by Joseph Bates

Joseph Bates's debut short story collection Tomorrowland offers stories full of strange attractions and uncanny conceits, a world of freakish former child stars, abused Elvis impersonators, derelict roadside attractions, apocalyptic small towns, and parallel universes where you make out with your ex. At its core, the world of Tomorrowland is our own, though reflected off a funhouse mirror--revealing our hopes and deepest fears to comic, heartbreaking effect.

PRAISE FOR TOMORROWLAND:
"The highly inventive stories in this debut collection address a fantastic yet familiar world, where shiny promises of fulfillment fall flat, age disappoints and love is not exactly the answer." 
—Susan Weinstein at Not Another Book Review

“Tomorrowland is a revelation, combining slightly skewed or fantastic conceits, a darkly comic tone, and wonderfully nimble, funny prose, all in service of a surprisingly serious, touching vision. These inventive stories mark the debut of a major talent.”
—Michael Griffith, author of Trophy and Bibliophilia

"Tomorrowland’s not enough; Joseph Bates needs to put out a collection of stories every month. These are quirky, sly, brilliant, playful stories that belong shelved somewhere between Barthelme and Saunders. Tomorrowland is outstanding, and unforgettable, and universal. It’s like opening up one of those chocolate samplers and finding out that, through a mix-up at the factory, each piece is your favorite."
—George Singleton, author of Stray Decorum

"Joseph Bates’s tales are so funny, and so sad, and so full of life in the truest, wildest way. He sends these stories bounding through the universe—and even the multiverse—through lands both unaccountably strange and uncomfortably familiar. But behind the Boardwalk Elvises and sadistic trick-or-treaters and busted-up futures past, these are ultimately stories about the little and larger failures of just being human—in any kind of world."
—Amber Sparks, author of May We Shed These Human Bodies and The Desert Places

ABOUT JOSEPH BATES:
Joseph Bates is the author of The Nighttime Novelist (Writer's Digest, 2010). His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in such publications as New Ohio Review, South Carolina Review, Identity Theory, The Rumpus, The Cincinnati Review, and Shenandoah. He teaches in the creative writing program at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Visit Joseph online at www.josephbates.net.

PRESS:
Publishers Weekly
Bookslut
The Lit Pub
Volume 1 Brooklyn
This Blog Will Change Your Life Podcast
The Preface

PUBLICATION DETAILS:
Pages: 223
ISBN: 978-0988825819
Publication Date: October 2013