List Of Writers
FREDERICK, ROGER
c/o Interstate Publishing, PO Box 45, Kilgetty SA68 0XE
Email: rogerf@interstatefiction.com
Website: www.rogerfrederick.com
Roger Frederick was born in La Jolla, California in 1966. He grew up in Berkshire, and has lived in Pembrokeshire for the past 10 years. In a varied career, Roger has worked as a journalist, copywriter and web designer, not to mention stints as a careworker, a van driver and a blood sample unpacker in a genetic fingerprinting lab! He currently works in environmental publishing.
During the last decade, Roger has written four novels and numerous short stories, which are published through Interstate Indie Fiction. Roger’s fiction is predominantly set in Westingshire - an imaginary county that is a cross between the Berkshire countryside, the M4 corridor and the Pembrokeshire coast.
Recent titles include a novel The Shrewness of Apes (2004) and a collection of short stories entitled Of Lemonade Lizards and Other Brief Trips into Post-punk Fiction (2006). A 700 page collection of Roger’s early work The Casino Kid and other stories was published in 1999. This featured: two novels, The Casino Kid and Fishing for Angels; a novella, Walking by Water; and a collection of short stories Shorts and Dresses. These earlier titles are currently out of print, but complete e-book versions are available for free at http://www.interstatefiction.com
Roger Frederick is currently completing a new novel inspired both by his work in a rehabilitation centre and the coastline between Saundersfoot and Laugharne. Flesh and Wood (to be published 2008) tells the story of a saleswoman recuperating in a seaside village after a life-changing car crash. She finds a lifelike wooden hand discarded on a beach and sets out to discover its origins…
Reviews:
With respect to Faith Rides a Tricycle (Trilobite, 1992)
“…a lightness of touch that gives the reader space to breathe…”
Michael Symmons Roberts (2004 Whitbread Poetry Award Winner), Newbury Weekly News
With respect to Walking After Midnight (Trilobite, 1994)
“...What makes the collection highly readable is the emotional honesty and accuracy of the writing. The author’s access to the heads of his characters allows the readers to understand what they themselves are unable to express...An alternative to the escapist trash that normally packs the holiday beach bag...”
Penelope Stokes, Newbury Weekly News
Selected Publications:
Walking After Midnight (Trilobite, 1994)
Fishing for Angels (Interstate Publishing, 1996)
The Casino Kid (Interstate Publishing, 1999)
The Shrewdness of Apes (Interstate Indie Fiction, 2004)
Of Lemonade Lizards and Other Brief Trips into Post-punk Fiction (Interstate Indie Fiction, 2006)
The Shrewdness of Apes (Interstate Indie Fiction, 2004)
Newton Driftwood is a dope-smoking college drop-out. While temping as a ’cage rat’ in the warehouse of Westing’s largest department store, he develops a crush on Sophie the prim young manageress of soft furnishings. After rashly challenging a ‘sales whale’ from sportswear to compete in the Hellathon - the cross-country triathlon from hell - he decides to turn his life around, get fit and win Sophie’s affections. And that’s when the shit really starts to fly...
Set against a backdrop of shopping centres, bedsits and council leisure facilities, this new novel from Roger Frederick features the author’s customary mix of black comedy and sharply sardonic reflections on contemporary suburban life. Fresh, funny and thought provoking, this is original fiction with real attitude!
To purchase this title from www.interstatefiction.com please click on the cover
Of Lemonade Lizards and Other Brief Trips into Post-punk Fiction (Interstate Indie Fiction, 2006)
Based around an independent pub, the Daffodil Lion, and its eccentric patrons, this selection of short stories are set in the post-punk era of the 1980s. The collection starts with ’Dancing to the Dead Kennedys’, about the last chaotic gig of battling local punk bands, and ends with ’The Five Commandments’, the poignant story of a young mum forced into homelessness.
In between, retired insurance executives cross paths with travelling potters, a pie salesman mysteriously melts away into a blizzard, a hippy gardener makes friends with an ageing porn star and her telepathic cat, an unemployed ironmonger goes berserk at a nuclear protest, and a drunk alpacca runs amuck at a surreal country wedding. All in all, anyone who’s ever danced berserkly to a New Order twelve inch will enjoy this alternative take on a desperate decade that has inexplicably become fashionable again!
To purchase this title from www.interstatefiction.com please click on the cover