Every reader is familiar with George Orwell’s dystopias of 1984 and Animal Farm, and the imagined future worlds of Orson Scott Card and similar writers.
But Michael Hopping’s rhythms on a flaming drum is more in the tradition of documentaries like Gasland or Citizenfour, or a TV show like Person of Interest, where we need not travel decades into the future to encounter the world we fear: we are in it already, it’s around us and with us, and its success rests in the fact that we don’t even notice.
Released in January by Pisgah Press, rhythms on a flaming drum is available at www.pisgahpress.com, at Asheville’s Grateful Steps and other bookstores, and online from Amazon.com.
Michael Hopping lives near Asheville, North Carolina. In a former life he was a practicing psychiatrist and medical director for a community mental health center. In search of less industrialized approaches to coping with today’s world, he eventually left the field.
For several years Michael served as an investigative reporter, features writer, and occasional commentator for alternative news outlets in and beyond Asheville. His short fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in Spoiled Ink, The Great Smokies Review, fresh, the Mad Hatters’ Review blog, and Chrysalis Reader. His acclaimed collection of short stories, MacTiernan’s Bottle, was published in 2011 by Pisgah Press. A novel, Meet Me in Paradise, was published in 2007.
If You Go: Meet the author and get your autographed copy at the book launch party, Thursday, March 12, 2015. Grateful Steps, 159 S. Lexington Avenue in downtown Asheville. Call (828) 277-0998 for more details. 5:30 p.m. reception; 6 p.m. reading followed by Q&A. At 7:15 p.m. follow us around the corner to STORM Rhum Bar & Bistro, 125 S. Lexington, to celebrate the publication of Mike’s third book. RSVP by calling (828) 301-8968.