Timothy Gager is the author of fifteen books of fiction and poetry. His latest, Spreading Like Wild Flowers,is his eighth of poetry. Timothy hosted the successful Dire Literary
Series in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 2001 to 2018, and as a virtual series starting in 2020. Timothy was the co-founder of
The Somerville News Writers
Festival. He has had over 600 works of fiction and poetry published, of which seventeen have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work also has been nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award, The Best of the Web, The Best Small Fictions Anthology and has been read on National Public
Radio.
Timothy is the Fiction Editor of The Wilderness House
Literary Review, and the founding
co-editor of The Heat City Literary
Review. A graduate of the University of Delaware, Timothy lives in Dedham, Massachusetts with some fish and two rabbits, and he is employed as a social worker. He is currently seeking representation for his third novel, Joe the Salamander, a semi-finalist for The Holland Prize.
The stories in Every Day There is Something About Elephants are skewed, off-center, off-balance and an absolute delight to read. They begin strange, then fill like a balloon of strangeness about to pop, except they don't. They bob and quiver on your palm like so much lime jello. Oddly moving and always thought provoking, Every Day There is Something about Elephants is Lydia Davis meets Etgar Keret in a saloon and they're passing a napkin back and forth, riffing, pens blazing. That.
Kathy Fish
TOGETHER WE CAN BURY IT
Like one of his characters, a cop named Jack, Gager is "the maestro of an out of time orchestra," and his stories arrest us with their reassuring unpredictability, their devoted irreverence, and their tragicomic grasp of the absurd. Birth, family, romance, work, grief, hilarity, fear, joy, and mortality all tumble together until their colors run. These brief stories will have you thinking — even if you're unsure of what — and leave you dazzled, recharged, and ready for damn near anything.
Richard Hoffman
Every Day There is Something About Elephants bristles with the energy of a keen and curious mind. Timothy Gager is a virtuoso of the compressed narrative. Each of these fictions sticks like a 10.
Christopher Allen
OTHER HOUSEHOLD TOXINS
Timothy Gager's book, Chief Strongbow is Real, is evidence of a new stage for the veteran poet and novelist. Before this book, Gager safely relied on his poetic insight into the struggle we all face, and his powerful phraseology; in this one, he stretches out into the worlds of politics and personality. His eye for the telling detail remains, but his work has become more expansive, more timely, and less hard-bitten. This is a mature poet showing us exactly what he's got: and it's good.
Rusty Barnes
ON BROAD SOUND and I AM NOT ARIEL
The poems in Chief Strongbow is Real exist in liminal spaces. Timothy Gager realizes that like the actor who portrayed Strongbow, we are all “fake…actor[s] within/the theater of our absurdity.” These poems aren’t afraid to rail against the world we find ourselves in, where if “the cash is too good/right in our backyard, [we] sign the contracts/then set the tap water on fire.” These are poems that fight for truth and justice and love – whether we’re ready for them yet, or not.
Shaindel Beers, author of A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME and THE CHILDRENS'S WAR and Other Poems
Timothy Gager is a genius of the quotidian, keenly observing the details of our
lives and rendering them so that we can hear the deep pulse of our identities,
of our pure being, within them. The Shutting Door is a ravishing, wonderful,
enlightening book. I'm one of Timothy Gager's biggest fans."\
Robert Olen Butler PULITZER PRIZE WINNING
AUTHOR
Timothy Gager's stories came at us like a brisk punch to the
heart. His characters are profane and tender, dazed and confused, out of work
and short on options. And yet they remain stubbornly vibrant, these damaged
children of Bukowski, illuminated by their desires and inflamed by unreasonable
hopes.
Steve Almond author of THE EVIL B.B. CHOW, CANDY FREAK,
and NOT THAT YOU ASKED
In The Shutting Door, Gager studies the
crisp space between life's summation and the gathering of what harvest may wait
for us as we work at a more genuine quality of being. In a world of social media
he shows himself brave and committed to truth, but not without humor. This is a
delightful new work from a poet who consistently shows that he believes in what
connects us and makes us human.
Afaa M. Weaver author of THE
GOVERNMENT OF NATURE
Timothy's flash fictions are a trip-- or
actually many quick and vivid trips. Gager's untamed
fictional terrain, sometimes surreal, sometimes all-too-real, always surprise. Fasten your readerly seatbelt, choose your own
adventure and enjoy the wild rides.
Elizabeth Searle author of
CELEBRITIES IN DISGRACE and TONYA & NANCY: THE ROCK OPERA
Worldly, witty, and often satirical, these poems also
have a tender side, a feeling of loss and longing, a sense of thwarted hopes and
dreams. It is as if the poet has glimpsed something wondrous and maybe
all-important just beyond a door that is closing. What did he see in there? Was
it his beloved, or the remnants of love grown cold? Was it the hem of God, or
the remnants of a faith no longer held? Was it a little bit of truth and beauty
mixed together, or was it the death of either, or both? Questions on this order
are at the heart of these poems, and the glimpses of the answers are real enough
to help us keep going.
