About the Author
Novelist. Playwright. Screenwriter.
Writer David James Parr was born on a cul-de-sac in suburban Ohio and grew up on a farm in rural Pennsylvania, where he learned how to spell "cul-de-sac" and to mispronounce "rural", respectively. He is the author of the novels Violet Peaks and Beauty Marks, as well as the collection How To Survive Overwhelming Loss & Loneliness in 5 Easy Steps: Stories. His title story How To Survive Overwhelming Loss & Loneliness in 5 Easy Steps was chosen by Michael Cunningham (The Hours) as one of the Top 10 Stories in The Tennessee Williams Fiction contest, and is included in the anthology The Best Gay Stories of 2017. David's story Mata Hari was also selected in 2015 as one of the winners of The Tennessee Williams Fiction contest.
David's plays Slap & Tickle, Albee Damned and Pluto Is Listening have been produced all across the U.S. including Chicago, Dallas, New York, Provincetown and St. Petersburg, and his play Mimi at The 44th Parallel is a Semi-Finalist in The Austin Film Festival's 2019 Playwriting Competition. His ficiton has appeared in Saints + Sinners, Mosaic and Feminisms. His play Eleanor Rigby Is Waiting was made into a film which premiered at the 2019 Manhattan Film Festival, winning Best Independent Feature.
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Albee Damned is a collection of rotating shorts inspired by classic works of theater about family dysfunction, sexual politics, predatory behaviors, societal apathy, and marital discord, each given a modern twist. A married couple have a rude awakening in Barefoot in the Dark; in Long Gay’s Journey Into Night, three siblings en route from the airport stop at a family restaurant where margaritas are consumed and secrets revealed in quick succession; set in the early 80’s, Porn Yesterday features a couple trying to spice up their sex life by making their own porn video, exposing deep insecurities and betrayals instead of their bodies; in the two-parter Millenials in America Part 1: Angels Approach and Millenials in America Part 2: Sephora, apathy triggers a cultural shift and subsequent Armageddon; in The Tragicall Historie of Alas, Poor Yorick, two lonely outsiders forge a tentative friendship based on fractured family history on a middle school bus; in the musical short Wait Until Shark, a Great White Shark laments the hunger that drives him; a woman’s retaliation against a sexual assault on a subway train lands her in a jail cell with one desperate call to make in A Midsummer Night’s Scream; an Election Day scandal ignites sparks between two competing journalists in His Girl Tuesday; in Albee Damned, Game Night goes horribly awry when two couples – one long-term and the other newlyweds – engage in a cutthroat game of Charades fueled by resentments and a bottle of Ouzo; and in the final extended musical piece, A Most Happy Stella, a pregnant woman takes in her fragile and booze-ridden sister to her husband’s disgust in a musical retelling of A Streetcar Named Desire.
Beauty Marks
Released on November 15, 2018
Breaking up is hard to do.
Breaking down is much easier.
After being shoved out of the cockpit of a three-year relationship, the shell-shocked narrator of Beauty Marks pulls the ripcord and parachutes to firmer ground with the help of an assortment of quirky friends, loyal family and unexpected encounters.
Rich with sharp observation and humorous detail, this sparkling new novel by David James Parr explores how to make the best out of life’s bitter heartbreaks, sweet ironies and savory triumphs on the battlefield of love.
Violet Peaks
Armed with the recent discovery of her husband's infidelity, 33-year-old Violet Peaks slips out of their third anniversary dinner and wanders into the summer night retracing the rocky trajectory of her life. Beginning with a bolt of lightning and ending with the glow of a firefly, VIOLET PEAKS follows her journey from age 5 to age 33, revealing the pivotal moments, chance encounters, and unexpected turns which come to shape one's life, and which may end up destroying her own.
***** RATED 5 STARS ON AMAZON & KINDLE! *****
How To Survive Overwhelming Loss & Loneliness in 5 Easy Steps: STORIES
The risk-taking men & women in this acclaimed new collection of 11 short stories are bound together and torn apart by their desire to make sense of life’s breakups and breakdowns. An eccentric losing her grip on reality tightens her grip on weaponry while "Speed Dating"; a vigilant son searches for clues to his mother’s past in "To Make a Short Story Long"; a Thanksgiving get-together in Manhattan goes cold turkey for a group of recovering addicts on "The Island of Misfit Toys"; a murderess awaiting her sentence conceals a pregnancy in "Surrender, Dorothy"; and in the title story, a desperate man tries miscellaneous pills, miscalculated sex and a misguided self-help manual to get over an ex-love.
Navigating surprising twists and surreal turns, these characters are diving for change in the deepest of wells.
“David James Parr's writing exudes a subtle magnetism that is at once melancholy and uplifting; poetic and direct; whimsical and deeply, deeply affecting.”
Joe Okonkwo, author of Jazz Moon
Contact
New York, NY, USA
