At the opening of Tim Schaffert's novel Devils
in the Sugar Shop, the protagonist Ashley
runs an erotic writing workshop.
The various writers in this workshop
not only have trouble writing sex scenes,
but they also have trouble with each other.
As usual, the workshop devolves into an argument.
This time, concerning the awkward, anachronistic,
and entirely unsexy prose of Mrs. Bloom.
"I'm sorry but I just don't feel anything for the characters,"
Peach said.
She shrugged, "My heart doesn't go out to them."
"Your heart?"
Mrs. Bloom said.
"Who gives a shit about your heart?"
Peach, Plum, Mrs. Bloom, Ashley, Viv, Didi, Troy,
and the myriad other characters in Tim Schaffert's novel
withhold from one another.
They have affairs with their friends' spouses.
They lie and they cheat.
Their children pull away from them
with the stubbornness only matched by their own.
Ultimately, Tim Schaffert's characters
do not give a shit about each other's hearts.
Luckily, Tim Schaffert does.
Tim writes right down to his characters' bones.
He tactfully moves his subjects through
their uncontrollable lives.
His characters are messes and desperate but alive.
Tim knows what's inside his characters' hearts and shares
these secrets with us.
I'm pleased to introduce Timothy Schaffert, the author
of four novels, Devils in the Sugar Shop, The Singing
and Dancing Daughters of God, The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow
Sisters and most recently, The Coffins of Little Hope.
His short fiction and essays have
appeared in the anthologies, My Mother She Killed Me,
My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy
Tales, When I was a Loser: True Stories of (Barely) Surviving
High School, and Brothers and Beasts: An Anthology
of Men on Fairy Tales.
He has won the Henfield Transatlantic Review
Award, the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award and the Nebraska Book
Award.
He serves as contributing editor for Fairy Tale Review and
is the digital development and online editor
for Prairie Schooner.
He's the director of two literary nonprofits,
the Nebraska Summer Writers Conference and the Omaha Lit
Fest.
And he teaches creative writing and literature courses
at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Please welcome Timothy Schaffert.