Paul Haeder, Author

after many years, my short story collection is out!

Wide Open Eyes — Surfacing from Vietnam

What radiates from every page of Paul Haeder’s Wide Open Eyes – Surfacing from Vietnam is a journeyman’s gift for showing the ties that bind ordinary people to their own crystallized struggle with “their Vietnam War baggage.” These 17 stories confront estrangement war veterans and their families have dredged through lives which are heroic because they all are survivors. This a collection of stirring interlinked stories of reclamation from the perspective of the walking wounded. The characters are colorful inside Haeder’s cauldron of quirky visceral story-telling. Lost souls are deftly moved from plot to plot as this writer shows a wizard’s sense of life’s absurdity. There is sinew and heart sculpted into myriad of protagonists.

ORDER here:— Wide Open Eyes – Surfacing from Vietnam But scroll down and see another way to order, for your personalized copy!

— Ordinary people are scrawled into this atmospheric collection, yet Haeder seeks to explore the devastation of heartache by deploying black humor and leafy poignancy. From an old Army colonel lamenting rotting teeth getting yanked, to a hard-boiled street person humping it in the West flailing at his own demons from America’s War with Vietnam, this is funny, stirring stuff from a talented writer.

— Coupled with his imaginative story-telling and eye-watering vernacular, this collection comes with visuals – 18 arresting photographs anchoring each story. The writer was in Vietnam – after the war – as his preface sets the stage for the first casualties of war.

Praise for WOE — Short stories:

“From a lonely book seller in Albuquerque to a street vagabond in Tucson, these are people most readers pass over in their lives. As readers of this collection, if we keep our eyes open and ears tuned, Haeder shows us vibrancy in people struggling. The author pins a lot of these stories on the theme surfacing from Vietnam, but the reality is we as readers are forced to dive deep into the author’s realm of sometimes twisted characters and unforgiving plots.” — Rick DeMarinis (1995), Author of The Year of the Zinc Penny, The Mortician’s Apprentice, and other works.

I will be reading and talking and signing the book at Waldport Library, Newport Library, Toledo Library, Driftwood Library, Yachts Libray. In March. More info soo.

Dick Price at LA Progressive and Hollywood Progressive is in the process of writing a revew of the book! I write for them: Paul Haeder.

There will be coverage in the weekly I write for, Oregon Coast Today!

Help spread the word and spread the sales, please. If you want a personalized and autographed copy, please email me ASAP — haederpaul@gmail.com

Thanks, and any interest in the book — it’s a great book — is more than appreciated. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOTE: I take checks and money orders, sent to PO Box 2434 Waldport OREGON 97394. This parasitic capitalism, well, the right wingers at PayPal charge 2.9 percent plus more for any money coming in to an account — my wife’s since she set one up a long time ago — so I can give you the number for the account, 5035023651, but the money stays with PayPal until you use the money to buy something via PayPal.

GoFundMe, they take 5% out, of which includes, drum roll, 2.9 percent plus. Ahh, digital capitalism, like I have written about a million times, is death/urudry by a 1,000 transitions-fees-levies-fines-tolls-charges-surcharges-taxes-add-ons. Ya think that evil PayPal is part of GoFundMe? Sure.

So order the book(s) through me, send me the check, and I personalize it and ship it USPS. I’m that kind of guy. Use the Amazon purchase frame, and, well, I won’t get into how much Amazon steels from authors. You can read John Grisham and a load of authors who have written about Amazon killing publishing houses and forcing authors to sell at rock bottom and rejoinder prices.

Read about this evil dude and his evil Little Eicmanns.

HuffPost!

When you go to a product page on Amazon, the ADD TO CART button is the default offer. Other used options fall below the Buy Box. Where books are concerned, the default Buy Box option has always belonged to the publisher. When you buy a book, Amazon pays the publisher 45 percent of the list price, so authors are making a profit (albeit small) every time you buy. This contributes to authors’ royalties and also means that your purchase is supporting the entity that published the book, namely the publisher.

The suggestion in some of the articles I’ve read on this topic is that this new policy hurts small sellers, favoring bigger third-seller operations. But I’d like to break down how much this policy hurts authors and publishers.

I finally clued in to how problematic this policy is a couple weeks ago when one of my authors emailed me to inform me that her book was no longer being listed on Amazon—at all—as available from her publisher, in this case SparkPress, one of my company’s two imprints. When you typed in the title of her book, the only listings that came up were from third-party sellers.

Again, thanks thanks thanks to all those who supported the Go Fund Me. You are mentioned in the dedication. Cheers, Paul K. Haeder