Traveling and Telling Lies

*Winner of a 2021 PenCraft Award!*

I have just released a new book! Let me explain…

I never would have imagined back in July 2019 that my seven-week trip to Namibia/Zimbabwe/Spain/Portugal would be my last trip abroad until 2021! (so far) But here we are. In February 2020 I already had tickets, accommodations, and detailed plans lined up for a Borneo/Brunei/Thailand trip beginning in late March, but each day I watched the pandemic news with withering hopes. All was canceled, of course, but I counted my blessings: 1) my health and safety, and 2) had I gone ahead with the trip, the timing of various travel shutdowns would have stranded me in Borneo, and for who knows how long.

Plan B for 2020? Publish some lies! I once asked my grandfather if he wanted to watch a movie with me. He scowled, waved off the TV, and said, “Nah, I don’t watch that stuff. It’s nothing but lies.” While fiction surely reveals truths, I suppose he’s right – it’s all made up. Since as long ago as I can remember, I’ve lied — er, I’ve loved to write fiction. A poem when I was 5; a novel attempt in middle school. But I was certain I wanted to be the next Carl Sagan. Science for me! Yet I abandoned my Chemistry major in college to take on English and History, taking as many creative writing classes as were offered. I submitted short stories over the years, had a few published in literary magazines, but always set my projects inside in deference to “meat and potatoes” work: writing that paid the bills.

Years passed and now I’ve got a couple novels near completion, putting down 100,000 words in one of them in 2020. But I had nearly a dozen literary short stories ready to go. So I wrote a couple more, had a couple editors work with me on the whole bunch, and published Stealing Away: Stories in January 2021. Half are set in the Midwest, the other half in international settings inspired by my travels. The book received kind praise from bestselling authors Nickolas Butler and J. Ryan Stradal, and great insights from Citizen Reader’s Sarah Cords (follow her on Medium.com). (Read these reviews below!)

The book is available in paperback and ebook wherever books are sold. Amazon, indie bookstores, Barnes & Noble, online with Kobo, Apple… whatever you need. Contact me directly for signed copies (of any of my books, actually). It’s even available in many countries outside the USA. (My first buyer was my dear friend (and star of The Yogurt Man Cometh) Linda, based in London at the moment. If you are a fan of my other work, I’d be honored and pleased if you picked up a copy of Stealing Away! Contact your local indie bookstore or use one of the links below.

Cheers!

Kevin

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Reviews of Stealing Away: Stories

“STEALING AWAY is a lush, shimmering collection, at once globe-trotting and far-afield, and also somehow as intimate and quotidian as any small hometown. Revolinski, an accomplished non-fiction writer, proves with this book that he has incredible range, wisdom, and empathy. I raced through this collection of short stories and can’t wait to read more of Revolinski’s fiction. A fantastic debut.”
— Nickolas Butler, NYT bestselling author of Shotgun Lovesongs and Little Faith

“With the insight of a world traveler and the heart of a kind Midwestern neighbor, Revolinski’s dark, engrossing stories find flickers of hope in a disorienting world.”
— J. Ryan Stradal, award-winning author of The Lager Queen of Minnesota and Kitchens of the Great Midwest

“At last, a book that gets the Midwest right. And I don’t mean the “Midwest” that appears in most published literary fiction. I mean the actual Midwest, complete with houses containing furniture bought at St. Vincent de Paul, both interstates and tiny country backroads, Wal-marts, and gravel driveways. Author Kevin Revolinski has a nice touch with description, and whatever scene he drops his reader into (and the locations here are not exclusively in the Midwest), you feel like you are really there.

The stories are realistic and clear-eyed, but even when things start to turn ugly, they don’t always end that way (and Revolinski doesn’t dwell on ugliness just for the sake of doing so, which this reader appreciates).

I love Revolinski’s way of writing female characters, which doesn’t belittle them or simply make them objects to look at, but truly makes them fleshed-out human characters with not always predictable motives and actions of their own.

I found these accessible, very readable, but still very thoughtful stories, and I thoroughly enjoyed the read. The author is also a travel writer and blogger, and his attention to the details and nuance of place and landscape is shown off to very good effect here.”
— Sarah Cords, author of Bingeworthy British Television: The Best Brit TV You Can’t Stop Watching and The Real Story: A Guide to Nonfiction Reading Interests