Sydney Avey's Blog: Writing California: San Joaquin Valley
Frank Tavares
Frank Tavares learned to love the culture, climate, and creativity of the San Joaquin Valley when he used to drive the stretch of road between L.A. and San Francisco on Highway 101, a personal therapy he misses since relocating to New England. Author of a short story collection, The Man Who Built Boxes (Bacon Press Books 2013) his characters deal with limitations–self-imposed or self-inflicted.
Frank says, “…until I saw all of the stories together, I didn’t realize how much the places I have lived have influenced where I set particular narratives. When I lived in Fresno, I was teaching at Cal State and visiting advertising clients in the San Joaquin Valley and Los Angeles. Although not specifically identified, the storyAccident With a View unfolds in the hills of Los Angeles, and the main character reveals a former life in Fresno, which shaped who he has become.
Frank is most comfortable placing stories in the unspecified present. ” There’s something nice about writing a scene that resonates with the reader’s present day frame of reference, without actually dating it,” he says. “Even though I know exactly where many of the settings are, often in a story I’ll leave the actual location vague. Clues might bring you to a specific region, but I won’t necessarily name the town. ”
Research and road trips
How important is it to portray a setting accurately? If Frank hasn’t visited a place for a while he contacts friends who still live there to help him understand how things have evolved, or for actual descriptions.
“I’ve even used Google Earth Street View to put me virtually in front of a place I needed to see again. And I’ve used research as an excuse to revisit other locations to absorb the ambiance and appreciate how it has changed from my earlier experiences.”
One of the things Frank loved about living in California was that you could find pretty much anything you wanted location-wise. But because California is such a go-to place for movies and television series, many readers have clear images of how things in California should be. Examples: views from the Hollywood hills, the agricultural fields of the San Joaquin Valley, or the iconic Big Sur coastal vistas.
” It’s a challenge to provide enough familiarity that readers can build on some preconceptions, but, and this is the trick, be able to reveal the human aspects of those who live there or work there or who are traveling through in a way that will resonate with someone living in any other part of the country. ”
Fantasy and reality
Let’s test drive Frank’s theory. To set the scene: The iconic shots we see in movies from the hills overlooking Los Angeles fuel Big Al’s fantasies about living there. Our appreciation of his fantasies are tied to our own images and the myths we create about the types of people who might live there.
Big Al has witnessed an accident in which Dolores, a burned out, middle-aged lady in an expensive imported sports car, ran over a fellow at a city intersection. She’s too shaken to drive and asks him for a ride home. He discovers that she lives in the hills overlooking the city, a place he’s fantasized about ever since he moved there a decade before from central California.
Excerpt from Accident With a View
He’d never be able to afford something in this zip code. Not while he was working for somebody else. Not while he was working as a forty-five-year-old, out of shape, trouble shooter for a cheap bastard who owned a trucking company. Not unless he could figure a better angle. No, the best he could wish for was a Sunday drive past these houses wondering how many necks the owners had stepped on to live here.
She invites him in for a 10:00 a.m. drink. The view was as good as Big Al imagined. The whole valley floor unfolded in front of him. Standing on the deck, it seemed they were suspended in air. “It’s like coming in for a landing at LAX,” he said.
He looked over the edge. It was a good fifty-foot drop into rocks and vegetation and fifty feet below that, another house waiting to ski down the slope.
“Any wildlife up here? Mountain goats? Bears?”
“Bobcats and coyotes,” she said. “And some big-ass owls. They hunt at night. You don’t see any cute little puppies running around up here for long. Refill?”
She had opened a bottle of champagne. Big Al didn’t recognize the label and figured it was probably one he couldn’t afford. It was too fruity for his taste, but he’d be an asshole if he told her that. He held out his glass. She poured.
The main feature of the living room was a large telephone pole that rose from the center of the floor and disappeared through the vaulted ceiling. Big Al walked slowly around it.
“It kind of holds up this part of the house,” she said. “Like a giant spike nailed into the rock.”
“Doesn’t seem like it would be strong enough,” he said.
Dolores shrugged. “Do you think he was married?” she asked, sitting on a sofa near the windows.
“Who?”
“The man I ran over. Do you think he had kids?”
Big Al put his glass on the coffee table and sat across from her. “I don’t know,” he said. “But you need to remember it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t even get a ticket. If you didn’t get a ticket, it wasn’t your fault. That’s the rule.”
“Will they call them?”
“Who?”
“The police. Will they call his family? Will they tell them on the phone, or will they go in person?”
“Dolores . . .”
“Del.”
“Del, you got a bathroom I can use?”
Even the bathroom had a view. The spa tub was below a huge window. He could imagine soaking in here with a bottle of vodka, watching the sunset. Maybe somebody in the tub with him; some nice lady enjoying his company. Maybe somebody like this Dolores.
About Frank Tavares
If you’re an NPR listener, then you already know Frank Tavares. For many years, he’s been called “The Most Heard Voice” on public radio. Listeners across the country have heard him dozens of times a day as the man who said “Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and . . . .” Tavares was the single voice announcing the funding credits after every national news and information program from the 1980s through the fall of 2013. He has been writing his entire professional life, but only started publishing fiction a dozen years ago and his short stories have appeared in a variety of literary journals including Louisiana Literature, Connecticut Review, Story Quarterly, and The GW Review. He is also one of the founding editors and an active member of the editorial board of The Journal of Radio and Audio Media.
Currently Tavares is a professor of organizational communication at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, but he also taught radio, television, and film at California State University, Fresno. Despite his current day-job, you will find him most mornings, up before dawn, writing fiction.
Frank Tavares
Frank Tavares learned to love the culture, climate, and creativity of the San Joaquin Valley when he used to drive the stretch of road between L.A. and San Francisco on Highway 101, a personal therapy he misses since relocating to New England. Author of a short story collection, The Man Who Built Boxes (Bacon Press Books 2013) his characters deal with limitations–self-imposed or self-inflicted.
Frank says, “…until I saw all of the stories together, I didn’t realize how much the places I have lived have influenced where I set particular narratives. When I lived in Fresno, I was teaching at Cal State and visiting advertising clients in the San Joaquin Valley and Los Angeles. Although not specifically identified, the storyAccident With a View unfolds in the hills of Los Angeles, and the main character reveals a former life in Fresno, which shaped who he has become.
Frank is most comfortable placing stories in the unspecified present. ” There’s something nice about writing a scene that resonates with the reader’s present day frame of reference, without actually dating it,” he says. “Even though I know exactly where many of the settings are, often in a story I’ll leave the actual location vague. Clues might bring you to a specific region, but I won’t necessarily name the town. ”
Research and road trips
How important is it to portray a setting accurately? If Frank hasn’t visited a place for a while he contacts friends who still live there to help him understand how things have evolved, or for actual descriptions.
“I’ve even used Google Earth Street View to put me virtually in front of a place I needed to see again. And I’ve used research as an excuse to revisit other locations to absorb the ambiance and appreciate how it has changed from my earlier experiences.”
One of the things Frank loved about living in California was that you could find pretty much anything you wanted location-wise. But because California is such a go-to place for movies and television series, many readers have clear images of how things in California should be. Examples: views from the Hollywood hills, the agricultural fields of the San Joaquin Valley, or the iconic Big Sur coastal vistas.
” It’s a challenge to provide enough familiarity that readers can build on some preconceptions, but, and this is the trick, be able to reveal the human aspects of those who live there or work there or who are traveling through in a way that will resonate with someone living in any other part of the country. ”
Fantasy and reality
Let’s test drive Frank’s theory. To set the scene: The iconic shots we see in movies from the hills overlooking Los Angeles fuel Big Al’s fantasies about living there. Our appreciation of his fantasies are tied to our own images and the myths we create about the types of people who might live there.
Big Al has witnessed an accident in which Dolores, a burned out, middle-aged lady in an expensive imported sports car, ran over a fellow at a city intersection. She’s too shaken to drive and asks him for a ride home. He discovers that she lives in the hills overlooking the city, a place he’s fantasized about ever since he moved there a decade before from central California.
Excerpt from Accident With a View
He’d never be able to afford something in this zip code. Not while he was working for somebody else. Not while he was working as a forty-five-year-old, out of shape, trouble shooter for a cheap bastard who owned a trucking company. Not unless he could figure a better angle. No, the best he could wish for was a Sunday drive past these houses wondering how many necks the owners had stepped on to live here.
She invites him in for a 10:00 a.m. drink. The view was as good as Big Al imagined. The whole valley floor unfolded in front of him. Standing on the deck, it seemed they were suspended in air. “It’s like coming in for a landing at LAX,” he said.
He looked over the edge. It was a good fifty-foot drop into rocks and vegetation and fifty feet below that, another house waiting to ski down the slope.
“Any wildlife up here? Mountain goats? Bears?”
“Bobcats and coyotes,” she said. “And some big-ass owls. They hunt at night. You don’t see any cute little puppies running around up here for long. Refill?”
She had opened a bottle of champagne. Big Al didn’t recognize the label and figured it was probably one he couldn’t afford. It was too fruity for his taste, but he’d be an asshole if he told her that. He held out his glass. She poured.
The main feature of the living room was a large telephone pole that rose from the center of the floor and disappeared through the vaulted ceiling. Big Al walked slowly around it.
“It kind of holds up this part of the house,” she said. “Like a giant spike nailed into the rock.”
“Doesn’t seem like it would be strong enough,” he said.
Dolores shrugged. “Do you think he was married?” she asked, sitting on a sofa near the windows.
“Who?”
“The man I ran over. Do you think he had kids?”
Big Al put his glass on the coffee table and sat across from her. “I don’t know,” he said. “But you need to remember it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t even get a ticket. If you didn’t get a ticket, it wasn’t your fault. That’s the rule.”
“Will they call them?”
“Who?”
“The police. Will they call his family? Will they tell them on the phone, or will they go in person?”
“Dolores . . .”
“Del.”
“Del, you got a bathroom I can use?”
Even the bathroom had a view. The spa tub was below a huge window. He could imagine soaking in here with a bottle of vodka, watching the sunset. Maybe somebody in the tub with him; some nice lady enjoying his company. Maybe somebody like this Dolores.
About Frank Tavares
If you’re an NPR listener, then you already know Frank Tavares. For many years, he’s been called “The Most Heard Voice” on public radio. Listeners across the country have heard him dozens of times a day as the man who said “Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and . . . .” Tavares was the single voice announcing the funding credits after every national news and information program from the 1980s through the fall of 2013. He has been writing his entire professional life, but only started publishing fiction a dozen years ago and his short stories have appeared in a variety of literary journals including Louisiana Literature, Connecticut Review, Story Quarterly, and The GW Review. He is also one of the founding editors and an active member of the editorial board of The Journal of Radio and Audio Media.
Currently Tavares is a professor of organizational communication at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, but he also taught radio, television, and film at California State University, Fresno. Despite his current day-job, you will find him most mornings, up before dawn, writing fiction.
From the Airwaves to the Printed Page
He has been called “The Most Heard Voice” on National Public Radio (NPR). Listeners across the country have heard him dozens of times a day as the man who says “Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and . . . ,” announcing the funding credits after every national news and information program. And now Communication Professor Frank Tavares — who says he has been writing his entire professional life — has published a book of short stories, The Man Who Built Boxes, a collection that showcases his unique storytelling abilities with 12 stories about a remarkable cast of complex, quirky characters. He has also been doing a series of interviews with NPR member radio stations around the country as his 30-plus-year gig with NPR comes to a close and his writing career simultaneously takes off.
Tavares says he started writing fiction seriously in the 1990s and has several unpublished novels. About a dozen years ago, he started writing short stories. “I like to be working on more than one thing at a time,” he says. He started publishing some of his stories in journals, and at one point a friend suggested he pull his stories together into a collection and publish them as a book. “I thought, ‘how hard can this be?’” says Tavares, adding he had no idea how complex the process of publishing a book would be. Deciding which stories to keep in the book, which to take out, and in what order they would run were just a few of the many steps he had to work through with his publisher. His book also includes part of the next novel he is working on.
He is drawn to the short story genre, Tavares says, not only because it doesn’t take as long to write a short story as it does a novel, but also because the writer has to have fully fleshed-out characters in a short span of pages and has to give each story a satisfying arc. It’s a challenge he enjoys. “You can leave the reader with the feeling that they want to know more,” Tavares says. “You don’t have to answer every single question.”
Tavares says one of his favorites aspects of writing fiction is exploring characters. “You let them take you where they’re going to go. I love that. When I’m working on something and a character suddenly does something I didn’t really see coming, it’s very exciting.”
Although he has been writing fiction in bits and pieces all his life, Tavares says when he first started thinking of writing a novel he thought he would do it when he had time. Then he came to realize that was just an excuse. “I don’t believe in the idea of a muse,” Tavares says. He quotes the prolific Connecticut poet, the late Leo Connellan, as saying to him once: “Writers write.” “This is my mantra,” Tavares says. “There is no secret to it – the bottom line is you sit down and you just do it.” He writes in the early mornings, and says, “Some days I might only get a sentence or a couple of pages, but I am writing. And eventually I have something I can go back to and work on.”
As for the connection between his work as a professor of communication and his writing, Tavares says, “words have power. The better you know how to use words, the more powerful you are.” He sees a connection between, for example, writing fiction, a letter for an academic journal or a project for a course. “They are all the same, because they all involve writing,” he says. “Words are powerful.”
Reprinted from
He has been called “The Most Heard Voice” on National Public Radio (NPR). Listeners across the country have heard him dozens of times a day as the man who says “Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and . . . ,” announcing the funding credits after every national news and information program. And now Communication Professor Frank Tavares — who says he has been writing his entire professional life — has published a book of short stories, The Man Who Built Boxes, a collection that showcases his unique storytelling abilities with 12 stories about a remarkable cast of complex, quirky characters. He has also been doing a series of interviews with NPR member radio stations around the country as his 30-plus-year gig with NPR comes to a close and his writing career simultaneously takes off.
Tavares says he started writing fiction seriously in the 1990s and has several unpublished novels. About a dozen years ago, he started writing short stories. “I like to be working on more than one thing at a time,” he says. He started publishing some of his stories in journals, and at one point a friend suggested he pull his stories together into a collection and publish them as a book. “I thought, ‘how hard can this be?’” says Tavares, adding he had no idea how complex the process of publishing a book would be. Deciding which stories to keep in the book, which to take out, and in what order they would run were just a few of the many steps he had to work through with his publisher. His book also includes part of the next novel he is working on.
He is drawn to the short story genre, Tavares says, not only because it doesn’t take as long to write a short story as it does a novel, but also because the writer has to have fully fleshed-out characters in a short span of pages and has to give each story a satisfying arc. It’s a challenge he enjoys. “You can leave the reader with the feeling that they want to know more,” Tavares says. “You don’t have to answer every single question.”
Tavares says one of his favorites aspects of writing fiction is exploring characters. “You let them take you where they’re going to go. I love that. When I’m working on something and a character suddenly does something I didn’t really see coming, it’s very exciting.”
Although he has been writing fiction in bits and pieces all his life, Tavares says when he first started thinking of writing a novel he thought he would do it when he had time. Then he came to realize that was just an excuse. “I don’t believe in the idea of a muse,” Tavares says. He quotes the prolific Connecticut poet, the late Leo Connellan, as saying to him once: “Writers write.” “This is my mantra,” Tavares says. “There is no secret to it – the bottom line is you sit down and you just do it.” He writes in the early mornings, and says, “Some days I might only get a sentence or a couple of pages, but I am writing. And eventually I have something I can go back to and work on.”
As for the connection between his work as a professor of communication and his writing, Tavares says, “words have power. The better you know how to use words, the more powerful you are.” He sees a connection between, for example, writing fiction, a letter for an academic journal or a project for a course. “They are all the same, because they all involve writing,” he says. “Words are powerful.”
Reprinted from
- Southern Connecticut State University >
- News at SCSU >
- From the Airwaves to the Printed Page
Public radio airwaves loses familiar Hamden voice
Frank Tavares, a recently retired National Public Radio announcer, poses in his longtime makeshift radio studio in the closet of his Hamden, Conn., home. (AP PHOTO/THE NEW HAVEN REGISTER, PETER HVIZDAK)
By Randall Beach New Haven Register
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Anybody who has listened to National Public Radio for the past 31 years would immediately recognize that strong, carefully unwavering voice: ''Support for NPR comes from Newman's Own Foundation'' or ''Support for NPR comes from Novo Nordisk...''
But recently that voice vanished, replaced by a younger-sounding female. Yes, she is pleasant to listen to — but what happened to our longtime friend on the airwaves?
Meet Frank Tavares, who also is a professor teaching organizational communication at Southern Connecticut State University. That's what he calls his ''day job.''
''This is where I do my recording,'' he said, opening a tiny closet in his home in Hamden lined with hangers of coats and shirts, shelves filled with sweaters and several stacked suitcases. At the end of the closet: a chair, a little table and a microphone.
''A closet is a nice place to do this work,'' Tavares told me. ''The clothing and the carpeting absorbs the sound, so you don't get that hollow sound, like you're recording in a bathroom.''
He picked up a small sign with the message: ''On air.''
''This is what I put in my upstairs window when I'm recording,'' he said. ''When my neighbor sees it, he refrains from mowing his lawn.''
Tavares' understanding neighbor, Jim Fracasse, learned to understand Tavares' set schedule: 8 a.m. to about noon, every other Saturday. That's when Tavares went into his closet and recorded hundreds of funding credits that were heard all over the world.
''I'll do around 600 of them every other week,'' Tavares said.
He was speaking in the present tense. But in the middle of his following sentence, he caught himself and switched to the past: ''I get all the scripts — or, I got all the scripts — in spreadsheets via email.''
Tavares said it was last April 20 when he had ''the conversation'' that so many Americans have had with their bosses in recent times. A vice president at NPR told him the corporation had decided they needed to ''make the workflow more efficient.''
NPR officials wanted to combine Tavares' part-time job with that of another employee, so one person would do the voice work as well as handling the recording and editing.
''I was told, 'This has nothing to do with the quality of your work,' '' Tavares recalled, ''and 'You're invited to apply for it but you must live in D.C.'''
Because Tavares has established a nice life in Connecticut and has that full-time day job at SCSU and doesn't want to uproot his wife and their two sons, he never considered applying.
The new voice at NPR is Sabrina Farhi, who is 33 and until recently lived in Brooklyn. She moved to Washington to take that job.
Although Tavares, 68, is more than twice her age, he rejected any notion he is a victim of age discrimination. He added, ''Change is not always a bad thing.''
Tavares will be looking for other announcing gigs but, meanwhile, he will continue to use that closet for another regular endeavor of that space: writing fiction.
His short stories have appeared in assorted literary journals. He recently had published a collection of them, ''The Man Who Built Boxes.'' He also is working on a novel.
When he was a kid, Tavares never thought about going into radio work. But as he was preparing to graduate from high school, he passed his yearbook around the classroom and one of his female classmates wrote: ''With a voice like yours, you should be in radio.''
He was reminded of those words when he arrived at Wheaton College in Illinois in 1962 and saw a sign-up table for the college radio station. That work led to jobs with commercial stations after he graduated. In 1972, he landed his first job with public radio, in Austin, Texas. And in 1978, he was hired to work at NPR in Washington, helping direct audience programming.
''In 1982, we started doing funding credits. Bob Edwards (then the NPR morning host) came over and told the producer, 'I can't read this.' They realized they needed a firewall between the content and the underwriting. So the producer pulled me in from the hall, and I started reading.''
Tavares said he got ''burned out'' from the 80-hour workweeks and in 1989 accepted an offer to teach at SCSU. But he continued to do the NPR voice work.
Tavares admitted that the first time he heard Farhi's voice instead of his on the radio, ''It absolutely caught me off-guard. It'll take me a little while to get used to it.''
''Yes, I'll miss hearing my voice on the radio, and I'll miss being part of the daily fabric of public radio. But it'll be fine. I'm an NPR listener, and I'll get used to it.''
Frank Tavares, a recently retired National Public Radio announcer, poses in his longtime makeshift radio studio in the closet of his Hamden, Conn., home. (AP PHOTO/THE NEW HAVEN REGISTER, PETER HVIZDAK)
By Randall Beach New Haven Register
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Anybody who has listened to National Public Radio for the past 31 years would immediately recognize that strong, carefully unwavering voice: ''Support for NPR comes from Newman's Own Foundation'' or ''Support for NPR comes from Novo Nordisk...''
But recently that voice vanished, replaced by a younger-sounding female. Yes, she is pleasant to listen to — but what happened to our longtime friend on the airwaves?
Meet Frank Tavares, who also is a professor teaching organizational communication at Southern Connecticut State University. That's what he calls his ''day job.''
''This is where I do my recording,'' he said, opening a tiny closet in his home in Hamden lined with hangers of coats and shirts, shelves filled with sweaters and several stacked suitcases. At the end of the closet: a chair, a little table and a microphone.
''A closet is a nice place to do this work,'' Tavares told me. ''The clothing and the carpeting absorbs the sound, so you don't get that hollow sound, like you're recording in a bathroom.''
He picked up a small sign with the message: ''On air.''
''This is what I put in my upstairs window when I'm recording,'' he said. ''When my neighbor sees it, he refrains from mowing his lawn.''
Tavares' understanding neighbor, Jim Fracasse, learned to understand Tavares' set schedule: 8 a.m. to about noon, every other Saturday. That's when Tavares went into his closet and recorded hundreds of funding credits that were heard all over the world.
''I'll do around 600 of them every other week,'' Tavares said.
He was speaking in the present tense. But in the middle of his following sentence, he caught himself and switched to the past: ''I get all the scripts — or, I got all the scripts — in spreadsheets via email.''
Tavares said it was last April 20 when he had ''the conversation'' that so many Americans have had with their bosses in recent times. A vice president at NPR told him the corporation had decided they needed to ''make the workflow more efficient.''
NPR officials wanted to combine Tavares' part-time job with that of another employee, so one person would do the voice work as well as handling the recording and editing.
''I was told, 'This has nothing to do with the quality of your work,' '' Tavares recalled, ''and 'You're invited to apply for it but you must live in D.C.'''
Because Tavares has established a nice life in Connecticut and has that full-time day job at SCSU and doesn't want to uproot his wife and their two sons, he never considered applying.
The new voice at NPR is Sabrina Farhi, who is 33 and until recently lived in Brooklyn. She moved to Washington to take that job.
Although Tavares, 68, is more than twice her age, he rejected any notion he is a victim of age discrimination. He added, ''Change is not always a bad thing.''
Tavares will be looking for other announcing gigs but, meanwhile, he will continue to use that closet for another regular endeavor of that space: writing fiction.
His short stories have appeared in assorted literary journals. He recently had published a collection of them, ''The Man Who Built Boxes.'' He also is working on a novel.
When he was a kid, Tavares never thought about going into radio work. But as he was preparing to graduate from high school, he passed his yearbook around the classroom and one of his female classmates wrote: ''With a voice like yours, you should be in radio.''
He was reminded of those words when he arrived at Wheaton College in Illinois in 1962 and saw a sign-up table for the college radio station. That work led to jobs with commercial stations after he graduated. In 1972, he landed his first job with public radio, in Austin, Texas. And in 1978, he was hired to work at NPR in Washington, helping direct audience programming.
''In 1982, we started doing funding credits. Bob Edwards (then the NPR morning host) came over and told the producer, 'I can't read this.' They realized they needed a firewall between the content and the underwriting. So the producer pulled me in from the hall, and I started reading.''
Tavares said he got ''burned out'' from the 80-hour workweeks and in 1989 accepted an offer to teach at SCSU. But he continued to do the NPR voice work.
Tavares admitted that the first time he heard Farhi's voice instead of his on the radio, ''It absolutely caught me off-guard. It'll take me a little while to get used to it.''
''Yes, I'll miss hearing my voice on the radio, and I'll miss being part of the daily fabric of public radio. But it'll be fine. I'm an NPR listener, and I'll get used to it.''
For immediate release
Review copies, book cover, and author photograph jpegs, and interviews available upon request. Contact: Michele Orwin 202-299-9551 Tel editor@baconpressbooks.com
Renown NPR radio announcer pens memorable book of short stories
If you’re an NPR listener, then you already know Frank Tavares. For many years, he’s been called “The Most Heard Voice” on public radio. Listeners across the country have heard him dozens of times a day as the man who says, "Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and . . . .", announcing the funding credits after every national news and information program.
His new book, The Man Who Built Boxes showcases his unique and masterful story-telling abilities with twelve stories, and a remarkable cast of complex, quirky characters tangled up in the limits they’ve put on their lives.
While the themes may be familiar—crumbling marriages, feuding neighbors, sparring business partners, and the endless
searching for what might have been—these and many other themes, in the hands of Tavares, become fresh, unpredictable,
surprising and enjoyable. Here’s a sampling:
“When It’s Over”
Cliff Wayland longs for any sign of affection from his wife, Brooke, even though she’s told him that part of their life together is over. What she hasn’t told him is how she spends her evenings when he’s out of town and just where she sees the marriage heading.
“The Neighbors”
Put two Iraq war veterans like Newt Snyder and Frank Brevic, still scarred from their service, next door to each other and a friendly feud between neighbors quickly escalates into something that could turn deadly.
“Why Jimmy Mendoza Hated the Late Tamale Jones”
Jimmy Mendoza hated Tamale Jones, even though he’d continued to work with him for years. Jimmy couldn’t help being pleased when Tamale drops dead like a stone into his pasta. Jimmy goes to the funeral looking for closure, but even in death Tamale manages to take away Jimmy’s last hope for his big chance.
“Antonio’s Yard”
Antonio Enzo Marino, aka Eddie Enzo, lives in a small Italian village. His house is on a hill that is gradually crumbling--his yard is getting smaller each year. But despite 20 years in Italy and his long marriage to Adelina, he has never forgotten the girl he left behind in Texas. Following Adelina’s death, after the garden she had planted and tended falls away, he feels freed to revisit his old love.
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About the author
Renown NPR radio announcer pens memorable book of short stories
If you’re an NPR listener, then you already know Frank Tavares. For many years, he’s been called “The Most Heard Voice” on public radio. Listeners across the country have heard him dozens of times a day as the man who says, "Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and . . . .", announcing the funding credits after every national news and information program.
His new book, The Man Who Built Boxes showcases his unique and masterful story-telling abilities with twelve stories, and a remarkable cast of complex, quirky characters tangled up in the limits they’ve put on their lives.
While the themes may be familiar—crumbling marriages, feuding neighbors, sparring business partners, and the endless
searching for what might have been—these and many other themes, in the hands of Tavares, become fresh, unpredictable,
surprising and enjoyable. Here’s a sampling:
“When It’s Over”
Cliff Wayland longs for any sign of affection from his wife, Brooke, even though she’s told him that part of their life together is over. What she hasn’t told him is how she spends her evenings when he’s out of town and just where she sees the marriage heading.
“The Neighbors”
Put two Iraq war veterans like Newt Snyder and Frank Brevic, still scarred from their service, next door to each other and a friendly feud between neighbors quickly escalates into something that could turn deadly.
“Why Jimmy Mendoza Hated the Late Tamale Jones”
Jimmy Mendoza hated Tamale Jones, even though he’d continued to work with him for years. Jimmy couldn’t help being pleased when Tamale drops dead like a stone into his pasta. Jimmy goes to the funeral looking for closure, but even in death Tamale manages to take away Jimmy’s last hope for his big chance.
“Antonio’s Yard”
Antonio Enzo Marino, aka Eddie Enzo, lives in a small Italian village. His house is on a hill that is gradually crumbling--his yard is getting smaller each year. But despite 20 years in Italy and his long marriage to Adelina, he has never forgotten the girl he left behind in Texas. Following Adelina’s death, after the garden she had planted and tended falls away, he feels freed to revisit his old love.
- The Man Who Built Boxes and other stories
Frank Tavares
List $9.99.
Paperback: 238 pages
Bacon Press Books
ISBN-10: 0988877953 ISBN-13: 978-0988877955
What People Are Saying
- “Frank is as enjoyable to read as he is to listen to”.
- Tom Bodett, author, blogger, and panelist on NPR's Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me!
“Too often, life stuns us with nuances and a mix of emotions that need time and patience to digest. Frank Tavares’s greatest gift is in delivering all of these layers and textures in a single pass and doing so with a beautiful taste of humor to make it all palatable…”
- Jack B. Bedell, author of Bone-Hollow, True: New & Selected Poems and director of Louisiana Literature Press.
"Frank Tavares really is a terrific storyteller; like someone surrounded by folks at a party or the person sitting next to you on an airplane who keeps you totally enthralled during the entire flight. In many ways, you probably know the people and situations he writes about. Indeed, you may even find parts of yourself among them. Even so, they are bound to surprise you; which makes it so enjoyable to read about them."
Howard Gross
About the author
- Frank Tavares has been writing his entire professional life. He started publishing fiction 10 years ago and his short stories have appeared in a variety of literary journals including Louisiana Literature, Connecticut Review, Story Quarterly, and The GW Review.
He is a professor of communication at Southern Connecticut State University. He is also one of the founding editors and active member of the editorial board of The Journal of Radio and Audio Media. NPR listeners still hear his voice as the signature to all network news programs—"Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and . . . ."
Dr. Frank Tavares (Professor) has a B.A. in English literature from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., an M.A. in theater from Northern Illinois University, and a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Texas at Austin. He has also taught at California State University in Fresno; the University of Maryland at College Park; Rockford College in Rockford, Ill.; and Marymount University in Arlington, Va.
He presently lives in Connecticut.