken and Turkey Pepperoni, as I no longer eat beef
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year: Please, God, let me finish a draft of the new book!
Number of pet parrots: Interesting question. Two. One Goffins cockatoo. One rose breasted cockatoo.
Thoughts First Waking Up: Did I oversleep the alarm?
Which Parrot Appears In Your Poems: The Goffins, of course.
Your Bedtime: 2am-3am, most every night
Number of Miles Driven this Year: I'd say about 22k-25k, half for work, half for research
Pepsi or Coke: Either, so long as it's diet
Single or Group Dates: Now that I'm married, my wife tells me that all such Single/Group dating is in my past.
Best Review Ever: genius -- Dallas Morning News
Most Influential Character Animator of the 1930s: Very tough decision. Either Freddie Moore or Bill (Vladimir) Tytla. What does everyone else think?
Soundtrack For Your Freshman Year in College: Umm, let's see...When Doves Cry by Prince; Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes; Sister Christian by Night Ranger; Dance Hall Days by Wang Chung; Drive by The Cars; Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Do you Swear: Often in my head, occasionally when drinking
How Many Times Have You Taught The Story "The Things They Carried" By Tim O'Brien: You could wake me up out of a dead sleep after taking a double dose of Nytol, and I could talk about "The Things They Carried."
In A Rum And Coke, What Is The Best Liqueur Floater: Without doubt, Buttershots.
Do you want to go to College: Whether or not I want to, I'm there most every day.
At This Point In Your Research Would You Say that C.V. Wood, The First General Manager Of Disneyland, Was Screwed Over By The Disney Brothers: Kind of looks that way. Strange that no one has really told that story yet.
The Shoes You Will Wear Tomorrow: Unless it rains, sandals.
When You Lived In Australia, Where Did You Live: For the most part, a little suburb of Sydney called West Ryde.
Have You Ever Named A Character After A Real Person: Yes, there's at least one in The Australia Stories (AKA A Woman of Stone). As far as I can tell William is exactly like William
In Your Opinion, Would A REAL Theme Park Called Newsworld Make Money: Sadly, curiously, yes.
Do you get along with your Parents: On average, I talk with my mom many times each week. I haven't seen my father in well over 15 years.
Did A Staff Member Of The New Yorker Actually Contact You After Reading A Story About Your Fictitious Theme Park Newsworld To Say That He Would Like To Visit It When Next In Atlanta: In a word, yes.
How Many Words Do You Write On A Good Day: 1,000
Pet Name For Wife: Boatswain (pronounced and sometimes spelled bosun)
Do You Really Believe That The News Is Being Treated As A New Type Of National Entertainment and Literature: Everyone saw Hurricane Katrina on TV. Hardly anyone saw Brokeback Mountain. To generate a larger audience, TV news has started dishing their stories as a cross between old school mini-series and new fangled reality TV. During my childhood, you could count on almost every kid at my school to have seen Jaws and Star Wars, which was a type of common film literature. The big movie last weekend was Snakes on a Plane. I know of two people who saw it. A few weeks ago it was Talladega Nights. I'm not sure anyone I know saw that. Maybe a better example is the big film from Christmas, The Chronicles of Narnia. I can name five people I know who saw that, but also I can name twice that many I know for a fact did not see it. At the university, a large group of people could not have a discussion of a film, such as Narnia, because many people would not have seen it. However, it would be possible to have a large discussion of any significant news event, such as Columbine, OJ, the Bush/Gore recount, 9/11, the war in Iraq, or even less publicized cases such as the Washington DC Sniper or the Scott Peterson murder trial, because media news has fashioned these events into identifiable narratives. And we, as a country, carry these stories as a strange new type of literature.
And In Your New Collection Of Stories You Are...: Exploring through parody our connection to the news as a new type of scripted entertainment.
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