GUSTAVO BONDONI

Sale! My story “A Gathering of Ashes” will be appearing in NonBinary Review‘s Heathentide Orphans issue. Very happy to hear this, as that is a story that, despite its really short length, makes me tear up every time I reread it.

With so much going on, I forgot to report a sale… so now you get to see the published piece. My story “Spooky Diamond Radio” sold to Page and Spine, and I’ve linked to the story (it’s short and free to read) here.

My story “Digital Rights” has been podcast by Manawaker Press. It’s nice and short, and I think you’ll really enjoy it. Link here.

Also, as always, working with Manawaker is a true pleasure!

I have a new book out TODAY. It’s called Safe and Sorry, and it’s a literary story composed of separate episodes in which the lives of several characters are intrinsically entwined, often without their knowledge.

The purchase link is here.

A little more about the book:

If you were given the option, would you choose security or adventure? Would you choose to belong, or would you choose to stand out?

Safe and Sorry features a cast of characters wrestling with the meaning of safety in a world that trends toward chaos. Estelle starts her story at the bottom of society with nothing to lose. As she works her way steadily up, she discovers she is now afraid to take risks, terrified that she’ll lose what she has worked so hard for. As she moves from city to city, enduring brief stints of homelessness along the way, she begins to question the merit of a stable life.In the meantime, the world goes on around her.

Bondoni takes the reader from a seaside village in Syria to the rural plains of Argentina to the humble streets of Ohio. An ancient language dies with an old woman; a young zealot questions his family’s rigid beliefs; an Australian physician succumbs to her violent instincts. The lives of doctors, businessmen, terrorists, and serial killers are seamlessly and expertly intertwined as they coexist in the periphery of Estelle’s life — all struggling to strike the right balance between familiarity and freedom.

Cover reveal for Roar 11, which will, when published, include my story “Boiler Room Beasties”. I’ll link once the antho comes out!

Sale! My story “Bridge Over the Cunene” will be podcast by The Overcast. I’m delighted with this news!

Sale! Contract signed, so I can announce that my story “Old Soldiers” has sold to the North American Jules Verne Society’s Extraordinary Visions anthology.

I mentioned that the Shark Week antho, which contains my tale “Namug”, was up for pre-order a few weeks ago. Well, it’s out now, and you can get it at a bunch of different places. Link here, if you’re interested!

Penumbric has picked up my story “Old Smoker”, which I really love. I’ll let everyone know when it comes out.

What’s this? Literary fiction on Gustavo’s page? What’s the world coming to?

Actually, I’m quite happy with what the world is coming to because the wonderful folks at Creators Publishing have sent me the cover of my next literary book, Safe and Sorry. This is a kind of indirect follow-up to 2019’s Love and Death in that it also tells the intertwined stories of several characters who have little idea of how their life affects the others.

I love this cover. To my mind, it’s reminiscent of the covers for the literary works of the 1920s and 30s. You know, Hemingway and Fitzgerald and all those guys. I happen to believe that literary fiction reached a pinnacle in that era, so giving homage to it with this cover is something I approve of wholeheartedly.

Whether the stories within are worthy of the aspirational imagery will be up to readers to decide… but in the meantime, I’ll enjoy this look.