About the Book
From his days growing up in the WWII-era and 1950s American South, with a stepfather working in the then-secret Manhattan Project, to his career as an award-winning ad man at the height of the ad-agency era, Guinotte Wise shares insight into a fascinating, maverick life path that has been anything but cookie-cutter.
Journey with him through an equestrian, biker, and unroped world on his own artistic path as both a metal sculptor and a writer. Of earlier days he says, "It's been awhile since I had to figure in bail as a recurring expense."
A vast array of topics keep pages moving, from the meaning of James Dean and wagers at the track to the stolen van Goghs in the infamous Nazi art thefts and Montana writers, love of animals and motorcycles, and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. This book reminds readers not only of what builds a creative life, but also what sustains it through life's unexpected twists and turns.
Chickens One Day, Feathers the Next will make you reflect on your own life's journeys and the second, third, and even fourth acts that are possible.
About the Author :
Guinotte Wise writes and welds steel sculpture on a farm in Resume Speed, Kansas. His short story collection (Night Train, Cold Beer) won publication by a university press and enough money to fix the soffits. Six more books since. A 5- time Pushcart nominee, his fiction, essays and poetry have been published in numerous literary journals including Atticus, The MacGuffin, Southern Humanities Review, Rattle and The American Journal of Poetry. His wife has an honest job in the city and drives 100 miles a day to keep it. Check out some of his workehere: wisesculpture.com
Review :
"Reading Chickens One Day, Feathers the Next is like meeting an old friend, not simply because it is so richly companionable, but because you won't want to say goodbye. Wandering through these essays is like dipping into a life more varied and richly felt: experiences you've never had recollected with a sensitivity and insight you only hope you'd feel. You'll want to read it slowly, but you won't be able to. Before you know it, you'll find yourself at the end: lost, alone, feeling oddly bereft. And you'll discover perhaps the most appealing thing about this compulsively readable book: you can always read it again." D. K. Smith, author of Bunny, a romance and Missing Persons
"Like the "small, silvery light airplane ...making its way across that limitless canopy" described in "It's a Tulsa Kind of Day," Guinotte Wise gives his readers more of what his short stories and novels do. In this collection of essays, Wise-much like my bachelor cowboy brother-defines his life with coming and going of dogs and horses, perhaps even more than the ebb and flow of women. Having grown up in a small West Texas city, I identify with the magical moments of Wise's childhood in Tulsa with its Boys Scouts, Baby Ruths, and yo-yos. These essays comprise deeply personal, revealing stories about coming of age, loss of innocence, boyhood larks turning amiss, bad acts going unpunished, and sublime days ruined and ruined days somehow redeemed. From his idyllic childhood in Tulsa through raising a homeless baby robin as an advertising executive, Wise meanders to his eightieth birthday and the FitBit given him by his wife. Wise views life with a self-deprecating, yet wry, down-home sense of humor, and an ear keenly attuned to the vagaries of the human condition." Suanne Schafer, author of A Different Kind of Fire
"Guinotte Wise's essay collection, Chickens One Day, Feathers The Next, is a rollicking Harley Davidson ride down a fascinating and vibrant Route 66 of American culture. Vietnam, jazz, art, advertising, horses, publishing-it's all here. Wise embraces his subjects with gusto, humor, and the full-throated awe of a writer who has lived one hell of a life. If you love the late Jim Harrison's work, you'll want to read Wise." Whitney Terrell, author of The Good Lieutenant
