Two Books, Two Writers: An Intimate Evening

Two Books, Two Writers: An Intimate Evening

Studios of Key West writers Jonathan Woods and Jessica Argyle read and somewhat calmly discuss their new books at The Studios of Key West.  Monday, May 12, 2014 @ 6:30 p.m.

In August 2012 Jessica Argyle and Jonathan Woods began sharing a writing studio space at The Studios of Key West.  Jessica, a morning person, is up with the Key West chickens and at her studio desk writing by 9:00 a.m.  Jonathan saunters in after lunch for the afternoon shift.

As a result of this symbiotic relationship, they have each created a new book.  

Jonathan’s book, Phone Call from Hell & Other Tales of the Damned, is a collection of 17 noir crime stories that combine the offbeat humor of the Coen brothers with the madness of Jim Thompson. 

Jessica’s novel, No Name Key, is a work of historical fiction at the time of the great depression; the tale of one woman’s battles against human and other forces out to destroy her. The novel is set during the deluge of the great Labor Day hurricane of 1935 that killed hundreds in the Keys.

On Monday, May 12 at the Studios of Key West (600 White Street) beginning at 6:30 p.m., Jessica and Jonathan will be talking about those books, how they came to write them and the creative process.  Join us for an intimate evening with two TSKW writers whose talents have been nurtured here in Key West.

About the writers:

Jonathan worked for many years as a lawyer for a multi-national high-tech company before he turned to writing full time.  He studied writing at Southern Methodist University and at Bread Loaf, Sewanee and Zoetrope: All Story writers’ conferences.  Phone Call from Hell is his third book.

Jessica holds an MFA in creative writing from Concordia University in Montreal.  She worked as copy editor and content developer in advertising for many years. Her stories have appeared in literary magazines and she was the creative force behind the early award-winning online literary journal called it’s a bunny.  In 2013 she won the TSKW Writes of Spring competition for an early version of No Name Key.

Advance praise for their books:

Phone Call from Hell & Other Tales of the Damned:

“Woods’ wild mix of smart stories will run you through just enough hell to make you like it!” — Vicki Hendricks, author of Miami Purity, Iguana Love and Fur People

“There is a wildness running through these pages…Highly recommended.” 

— Jay Parini, Professor of English and Creative Writing at Middlebury College and author of The Last Station

“A masterpiece of noir fiction — organized insanity at its best.” — ForeWord Reviews

“17 outlandish, often violent and raunchy, excursions into neo-pulp…like it brazen and loud, Woods really knows how to bang that gong.” — Publishers Weekly

“Woods walks you right to the edge of sanity, right to that dim borderland where the moral order of the universe is about to collapse. There…is where the action of his stories takes place. These are wildly imaginative tales, and that is an understatement.”  

— S.C. Gwynne, Pulitzer Prize finalist for Empire of the Summer Moon

No Name Key:

“The atmosphere of the time, the fragility of life in the outlying islands, the intensity of the action and above all the way that a murder goes on sending out its ripple effects long after the initial killing, haunting the murderer and poisoning the environment, reminded me most of all of Peter Matthiessen’s The Killing of Mr. Watson.  [No Name Key is] a gripping first novel.” 

— Rosalind Brackenbury, author of Becoming George Sand and The House in Morocco

“Sometimes lyrical, sometimes grisly and always hypnotic, Argyle’s tale is edge of your seat reading…Beautifully crafted.”  

— Jonathan Woods, award-winning author of Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem

“One woman’s fight to survive her husband’s abuse and the hardscrabble life she faces as one of the common workers who built up the Florida Keys in the 1930s provides an unforgettable glimpse at neglected American history and human endurance.”

— Charles Kelly, author of Gunshots in Another Room: The Forgotten Life of Dan J. Marlowe and finalist for the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for Grace Humiston and The Vanishing.