This summer Frank has worked on all sorts of film, TV and comedy projects and he’s been back and forth to LA a few times negotiating a television show. While there he’s hung out with folks like Slash, Kid Rock and Clifton Collins Jr.

Check out Frank below at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival opening night gala in late August. He’s at a 3 minutes 56 seconds.

Here’s a trailer for The Experiment starring Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker AND Frank Meeink. He’s at 33 seconds in and you’ll see him throughout…

Here’s a comedic take on everything that can go wrong during an interview thanks to the TV Fantastic folks…

LORETTA STINSON & LITTLE GREEN

Loretta Stinson has been doing all sorts of book events and interviews for Little Green since it came out on June 1st. The next big dates on the horizon are late August when she sets off for the Bay Area with readings at Green Apple Books on Wednesday, Aug. 25th and at Book Passage on Thursday, August 26th. We’re hammering out the details at the moment but we know that the San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium will be participating in the Green Apple event and we’ve got some other things brewing in the area as well with various domestic violence organizations and crisis centers.

Check out this Literary Arts interview with Loretta here.

FRANK MEEINK ON THE HISTORY CHANNEL’S GANGLAND

Frank Meeink of Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead has been busy with all sorts of projects. In the middle of his 20-plus city book tour this spring/summer he took time to film this History Channel segment that airs Friday night….

COVER SET FOR LIDIA YUKNAVITCH’S CHRONOLOGY OF WATER

We’re so pleased with the drop dead gorgeous final cover for Lidia Yuknavitch’s upcoming spring 2011 Hawthorne Books title The Chronology of Water — designed by Adam McIsaac at Pinch. And just so you know, there will be a book belly band available for booksellers concerned with the nudity.

SCOTT NADELSON & PLOUGHSHARES

Scott Nadelson’s short story collection Aftermath will be published by us next summer but in the meantime Scott has been busy teaching at Willamette University and, of course, writing, writing and more writing. Ploughshares published Nadelson’s Dolph Shayes’s Broken Arm in its spring 2010 issue guest-edited by Elizabeth Strout and you can read the story in its entirety on their site.

Every once in awhile it’s good to do a roundup of Hawthorne goings-on. The past few weeks we’ve had a lot of great events and press for Hawthorne titles and authors that we’d like to share with you here. Loretta Stinson will be reading at Annie Bloom’s Books in Multnomah Village tonight at 7:30pm and she has a lot of upcoming events. Check out her beautiful revamped website for an up-to-the-minute Loretta schedule. Little Green has also been getting a lot of great reviews and coverage. Here are a few of the latest:

The Rumpus review of Little Green

Biblioklept’s review of Little Green

For all things Loretta Stinson head here...

PETER H. FOGTDAL & THE TSAR’S DWARF

Peter H. Fogtdal’s novel The Tsar’s Dwarf got a great review in the Spring 2010 issue of The Los Angeles Review. If you haven’t checked out this Red Hen Press publication you’re missing out. Included in the issue are stories by Barry Lopez, Tess Gallagher, Rick Bass and Mark Acito.

So happy to get this in the mail...

The Los Angeles Review's review of The Tsar's Dwarf.

MONICA DRAKE & CLOWN GIRL

Monica Drake’s novel Clown Girl continues to get a lot of great press and attention, not to mention the optioning of the novel by SNL’s Kristen Wiig. Here’s the latest Clown Girl review from Rose City Reader.

Still garnering great reviews...

FRANK MEEINK, JODY M. ROY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A RECOVERING SKINHEAD

Frank Meeink of Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead is winding down his 20-plus city tour and the media hits keep coming. Tune into The Leonard Lopate Show today or visit the online archives and listen to Frank talk about his past and the book. He will also be on CBS’ The Unfiltered Show.

Check out Frank Meeink on today's The Leonard Lopate Show.

SCOTT NADELSON & PLOUGHSHARES BLOG

Hawthorne Books author Scott Nadelson has been writing regularly over at the Ploughshares Blog. We’ve really been enjoying his posts and think you will too.

A lot of good writing from Scott Nadelson on the Ploughshares blog.

For more information about all of these titles and more please visit the Hawthorne Books website:
www.hawthornebooks.com

Visit this blog for all things Loretta and Little Green...

Little Green is out and about and along with its pub. date on the first of June comes a lot of book events. The latest and greatest is below but please check back here for continual updates. You can also bookmark Loretta’s blog for all sorts of good info. and thoughts.

Loretta Stinson Book Tour
Saturday, 22 May 2010 :: 11.45 – 1.15 pm
Portland State University Ooligan Press | Neuberger Hall, 724 SW Harrison Street, Portland, Oregon 97201. 503.725.9748 :: Loretta Stinson to participate on a panel at the Write to Publish, a conference organized by Ooligan Press.

Thursday, 03 June 2010 :: 6.30 – 8.30 pm
Portland State University | Smith Hall, Room 333, Portland, OR :: Loretta Stinson reads from her debut novel, Little Green.

Thursday, 17 June 2010 :: 7:30pm
Annie Bloom’s Books | 7834 SW Capitol Highway, Portland, OR :: Loretta reads from Little Green.

Thursday, 24 June 2010 :: 7.00 – 9.00 pm
Blackbird Wine Shop | 3519 NE 44th Avenue, Portland, OR 97213. T: (503) 282-1887 :: Loretta Stinson reads from her debut novel, Little Green.

Tuesday, 29 June 2010 :: 7.00 – 8.30 pm
Broadway Books | 1714 NE Broadway, Portland, OR 97232. 503-284-1726 :: Loretta Stinson reads from her debut novel, Little Green.

Wednesday, 14 July 2010 :: 7.30 – 9.00 pm
Powell’s Books | 3747 Hawthorne, Portland, OR 97214. (503) 235-3802 :: Loretta reads from her debut novel, Little Green.

Thursday, 29 July 2010 :: 7.00 – 8.00 pm
Elliott Bay Book Company | 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122. (206) 624-6600. :: Loretta Stinson reads from her debut novel, Little Green.

Wednesday, 25 August 2010 :: 7.00 – 8.30 pm
Green Apple Books | 506 Clement Street, San Francisco, CA 94118. (T) 415 387-2272. :: Loretta Stinson reads from her debut novel, Little Green.

Thursday, 26 August 2010 :: 7.00 – 8.30 pm
Book Passage Cafe | 51 Tamal Vista Boulevard, Corte Madera, CA 94925-1145. T: (415) 927-0960 :: Loretta Stinson reads from her debut novel, Little Green.

Frank Meeink's talk last night at Powell's Books downtown PDX...

Frank Meeink of Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead has been in Portland for the past several days doing all sorts of great book events including a book launch party at Mississippi Pizza Pub and a reading last night at Powell’s Books downtown. If you haven’t seen him this time around tonight is his last Portland event — a reading/talk at the Clackamas Town Center Barnes & Noble at 7pm.

Tuesday, June 8 2010 :: 7.00 – 8.00 pm
Barnes & Noble | Clackamas Town Center, 12000 SE 82nd Avenue, Portland, OR 97086. T: (503) 786-3464 :: Frank Meeink, Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead.

On bookshelves nationwide!

Although publication dates are sometimes a bit slippery with books (you’ll often find titles on shelves a week to three weeks before pub. date) it’s still a momentous occasion for the writer and the publisher. Today Loretta Stinson’s Little Green is officially out in the world. We are very happy and so are a lot of you. We know because you’ve told us and so have the reviewers. Here are a few of the reviews rolling in…

Reading Local: Portland
Valet Reader
Brain Candy Book Reviews

A clip from the ForeWord Reviews piece:

Loretta Stinson successfully mixes drama with gritty reality in her first novel, in which she navigates the fraught waters of domestic violence and drug culture with a careful hand and compassionate heart…Her characters are dynamic and utterly real and while we may want to seal our eyes from the images she hands us it’s impossible not to watch, not to hurt for Janie…while her dreams slip further and further from her grasp.–Andie Diehn, ForeWord Reviews

This fine looking fellow, Frank Meeink, will be in PDX June 3-8 for readings and events.

A little more good news…

Since March 30th, Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead’s Frank Meeink has been on his 20-plus city book tour and this week he lands in Portland. From Ames, Iowa, to Chicago, Phoenix, New York City, Boston, LA, Las Vegas, and more Frank has been zigzagging across the country for book readings and events.

We’re looking forward to spending the better part of a week with him here and since we’re good at sharing we hope you’ll join us. Come one, come all!

Portland calendar:

June 5th, 9pm — Book launch party @ Mississippi Pizza Pub, live music by Nicole Berke, no cover and pizza and beer on us, 3552 N Mississippi Ave., Portland OR.
June 7th, 7:30pm — Reading @ Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside, Portland OR.
June 8th, 7pm — Reading @ Barnes & Noble Clackamas Town Center Mall, 12000 SE 82nd Ave., Portland OR.

Recent coverage:

Huffington Post
Ring of Fire Radio
Utne Reader
Coast to Coast
Fresh Air
Chicago Tribune

Check out Frank Meeink on Fresh Air...

“And I remember looking up at God and saying, ‘God, maybe there’s something wrong. Maybe you’re right. Maybe on the black, Asian and Latino issue, maybe we are all equal.’”

The above quote is from Frank Meeink’s interview with Dave Davies on Fresh Air Wednesday, April 7th. The thirty-minute interview covered Meeink’s abusive upbringing, his transformation from skater to skinhead, his time in prison, his recovery, as well as his book Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead written by Jody M. Roy, Ph.D.

We also want to let you know that Hawthorne Books senior editor, Adam O’Connor Rodriguez will be at AWP (The Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference this week in Denver, Colorado, at the Colorado Convention Center, exhibit hall A, table P8, tabling for Hawthorne Books along with some of our authors. If you’re in the area, stop by and say hello.

Listen to Frank Meeink on Fresh Air

All sorts of media attention building...

It’s been an exciting month for Hawthorne Books as we move closer to the April 1st, 2010 pub. date for Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead. In the past two weeks there have been all sorts of developments and we’d like to keep you in the loop.

Reviews Already In

The Rumpus:

“Frank Meeink is the most famous ex-skinhead in America, his life the basis for the character
of Derek Vinyard, the neo-Nazi portrayed by Edward Norton in American History X… Amazingly brutal and difficult to digest, Autobiography follows Frank from childhood through his involvement with the white supremacist movement.” — Caleb Powell

Booklist:

“Here’s a memoir guaranteed to generate a high amount of interest. Stories of personal redemption don’t get much more interesting than this one… Unflinchingly straightforward: some of the language is quite raw, and imagery quite graphic. But there’s no point in telling this story if you’re going to whitewash it first.” — David Pitt

Kirkus Reviews:

“Indelicate and harsh, but never preachy or whiny, this is an intimate, uncompromising memoir. Though it hits some predictable notes-mostly because of Edward Norton’s familiar character in American History X-it speaks forcefully from experience. Fearless, enduring story of human fragility and strength.” — Molly Brown

The Portland Mercury:

“And while a behind-the-scenes look at the neo-Nazi movement provides the book’s most fascinating moments, Autobiography is equally a tale of alcoholism, drug addiction, and recovery… Autobiography reads like an alcoholic’s fourth step—’a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves’—because that’s essentially what it is…remarkable evidence that people really can change.” — Alison Hallett

Upcoming Media

Fresh Air interview
People Magazine review
Utne Reader review
Huffington Post story
Publishers Weekly review
ABC Channel 6 Action News interview
Kirkus Reviews interview
Iowa Public Radio interview

Book Tour

March 30, 2010 Ames
April 7, 2010 Chicago
April 12, 2010 Phoenix
April 15, 2010 Tempe
April 21, 2010 Detroit
April 29, 2010 Albuquerque
May 4, 2010 Boston
May 12, 2010 Omaha
May 18, 2010 Orange County
May 20, 2010 Los Angeles
May 26, 2010 Las Vegas
June 1, 2010 Seattle
June 5, 2010 Portland
June 11, 2010 Denver
June 14, 2010 New York
June 21, 2010 Washington, DC

Social Media

Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead Facebook
Hawthorne Books Facebook
Hawthorne Books Twitter

Now that we’re putting together the 20-plus city Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead book tour with the help of the Anti-Defamation League, it’s a good time to broadcast the media attention that Frank Meeink generates.

Frank’s agency Admire Entertainment put together this short reel with media coverage from the likes of Hard Copy (RIP) and Katie Couric. We’ve recently begun uploading videos to our Hawthorne Books YouTube Channel so if you want to stay up to date on all things Hawthorne Books head over and check it out and/or subscribe.

Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead reviews are already rolling in and they’re good. Really good. We’ll let you know more shortly.

Jody M. Roy and Frank Meeink on the road...

We thought it’d be nice to include an excerpt from Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead since we’ve been mailing out review copies and pre-sale orders for the past few weeks. For those of you who’ve ordered the book but haven’t received it yet — here’s a taste of what’s to come.

I learned heaps from this back-of-the-book interview that Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead editor Adam O’Connor Rodriguez conducted after the manuscript was delivered. The interview is an up close and personal way into the research as well as into Jody M. Roy’s writing process.

If you want to read the entire interview you’ll have to buy the book. From now until April 1st, 2010 the only place to purchase it is directly from us here. Added bonus: no shipping and handling. Not to mention you’ll be supporting a vibrant, small press. Don’t mind if we say so ourselves.

Without further ado…

Excerpted interview from Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead:

Adam O’Connor Rodriguez (AOR)
Jody M. Roy, Ph.D. (JMR)
Frank Meeink (FR)

AOR How did this project come about?

FM Jody came to me first on another book project she was working on and asked if I’d be interested in being interviewed for a chapter for the book. I said sure – she was recommended by a good friend of ours, Quay Hanna. She drove down to my house from Wisconsin; it’s about a six hour drive, and first thing, we went out to dinner and talked and she reminded me again that I was just a chapter in the book and I assured her I knew that I was more than a chapter. She laughed and said, “We’ll look into that later on.” That was our first real meeting.

JMR Frank’s response was slightly more colorful than “I’m more than a chapter” but that was the essence of it. For that particular project, the day after we had dinner together, we sat for about two and a half or three hours of interview, just sort of a basic run-through of everything, and I was convinced by the end that yes, Frank was more than a chapter, no doubt about that. But also, Frank seemed comfortable talking about the book project even at that point.

FM What I really felt comfortable with was two things: one, that she knew the lingo. I’d tried to work on this project with other people before, but to have to describe and define every piece of the movement – like what SHARPs are, Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice – to have to define all that stuff bogged me down talking until I wasn’t enjoying it. But when I talked to Jody, she would sometimes know more of the history than I did.

And second, she knew other things, like that some people have businesses in civil rights and sometimes those groups will use fear to get more donations. When I talked to her about that, she knew what I was talking about already; she knew what I was getting at. So I felt comfortable enough that I could say whatever I wanted, because I wouldn’t say something like that around most people. Of course, most civil rights groups are very legitimate, great groups, but when I said that some weren’t, she knew exactly what I was talking about. And I remember thinking right then that I felt comfortable with her.

AOR What was the process you used to get the story from spoken to written?

JMR We had that first short interview for the other project and we decided we’d move forward, but I had to finish working on the other project, some work I was doing wearing my academic hat. We actually got started about a year and a half later, just because of things we both had on our plates at the time. Step one was to do a great deal of interviewing, but also to do some site visits. This was a gut instinct on my part – I believed Frank would remember things better if he could see them. You have to remember – for four and a half years, Frank was pretty itinerant, at times homeless. There aren’t the kinds of records most people would have from their teenage years. We can’t look in the high school yearbook. We can’t look at family pictures in photo albums. We can’t cross-reference things to a grade sheet. Trying to pin things down and get the discussion going, it seemed it might be better if we left the home and office space and got in the car.

In October of 2005, I picked Frank up and we started toward the end of the story – we did Indiana and Illinois. It was our first trip ever together and it was quite a commitment. We were on the road for six days, twenty-four hours a day of work on the book interrupted only by sleep, naps really. I had Frank on tape basically the whole time, whether he was talking about things that had happened in Philly when he was a little kid or talking like, “Wow, I’m standing in the parking lot of Crazy Cate’s for the first time in fifteen years” – we captured it all. Part of that was so that I could go back and piece the timelines together, but it was also of course to capture his voice, because I needed tons of exposure to that.

After that trip, we went back to our separate corners, and I went into research mode really trying to nail down the dates. The following May, we spent seven or eight days on the East Coast doing the same thing – interviewing people, visiting the scenes of various events. And that was important for me because I had to get a feel for what some of these places looked like. One example: having not grown up on the East Coast, my concept of an urban alley is based on Chicago or St. Louis or Indianapolis. I had no idea that what Frank considers an alley, I would consider an outdoor hallway; I needed to see the compression of South Philly and how close things are to even begin to evoke that sense of space within the book. That trip was very important for that purpose. It was also important to meet people and capture their voices for purposes of dialogue in the book.

Somewhere in between those two trips, we realized we were off by a year on the time layout for the book and for his life. It took months to figure that out. As Frank talks openly about in the book, he not only was itinerant, he also lied about his age as a teen – it’s not like we could ask somebody, “Well, what was Frank doing when he was sixteen,” because when Frank was sixteen, people thought he was eighteen or nineteen. For several years, the timelines are convoluted and without touch points. Ultimately, what became the touch points were the arrest dates and counting back from that to Crazy Cate’s and counting back back back and realizing we had an extra year in there. We were off base due to confusion about his age and lying about his age when he was a teenager, and also because he just doesn’t have the date markers most people rely on. Frank can’t assume it was summer when something happened because he wasn’t in school then; he dropped out at fourteen. Actually, his memories of what was going on in sports and what songs were playing heavy rotation on the radio became very important. Without Guns-N-Roses, we never would’ve figured out parts of that timeline.

FM And on the lying about my age – most of my life I was either running, head of, or hanging with older guys, which included older girls. So most of my life, I wanted the girls to think I was older, so I was fourteen telling everyone I’m sixteen because the girls we’re hanging with are sixteen.

JMR Whenever we’d try to nail down when these things happened, I’d be talking to someone for the book and I’d ask, “Do you know how old Frank was when this happened?” And the universal answer was sixteen. Frank was sixteen for about five years according to most people who knew him. Figuring out the timeline was the hardest part of the book. We rarely were able to pinpoint a particular week or something; unless somebody keeps a daily record from birth on, they’re not going to be able to do that. But to get it into some kind of causal order was a key issue to me, and that took a long time. So after we got that down and did the site visits and the interviews and everything else, then I started the original rough draft. After that it’s been I draft and proof, then Frank reads and gives me feedback, then draft, proof, read, feedback, again and again for about two years, until we decided to move with it.

FM With the timeline, since I’ve been speaking about my life for the past ten or fifteen years, I remember when Jody and I first started this project, I thought, “Well, I’ve been telling this story, but am I standing on a stage as the fisherman who’s been telling people the fish was two foot big when really it was just one foot?” What was good about our trips was that it seemed like the fish really was two foot, because to hear other people tell their versions of the story, they actually make me sound worse – in my version of the story, I threw a lucky punch one night. But in other people’s versions, I was an animal. That was one of the good things about interviewing other people and me being very open and telling them they could say anything they wanted about me. Sometimes when Jody would do interviews, I’d leave so they could be as honest as they wanted about me.

*****

AOR You were incarcerated in an adult prison as a seventeen year old kid. How did doing that time shape who you are?

FM I learned to become a man in there. In the movement, I was surrounded by boys; even the older guys were scared little boys. And when I went to prison, I met people who were real men. Real men in the fact that they handled themselves like men. I didn’t even know how to shave. A dude had to teach me how to shave in there. I only had a little goatee then, but I’d never shaven in my life; my father never gave me that lesson, my stepfather never gave me that lesson, and I’ll never forget that prison is where I learned to shave; it’s where I learned to talk a little deeper and mean a little bit more about what I say. I don’t want to put forward that guys in prison are great representatives of men because, even when I give talks I’ll say that they’re not the real tough guys – the real tough guys are the men who pay their bills and take their kids fishing every weekend, those are the real tough guys.

I definitely became a man in there, and I learned that up until that point, I feared men because of my stepfather – I had a fear of men. And once I got in prison and learned that I can handle myself and do it with a streetwise dignity, that fear went away. Until then, I was always afraid of adult men. If you were a friend of mine and you had a dad, I didn’t want to be around the room with him – for one, I was probably trying to recruit you into the movement, so I didn’t want your dad to be involved in our talk, but I also had this fear that all fathers and father figures were mean. But in prison, I learned that I am a man and not all men are like that.

JMR One of the things I’ve noticed in Frank, and this is coming from that fear as a child that lingers, is that as a kid on Tree Street, the only time Frank could eat comfortably was very late at night after John was asleep or passed out. And I’ve noticed now, having spent a lot of time with Frank, that he still consumes nearly half of his calories in any twenty-four hour period standing at the kitchen cupboard in the middle of the night, or eating pickles out of the fridge or if we’re on the road, raiding hotel vending machines, because it’s safe.

FM I still do that every night, I wake up and I have to go downstairs and eat, because my body tells me, “ Yo, this is the time that you normally eat” and I do – I feel comfortable eating what I want, and my wife even says she knows there’s some issues there, like sometimes subconsciously I still might even hide what I ate, because when I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to go downstairs and eat, so if I ate something that came in a wrapper, I had to bury the wrapper at the bottom of the trash. I still do that, and I don’t know if that’s a fear of men or habit.

JMR The fear of men issue was overcome from everything I’ve seen. But some patterns that started because of that fear are still there, and that’s a behavior pattern I don’t think he’ll ever shake – it’s not like he’s eating at 2:00 a.m. because he’s scared of who’s actually in the room, it’s that his whole experience from ages ten through thirteen was so intense that it programmed certain behaviors that will always be there. It’s as if your stomach is only comfortable eating at that time.

FM It’s even hard for me today to discipline my kids forcefully and not think, “Am I treating them like my stepfather treated me?” I know I’m not; I know I treat my children a million times better than I was treated, but when it comes time to discipline them – and I don’t hit my kids or anything – I make sure to not cut too deep with my words. And sometimes I think maybe I need to do that; that they need to see I’m really disappointed in something they did but I can’t go there because my biggest fear is that they’re going to go to their bedrooms and feel what I felt. And it’s hard to go up to that line, but I have to do it daily with them.

To read more of this interview purchase the book Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead from the Hawthorne Books website.

What's in Hawthorne Books senior editor Adam O'Connor Rodriguez's pocket?

While we were all celebrating those late year/early year holidays a book-filled container on a ship made its way across the big blue to us at Hawthorne Books. After this container docked and then scooted down to Portland a man was nice enough to dolly up a fair few boxes of these books to our office. We tipped him generously. And now…

We’re filling pre-sales orders for our spring title Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead!  Even though this title won’t be on bookseller shelves until April 1, 2010 you can buy advance copies from us online. Not only will you get the book three months early — you won’t pay a dime for shipping and handling. For $15.95 it’ll be at your doorstep in a few days via USPS.

That’s true of all of our titles — no shipping and handling. Ever.

So if you weren’t one of these early birds…

First round of pre-sales mailing for Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead, a lot more to go.

Get your order in. We want to send you books.

Order Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead