Author Archive
New Excerpt Posted
We’ve posted a new excerpt. In this one, Don immortally insults his future daughter-in-law, and the gang passes through “two sucky places.”
Ups & Downs is a Foreword Book of the Year Award Finalist!
Today, Foreword Reviews announced the finalists for their annual Book of the Year Awards, and Ups & Downs by Don & David Kassin Fried made the list!
First, second, and third place winners in each category will be announced in New York City at Book Expo America on May 25th, along with two Editor’s Choice Prizes of $1,500 each. Ups & Downs is among 8 finalists in the Travel Essays category.
New Excerpt Added
We know, it’s been a long time, but we have a new excerpt added. Spending the night in the base station of a ski lift was quite conducive to paranoia – especially with all the stories David had grown up hearing about the Swiss Ski Lift Police. Then, in the morning, we encountered the universe’s most ineffective alien takeover attempt.
Online Store through U&D Website
We’ve made some updates to our website. Okay, we made one update to our website, but it’s a major one.
Drumroll please: You can now buy Ups & Downs through our website! We’re still using Amazon.com to fill the orders (and you still need an Amazon.com login in order to buy it), but we’ve made things a little easier for anyone who wants to purchase the book.
New Excerpts Posted
We’ve put two new excerpts up on the Excerpts page of the Ups & Downs website.
Here, we have our first experience with a “Massenlager” (which translates literally as “group camp” but more loosely as “Lay-em-down so their hips are touching”), Don gets infested with some kind of parasite that resembles the monster from the movie Alien, and David decides to spend the rest of his life as an Alpine monk.
Also, don’t forget to check out the Inner Views interview, now online.
Inner Views Interview Online
Ups & Downs co-author David Kassin Fried appeared yesterday on Inner Views, the show that talks to ordinary people who’ve done extraordinary things.
Join the Ups & Downs Mailing List
If you didn’t get an e-mail from us yesterday, that means you’re not on our mailing list! Oh, unhappy days! To join and get regular (once-a-month-ish) updates in the world of Ups & Downs, send an e-mail to upsanddowns@fried.cc. We’ll have a more sophisticated way to do that in the near future, but for now, that’ll work.
Radio Interview on August 12th
Ups & Downs co-author David Kassin Fried will be appearing on Inner Views with Abigail Mahnke on Wednesday, August 12th.
Inner Views is a weekly live radio show in Austin, TX featuring everyday people with extraordinary stories. David will be interviewed about the two-month Alpine journey with his father, which culminated in the hilarious travel memoir, Ups & Downs.
The interview will air live on Wednesday, August 12th, 1:00–1:30 pm CT, on KOOP 91.7 FM. You can listen to KOOP 91.7 FM live on the Web here.
Learn more about Inner Views here.
New Excerpts Posted
For those of you who have spent the last 4 months staring at the Coming Soon section of our Excerpts page, wait no longer! The 10th and 11th chapters of Ups & Downs have been posted.
In Chapter 10, Is that an Apple on Your Head? we enter Altdorf, the crossroads of Switzerland, and by some measure its birthplace. It was up the hill in Burglen where William Tell refused to bow to the bailiff’s hat, thus launching the chain of events that would ultimately lead to Frankenstein’s downfall. (That doesn’t sound right … I think I’m mixing up my stories here.)
Chapter 11, Rover, Wanderer, Nomad, Vagabond, provides the first of two daydream sequences offered by David, as he imagines himself in a life of mountaineering. Whimsical albeit ridiculous, this one is not to be missed!
