Introduction

Jerkwater: The Town, The Story, did not start out as a novel.  Pitter Fox and I have been writing together for almost fifteen years and we were tired of writing classes that were all the same, so we came up with our own technique: we would sit down with a dictionary and take turns randomly picking a word and writing about it.

For example, we just threw open the dictionary to see if we could come up with a word to entice you to read our book, and we got the word Reader.  This is a book for non-readers: the longest chapter is less than four pages long, and you can peek in on the story at any  point and still be able to follow along. 

After two or three years of this exercise, we began to develop characters  - the first one was Ethyl Esther Keetone - and then we began to create a whole town.  Jerkwater now has a history that goes back to 1867 though the main action is in the mid 1970s.

It was suggested that we post a picture of ourselves on this blog, but we are both non-photogenic.  The above picture is from the cover of a notebook that Pitter gave me when we began this project.  Since we have spent the last four years cracking each other up with this material, we feel that it is as close to our real selves as we could get.

As part of our writing process, we have written a definite beginning and a definite ending, but there is a lot of space in the middle that is open for experimental maneuvers. 

We would like to invite you along on the adventure of finding out what happens next; please drop us a line and like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.


KR Lobel and Pitter Fox