Ragazine: Womb is an Entertaining and Provocative Read

Ragazine recently published an issue with seven new books worth a look, and guess what book topped the list?

According to Ragazine, "Womb, is more a novel of ideas than characters. The characters, indeed, often seem purposely to represent types, almost like the characters in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, though the story is more realistic and less allegorical."

The review goes on to say, "Womb is an entertaining, provocative read that stays with the reader after he puts the book down."

Read the entire review at Ragazine.

http://ragazine.cc/2017/03/7-books-worth-a-lookreviews/

The Enoch Pratt Free Library hosts the official launch of Womb: a novel in utero this coming Tuesday! Please join me at the Enoch Pratt for a reading, some conversation, and a fun time.

The release reading is part of the Enoch Pratt’s Writers LIVE series supported in part by the Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund.

Past Writers LIVE authors have included Terry McMillan, Colson Whitehead, Roxane Gay, and Ron Tanner.

Writers LIVE: Eric D. Goodman, Womb: a novel in utero takes place this coming Tuesday, March 28 at 6:30 p.m. 

Early readers and reviewers of Womb have called the book “engagingly original,” “strange and wonderful,” “amazing,” “a cocktail of all human emotion,” “brave,” “full of wisdom and goodwill,” and say that it “has a lot to say” and is “written with sophistication and poetry.”

Reviews have compared Womb to Ian McEwan’s Nutshell and Emma Donoghue’s Room, and said, “Goodman rises to the challenge posed by the foetus’ limited perspective, relating a story of betrayal and domestic turmoil through the filter of the uterine wall.”

Womb: a novel in utero was officially released on Tuesday, March 21 and can be found in bookstores in person and online. Books will be available for buying and signing at the library event.

Learn more about this Enoch Pratt Free Library event at their online calendar.

http://calendar.prattlibrary.org/event/writers_live_eric_d_goodman_womb_a_novel_in_utero#.WG_1qoMrKos

Advance Praise for Womb: a novel in utero

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What are other authors, reviewers, and readers saying about Womb: a novel in utero? 

Let's have a look-see.

“An utterly unique look at the world from the most unlikely vantage point. In Womb, Goodman has created a humorous, thoughtful, unexpected narrator who is wise beyond his years.”

                         - Jennifer Miller, author of The Heart You Carry Home

 “Eric D. Goodman has taken a strange and wonderful idea and turned it into the novel Womb, which is narrated winningly by the wisest fetus in literature.”

                         - Michael Kimball, author of Us, Big Ray, and Dear Everybody

 “Wild, wacky and engagingly original, Womb will take you on a journey whose destination is nothing short of Life—with a capital L.”

                         - Yona Zeldis McDonough, author of The House On Primrose Pond

 “There is real suspense in this brave book and more than one surprise. So, suspend your disbelief and let the lad talk.”
                         - Ron Tanner, author of Missile Paradise

 “In Womb: a novel in utero, Eric D. Goodman explores the paradox between what we know innately about love and what we’ve forgotten in our attempts and mistakes to cherish each other. It is a tenderhearted story that’s laced with grace.”
                       
                         - Jen Grow, author of My Life As A Mermaid

 “Womb’s wise before his years narrator has a whole world to show us—our own—if only we, and his own struggling parents, can remember how to listen past the noise of our busy postnatal lives. He knows big things we’ve forgotten and he knows he’ll forget them soon, too, but this highly attuned, deeply inquisitive novel gives us a welcome chance to be reminded of what is always already there.”
         
                         - Steve Himmer, author of Scratch, Fram, and The Bee-Loud Glade

 “Goodman's Womb is a witty, innovative look into inner space. Well written, with entertaining plot twists."
                         - Toby Devens, author of Barefoot Beach and Happy Any Day Now

 “Eric D. Goodman's absorbing new novel, Womb, is about a high-risk pregnancy—in more ways than one—told from the fetus's point of view. The narrator is full of wisdom and goodwill, which we understand to be our birthright, but it's his father, Jack, whose character and courage burst from the pages like … well, like an infant from the womb. Eric D. Goodman is a talented storyteller.”
                         - Charles Rammelkamp, author of Mata Hari: Eye of the Day and
                            American Zeitgeist

 “It is amazing, what awaits in Eric D. Goodman's latest full-length fiction. Womb, an inventive and eye-opening novel-in-utero, is a cocktail of all human emotion, presented through the impressions and knowledge of the most internally omniscient and instinctual of narrators. Goodman bravely stakes out uncharted routes in his endearing and enduring account of life, both before and after birth. Fear, love, pain, desire, and longing drive the human minds and voices of this literary crossroads, and their unstoppable drive toward and from each other.”
 
                         - Katherine Cottle, author of Halfway: A Journal through Pregnancy

 “Leave it to Eric D. Goodman to have the imagination to narrate his latest risk-taking novel,Womb, in utero. The point of view here is not only inimitable and inventive in its fly-on-the-wall approach, but Goodman’s novel also brings the goods in scintillating prose. A truly tender, remarkable story.  You won’t read another novel like Womb anywhere.”
                       
                        - Nathan Leslie, author of Sibs, Madre, and The Tall Tale of Tommy Twice

 “Eric D. Goodman’s Womb: a novel in utero is unique. In Goodman’s telling, the zygote—and later the embryo and still later the fetus—is blessed with the wisdom of the ages, which he fears he will lose upon birth. As he watches his parents and people around them cope with his existence, he worries about their life choices. He yearns to impart to them his wisdom and is determined that after birth he will remember everything he now knows. Written with sophistication and poetry, Womb surpasses Goodman’s earlier writing in the sheer beauty of the prose and the suspense that unnerves the unborn protagonist.”

                         - Tom Glenn, author of No-Accounts and Last of the Anamese

“The precocious prenatal narrator of Eric D. Goodman's novel, Womb, examines one of humanity's most common experiences—the nine-month drama of expecting parents—complete with its anxiety, joy, and adjustments. When a secret threatens to tear apart Jack and Penny, the arrival of this imaginative novel's in utero sage might be the ultimate solution.”

                         - Gregg Wilhelm, Founder Emeritus, CityLit Project

 “Goodman rises to the challenge posed by the foetus’ limited perspective, relating a story of betrayal and domestic turmoil through the filter of the uterine wall.”

                         - Litro,United Kingdom’s largest print and online literary magazine

 “An expansive meditation on stability and identity from a confined perspective.”
 (In a review comparing Eric D. Goodman's Womb to Ian McEwan's Nutshell and Emma Donoghue's Room.)
​
                         - Library Journal

https://www.amazon.com/Womb-novel-Eric-D-Goodman-ebook/dp/B06XGLRR8C/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

It's a Book! Womb is born

Today's the official due date for Womb: a novel in utero!

The first day of spring is Monday, March 20. However, books (like albums) are traditionally released on Tuesday. So Womb: a novel in utero will be released on Tuesday, March 21.

Early readers and reviewers of Womb have called the book “engagingly original,” “strange and wonderful,” “amazing,” “a cocktail of all human emotion,” “brave,” “full of wisdom and goodwill,” and say that it “has a lot to say” and is “written with sophistication and poetry.”

Reviews have compared Womb to Ian Mcewan’s Nutshell and Emma Donoghue’s Room, and said, “Goodman rises to the challenge posed by the foetus’ limited perspective, relating a story of betrayal and domestic turmoil through the filter of the uterine wall.”

Discover the comfort of a warm womb for yourself. Order your copy today at www.EricDGoodman.com, www.Amazon.com, www.IndieBound.com, or at your local book store! If they don't have it, tell them they should and have them order a copy for you and a few for the shelves.

Learn more about Womb: a novel in utero and find out what others are saying about the novel today on it's release date at www.Facebook.com/Edgewriter and www.EricDGoodman.com/womb.html.

Feel free to leave our own comments about Womb on Facebook, Amazon, or Goodreads!

Tom Glenn Makes the Front Page

At the Lit and Art Reading Series, Tom Glenn is often referred to as "The REAL World's Most Interesting Man." I don't take credit for coining that term; I believe Nitin Jagdish came up with it. But I use it often. More than a great author, Tom speaks seven languages, plays classical piano on his Steinway, is an expert on opera, served as a spy, and was in Saigon when the city fell to the communist, leaving under fire.

Recently, Tom was featured in the Baltimore Sun and some of it's satellite newspapers. I was honored to be able to talk with the reporter about Tom and his work.

His latest work is Last of the Annamese, a beautiful hardcover released by Naval Institute Press. The wonderfully designed book and cover do justice to the equally wonderful work inside. 

Here's what I wrote about the book when I first read it:

"With a storyline and prose that alternates between gentle and brutal, Tom Glenn’s The Last of the Annamese aches with empathy. The stark realities of love and war, loyalty and betrayal, and doing or accepting dishonorable things for honorable reasons are explored—filtered through a compassionate lens. Tom Glenn’s gripping novel will leave you pondering the main character’s question: Do all memories have to hurt?"

Check out the article about Tom and his book at the link below.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/howard/ellicott-city/ph-ho-cf-tom-glenn-pg-photogallery.html

Toby Devens on Womb: Witty, Innovative Look into Inner Space

Toby Devens is the acclaimed author of such novels as Barefoot Beach, Happy Any Day Now, and My Favorite Mid-Life Crisis (Yet). What was her response after reading Womb: a novel in utero?

"Goodman's Womb is a witty, innovative look into inner space. Well written, with entertaining plot twists."

-- Toby Devens,
    author of Barefoot Beach and Happy Any Day Now

Learn more about Toby and her writing at www.tobydevens.com.

FREE Book for an Honest Review

A free lunch may be hard to find, but a free book? We have one with your name on it.

Reviews at Amazon, GoodReads, and other places people go to find out what readers think can make a big difference in the success of a book, especially one published by a small press. Small presses produce great work that larger presses often ignore. Small presses take risks on work they feel are worthwhile, while most large publishers focus on the bottom dollar: is this a proven, sure think and will it make gobs of money.

Getting reviews helps the Davids get equal footing with the Goliaths.

That's why Merge Publishing is offering a free copy of my new book, Womb: a novel in utero, to anyone who is willing to read it and give an honest review and/or rating on Amazon, Goodreads, and any other venues.

Ideally, we'd like reviews to be posted during Womb Week, between March 21 and March 28. Having them online during the launch will be helpful. But a review anytime for a small press is appreciated.

The review can be just a few sentences, like a blurb, or longer, if desired. If you don't have time for a full review, even just a rating would be helpful. We're fond of stars, to the more the merrier. 

Of course, even after you get your free book, if you'd like to support my writing and Merge's efforts, you're welcome to purchase additional copies as gifts for other readers on your lest. In fact, we encourage it!

But first and foremost, we're looking for a few good reviews. Uncle Merge wants YOU!

Here's where you can claim your free copy of Womb: a novel in utero in exchange for an honest review. 

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/1mSOZ

And, here's an example of one of the reviews we've received so far.

http://ragazine.cc/2017/03/7-books-worth-a-lookreviews/


Claim your free copy of Womb: a novel in utero at https://www.instafreebie.com/free/1mSOZ

Tom Glenn on Womb: Written with Sophistication and Poetry

Tom Glenn knows a thing or two about writing with sophistication and poetry. Author of three published books, his fourth, Last of the Anamese, was published by Naval Institute Press last month.

“Eric D. Goodman’s Womb a novel in utero is unique. I know of no other work of fiction told from the first-person point of view of an unborn child. In Goodman’s telling, the zygote—and later the embryo and still later the fetus—is blessed with the wisdom of the ages which he fears he will lose upon birth. As he watches his parents and people around them cope with his existence, he worries about his parents and their life choices. He yearns to impart to them his wisdom and is determined that after birth he will remember everything he now knows. Written with sophistication and poetry, Womb surpasses all of Goodman’s earlier writing in the sheer beauty of the prose and the suspense that unnerves the unborn protagonist.”

--Tom Glenn

Author, Friendly Casualties, No-Accounts, The Trion Syndrome, and Last of the Anamese

Jen Grow on Womb: Tenderhearted, Laced with Grace

Jen Grow is a Baltimore writer to watch. Her award-winning debut story collection, My Life As A Mermaid, has gotten great reviews, and she won the 2016 Mary Sawyers Baker award of $20,000 for her writing. What did Jen think about Womb: a novel in utero?

"In Womb: a novel in utero, Eric D. Goodman explores the paradox between what we know innately about love and what we’ve forgotten in our attempts and mistakes to cherish each other. It is a tenderhearted story that’s laced with grace. 

-- Jen Grow, 
   author of My Life As A Mermaid

Learn more about Jen and her writing at www.jengrow.com.

Experience Womb's Interactive Press Release

Michael Kimball on Womb: Strange and Wonderful

Michael Kimball knows how to take readers on emotional rides, with such acclaimed novels as Us, Dear Everybody, and Big Ray. Even Oprah’s taken note. So it came as a thrill when Kimball took note of Womb.

“Eric D. Goodman has taken a strange and wonderful idea and turned it into the novel Womb, which is narrated winningly by the wisest fetus in literature.”

--Michael Kimball,

Author of Us, Big Ray, Dear Everybody, and

Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a Postcard)