Brett Cottrell

Taking the Bentley to the Bus Station When somebody offers to let you stay in their penthouse at the St. Regis in New York City, say yes. Don’t worry about work or transportation. Quit if you have to and walk if you must, but by all means, say yes. And when the bellhop rolls up in a $400,000 Bentley to take you to the bus station? Say yes again. Here’s how it happened. I was living in Washington, DC, a few years ago, and my aunt and uncle invited my mother and me to spend a few days with them at the St. Regis in New York. My mother flew up from her home in Phoenix, and I took the bus up from DC. Some people say that staying the St. Regis is like staying at a palace. This is not true and those people are stupid. It’s much nicer than a palace. To be fair, it’s like a palace in two ways: 1) the butlers, and 2) Elton John routinely stays there. I didn’t see him, but you bet I looked. As nice as the hotel was, what I remember most about staying there was spending time with ...

I was born in Las Vegas, and despite the dead bodies, mafia encounters, and dangerous lizards, I remember my childhood as remarkably ordinary, almost boring. I was raised in Henderson, just south of Las Vegas, and although the two cities are now indistinguishable, this was not always the case. When I was young, Vegas was the Rat Pack, mafia, and neon glitz. Henderson was a blue-collar, gritty, working-class town populated largely by Mormons who worked at the petrochemical plants in the desert between the two cities. Las Vegas celebrated The Strip with gambling and showgirls. Henderson celebrated Industrial Days — an actual holiday — with a carnival and parade. The industrial complex is hidden now, the old desert buffer filled with miles of identical houses. You’d have to know the factories were there to see them. People still work there, but the cities try to hide the blue collars. Henderson no longer celebrates Industrial Days; it celebrates Heritage Days. I grew up in a smal...

Signing books and meeting readers at Barnes & Noble in Richmond , Virginia. Reading at the book launch at Fantom Comics in Washington, DC. The Fantom Comics manager put together a great launch. Get The End of the World Is Rye on Amazon , Indie Bound or at your favorite book store, and don't forget to check it out on Facebook and Goodreads .

It's finally here! Get your copy at Amazon , Barnes & Noble , IndieBound , your favorite bookstore or check it out at your local library! Don't forget to mark it on Goodreads  and like it on Facebook . What would you do for the perfect sandwich? Kill? Die? Well, if you were a rogue angel, you might cause the Apocalypse. And it looks like that's just what this darkly funny fantasy's rogue angel is about to do when he lands in a polygamist cult in Utah. Now it's up to the rest of God's divine posse, including Jesus and Lucifer, to save all of existence from certain destruction. In his debut novel, Brett Cottrell takes you on a provocative, celestial roller coaster ride that will have you laughing on the edge of your seat all the way to the gates of Hell.

Rosarium Publishing Publishers Weekly just interviewed my publisher, Bill Campbell from Rosarium, about the importance of multiculturalism in literature and comics. This quote from the article says it all: “Yes, I am an African-American publisher, but it’s also important to me that a Native American creator has this outlet, or a Mormon, or a Latino.” Campbell said. “For me, it’s imperative that people are able to tell their own stories. They can build their own tables rather than ask for a place at the table,” he said." The End of the World is Rye.   By Brett Cottrell. Available June 2015.   Pre-order it now! What would you do for the perfect sandwich? Kill? Die? Well, if you were a rogue angel, you might cause the Apocalypse. And it looks like that's just what this darkly funny fantasy's rogue angel is about to do when he lands in a polygamist cult in Utah. Now it's up to the rest of God's divine posse, including Jesus and Lucifer, to save all of exi...

Rosarium Publishing Call for Submissions Deadline: February 28th, 2015 Rosarium Publishing Rosarium is seeking comics, illustrations, prose, and essays for an anthology against police brutality. "APB: Artists against Police Brutality is a comic book anthology with one primary goal: show pictures and tell stories that get people talking. We are looking for artists across the disciplines to lend their talents and critical eye for this artistic examination of the US justice system and its treatment of communities of color. We are looking for personal stories, biographies, sociopolitical and historical analysis that shed a light on shared experiences across these communities, not just to act as an echo chamber, but to be used to change minds outside of these communities." Click here for more information or check out the APB Facebook page.

I'm happy to announce that my debut novel, The End of the World is Rye , will be available from Rosarium Publishing in June 2015. " The End of the World Is Rye  is a top-notch urban fantasy. Funny and sharp, it doesn't choke a good story in whimsy. Fans of Preacher and Sandman  will have a great time with this one." -- Garrett Cook,  Time Pimp What would you do for the perfect sandwich? Kill? Die? Well, if you were a rogue angel, you might just cause the Apocalypse. And it looks like that's just what he's about to do when he lands in a polygamist cult in Utah. So, now it's up to the rest of God's divine posse, including  Jesus and Lucifer , to save all of existence from certain destruction. In his debut novel, Brett Cottrell takes you on a provocative, celestial roller coaster ride that will have you laughing on the edge of your seat all the way to the gates of Hell.

  Fair. I expected more from my first Heinlein book, Starship Troopers . The story gets bogged down in military minutia and I found myself thinking, "get on with it..."   As for the characters' philosophy of morals, it was oversimplified, hyper-masculinized (based on contemporary stereotypes) dogma attempting to justify what, in the history of the civilized world, has always failed - rule by the military. It must fail either because by its very nature it will get conquered from without or toppled from within due to the oppression necessary to sustain it.   I don't know if Heinlein believes all this, but his characters did. For example, the idea of no moral instincts. Sounds good, that we're born with a tabula rasa , but it isn't true, nor is it provable, and even if it were, it wouldn't prove what he thinks it does.   There is no moral tabula rasa . The ability to think morally presupposes a capacity to do so. You can preach morals at sea...

Spoiler Alert: This book does not Contain a self-important memoir. Equal parts Tom Robbins, Christopher Moore and Jasper Fforde, Tom Holt’s Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages , is an insanely imaginative and hilarious read. There’s no point telling you what this book’s about, it wouldn’t make any sense. But, I’ve got to give you something.   There’s a pig who figures out the secret to transdimensional travel, a guitarist who gets turned into a rooster, a flock of chickens who learn that they’re really human lawyers, and a real estate boss who has no personal history but a knack for getting rich by eliminating the inefficiency of operating in only one dimension.   All this happens because somebody tries to cheat in a 700 year-old game of “chicken or the egg.” Cheaters never prosper, especially when they forget that lawyer-chickens revolt.   Don't mistake the humor for hollowness, there's a point behind the absurdity. A little Vonnegut seasoning. Th...

My Mother could have been Savita Halappanavar, the expectant mother who needlessly died recently in an Irish hospital. Due to harsh and confusing abortion laws, the doctors refused to terminate her pregnancy, even though it was apparent that neither she nor her child would survive it. They watched as Ms. Halappanavar writhed in pain, unable to expel the dying fetus that was killing her, and unable to get the doctors to act. In 1971, my mother was 24 and had two young children. She was five months along with a third when she experienced complications and began severely hemorrhaging. She went to the hospital afraid she would miscarry. Many painful hours later, exhausted from blood loss, she lay frightened atop a heap of bloody sheets and towels, scared that she would die, terrified that she would never see her young children again. She was shocked when the doctors finally told her she would bleed to death if she did not terminate her pregnancy. They brought her abortion papers ...

 Had a great time yesterday at the Baltimore Book Festival.  Yes. I do know Tico the Steeler Dog. And no, I won't get you his autograph.   I tried to show 'em that I'm the boss. It didn't work. It never does.     

Had a great time reading The Valley of Fire at The King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City.   1) No, I can't save you any money on your car insurance, but 2) yes, I do look like Brad Pitt.   Trump's hair is really this big! I swear! "To Trogdor the Burninator." Are you sure that's your name?

Oh, man! This car doesn't even have a steering wheel. Great interview on the 19th with GodDiscussion.com on Blog Talk Radio about my "fantasy/new weird" novel The Valley of Fire (available on Create Space , Amazon or through your local bookstore). "One of the funniest books I've ever  read...it is scream!" GodDiscussion.com Click here for the interview . My segment begins at 17:05 and ends at 54:00. This is half as long as I'd like to speak and twice as long as anyone should let me. I managed to prove myself a blasphemer, heretic and Mormon apostate in one brief discussion. Not a bad trifecta! "This is a great book, I guarantee you're going to love it." GodDiscussion.com If you're a free thinker, I highly recommend the God Discussion show and website . If you're not a free thinker or just don't like the God Discussion people, then I hope you spend the rest of your life eating nothing but the leather s...