Margaret Fuller, watercolor by Jim Stovall © 2017
Margaret Fuller can rightly be called America’s first female public intellectual. Her voluminous writing and her ideas made her the equal to any of the men of her age, including her friends Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Fuller is one of the remarkable women whom we will be profiling on JPROF.com in the next few days.
Check out Jim’s Art on FineArtAmerica.com
Lighthouse
Prints of this watercolor are now available on FineArtAmerica.com.
One of my favorite subjects in the lighthouse, and I have done a number of drawings and paintings of them over the years. I particularly like this one and hope that you will enjoy it.
Please remember the victims of Hurricane Harvey and Irma by donating to the relief organization of your choice. My choice is the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR.org), but there are many other good choices.
Kill the Quarterback
Today seems to be the perfect day to remind folks that Kill the Quarterback is still available as a free digital download at Instafreebie: https://www.instafreebie.com/free/COmF4
Kill the Quarterback is a mystery novel set in Nashville with Mitch Sawyer, police reporter for the Nashville Daily Tribune, as the main character. When a star collegiate quarterback is murdered, the police have a suspect, but they can’t find her. Instead, she finds Mitch.
After that, nothing goes right for anyone.
What reviewers in August said about Kill the Quarterback
Take a big football hero and mix in the Asian community and you have the basis for a good story. Then, add in the intrigue of a newspaper office with positions at stake and most of us will be hooked. Kill the Quarterback has all these, and more. Oh yes, some of it is predictable. But, then just as you think you know something, you get slapped with a new twist. Mr. Stovall has done an excellent job in creating mystery and suspense. It’s clear he knows the newspaper business. I recommend this book, and await his next mystery.
***
I certainly stepped outside of the box reading Kill the Quarterback. Overall, reading the book reminded me of watching an old black and white Humphrey Bogart movie where he narrates in first person. Given that, the author of Killing the Quarterback has done an excellent job re-creating that imagery through rich dialogue that is embedded between and within the characters. The depth and layering of the descriptive’s allow the reader to see, touch, smell as if they were a part of the story is instrumental in the overall experience. There were times when I was lamenting the story becoming tedious in getting to unveiling who the killer was, but then other times I became so caught up in the character involvement and narrative that I wasn’t thinking of when will the killer be unveiled. I would say that the back and forth can be a sign of a good book, but also a delicate balancing act which had me conflicted while reading, yet caught off guard by the killer’s identity at the end. In fact, I read the last chapter three times to understand not only who the killer was but why. (NOTE: I received a free advanced copy of the book to read in exchange for providing an honest review). I would RECOMMEND Kill The Quarterback as your next read. –Tex.
***
I read a lot of crime fiction novels, only occasionally do I come across one the caliber of Jim Stovall’s “Kill the Quarterback”. Fast moving right from the start. Exciting plot-line. Colorful characters. The prose is peppered with thought provoking analogies and commentary from the protagonist Mitchell Sawyer, a few examples: “Donnie could be as comforting as a prescription drug commercial and just as deceptive…”; “..the rain pelted my windshield hard, as if the water were angry at the glass for its mere existence”; “a whistle-less freight train on a dark night couldn’t have hit me any harder than the impact I felt from what she just said” and my favorite Mitch speaking about Dr Klein, the police pathologist: “Most of what medical school is about is learning how to talk to civilians with a straight face in a language they won’t understand and making them feel inadequate because of it. Klein had learned his lessons well”.
From the blog
A couple of items from the blog might be of interest to some. Find out why the Smithsonian Institution in Washington is named after someone who was not an American and who never set foot on this continent. And read a poem about being a newspaperman in the 1880s.
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More details here.
Sign up for your free copy of Kill the Quarterback
Combat artists come alive in new Battlelines series
The rarely-seen work of Civil War combat artists is now available in a new Battlelines series on Amazon and other book dealers.
The series currently features the work of Alfred Waud and Edwin Forbes, the two artists that were present at the battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863. Many of the sketches included in these volumes have never been published.
The first volume is available FREE on Amazon and at other venues. Here’s where you can get it:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0732G4WW3
Books2read universal link: books2read.com/u/3LrWE1
JPROF.com, the author site for Jim Stovall
Jim Stovall
Jim Stovall spent nearly 40 years teaching journalism, first at the University of Alabama (1978-2003), then at Emory and Henry College (2003-2006), and finally at the University of Tennessee (2006-2016). Stovall is the author of Writing for the Mass Media, a writing textbook that has been in print (and now in digital form) for more than 30 years. It was used in more than 500 colleges and universities around the world.
Now in retirement, Stovall lives on a small farm in East Tennessee and spends his time writing, woodworking, painting (watercolor) and drawing (pen and ink), gardening and a number of other activities.
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You can connect with Jim on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and BookBub.
My Amazon author page is where you can find more information about my books.
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