Search and Replace

This is a book trailer I made using Notepad's Search and Replace function. This just proves that you don't need a big budget to make a book trailer. All you need is a word processor, lots of spare time, and the heart of a lion.

Poets & Writers 2011 First Fiction Roundup

I am interviewed by Hannah Tinti in the new issue of Poets & Writers. P&W has selected The Great Frustration for their 2011 First Fiction Roundup, highlighting the best debut fiction of the summer. You can read an excerpt from TGF on their site here. Make sure to check out the excerpts from the other great writers on the list as well: William Giraldi, Eleanor Henderson, Daniel Orozco, and Vanessa Veselka.

In Stores Now

Upcoming Events

In an attempt to prove once and for all that I can read out loud, I have agreed to do several readings in the Brooklyn/Manhattan bi-borough area. Many of these events are still taking shape, so I will update this list with more information as things develop. I will also add whole new events as The Great Frustration continues to win over hearts and minds.

Fiction Addiction
Date: June 28th, 2011
Time: 8:00 PM
Location: 2A
Attire: Festive
Event Status: Total Victory

Vol. 1 Brooklyn
Date: July 13th, 2011
Time: TBA
Location: Bookthugnation
Attire: Jean short casual
Other readers: Adam Novy, Christian TeBordo, and Katarina Hybenova
Event Status: Total Victory

Freerange Reading Series
Date: August 3rd, 2011
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Pianos
Attire: Female bullfighter
Other readers: Deb Olin Unferth, B.C. Edwards, Courtney Maum, Carmela Ciuraru
Event Status: Pyrrich Victory

The Urbanists: An Art Show
Date: August 19th, 2011
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Veronica People's Club
Attire: Champagne Helmets
Other Readers/Artists: Someone literally named 'Ammo', Ryan O'Connell, M.J. Corey, Grace Moon, A.K. Burns, Brooks Turner, Daniela Dusak, Dana Givens
Event Status: Victory conceded to Ammo

Franklin Park Reading Series
Date: September 12th, 2011
Time: 8:00 PM
Location: Franklin Park
Attire: Old-timey diving equipment
Other readers: Emma Straub, Tiphanie Yanique, Michael Showalter
Event Status: Total Victory

Brooklyn Book Festival
In and Out of Time: Reading/Q&A on going beyond non-linear narrative
Date: September 18th, 2011
Time: 10:00 AM
Location: St. Francis McCardle Hall
Attire: Dinosaur costume optional
Other readers: Diana Gabaldon, Samantha Hunt
Event Status: Total Victory

Brooklyn Book Festival
Short and Sweet (and Sour): Reading/Q&A
Date: September 18th, 2011
Time: 5:00PM
Location: St. Francis Volpe Library
Attire: Volpe bookish
Other readers: Amelia Gray, Clark Blaise
Event Status:  Total Victory

Word Bookstore
Date: October 2nd, 2011
Time: 7PM
Location: Word Bookstore
Attire: Circus wedding
Other readers: Charles Yu
Event Status: Total Victory

Happy Endings Reading Series
Date: October 5th, 2011
Time: 7PM
Location: Joe's Pub
Attire: Short robe formal
Other readers: Paul La Farge, Jesse Ball
Event Status: Total Victory

Dangit I'm Thirsty! Music & Reading Series: Scary Story Night
Date: October 25th, 2011
Location: 113 North 7th Street (Brooklyn)
Attire: Starter Jacket Formal
Other Readers: Chloe Caldwell
Event Status: Total Victory

Winter Wheat
Date: November 12th, 2011
Time: TBA
Location: Bowling Green State University (Go Falcons!)
Attire: Spiderman casual
Other readers: Kevin Wilson

Praisepocalypse: People Saying Nice Things About My Book

"Seth Fried is a pure delight to read--his stories are like parables from some alternate sci-fi Bible, funny and wise and generous, deeply strange and even more deeply familiar."

--Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!

"The 11 stories in Fried's debut have the vigor of adventures ... there's a strain of absurdism in his prose that combines pathos, unease, and dark humor to add depth and give these stories a sense of modernity and relevance."

--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"Seth Fried's stories are laugh-out-loud hilarious and wonderfully weird, yet his many strange worlds also have the power to haunt, echoing the sorrows and yearnings of ordinary life in the way dreams can. This is an inspired and inspiring collection from an important new young writer."

--Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply

"... perfectly controlled and irresistibly propulsive."

--The Portland Mercury

"In The Great Frustration, Seth Fried creates elaborate set pieces, populates them with living, breathing characters, arranges them for maximum chaos, and then sets it all in motion, inviting you to watch catastrophe and disaster and ruin. Even if you wanted to stop reading, you couldn't: his sentences drive you forward with a relentless rhythm, breaking your heart, then reassembling it, then breaking it again, and you don't even mind, because, oh yeah, while he's doing this he's also making you laugh out loud."

--Charles Yu, author of How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

"Playful, occasionally absurd ... These stories have the antic comedy of Monty Python, but the characters resemble the lost boys of Judd Apatow. Grade: A-"

--Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Fried often goes in for the kill when you least expect it, mining an emotional depth from his intensely flawed characters that is rare in debut fiction ... The Great Frustration is the type of debut story collection I love reading."

--The Rumpus

"These powerful and beautifully absurd stories create poetry from the collected voice of those who love and hate and dream and yearn. They stirred my imagination and time and time again seduced me into reflecting on the hopefulness and vulnerabilities of being human. The Great Frustration is a wonderfully original debut."

--Alan Heathcock, author of Volt

"Weirdly wonderful, Fried’s story collection inhabits equally the philosophical and the visceral."

--ZYZZYVA

"Seth Fried’s stories have extraordinary range, reminiscent of Borges, allowing the reader to become a time-traveler in a world populated by 21^st century misadventures with prehistoric bones and a bestiary of microscopic beasts. You will enter the Garden of Eden the very moment before disasters began. His voice and imagination will dazzle you."--Thaisa Frank, author of Heidegger's Glasses

"Seth Fried has a wildly humorous imagination, but also sharp technical skills and beauty of language that weaves deep examinations of self and humanity into the inner folds of his crazy worlds. He’s channeling Saunders by way of Barthelme and Kafka, but also clearing a whole new territory of his own. Listen up and open this book: Seth Fried is the future of fiction."

--Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief

"These stories are joyful, breathtaking, and ridiculously funny. Yes, there is darkness and violence and the constant threat of unhappy endings, but Fried is such a stunning writer, you actually love the coming disaster because it is so perfectly presented on the page."

--Kevin Wilson, author of Tunneling to the Center of the Earth and The Family Fang

"Seth Fried should not be read by those with a heart condition, or by women who are nursing or pregnant. Do not read Seth Fried when driving or operating heavy machinery. Because his stories are not only addictive, but dangerously good. He will make your heart stop and your jaw drop. You will suffer from bouts of thoughtful silence and seizures of hilarity and may even soil yourself with pleasure. Consider yourself warned."

--Benjamin Percy, author of The Wilding and Refresh, Refresh