The Year of Schrand Begins

My close personal friend and loyal Chazzbot reader Brandon R. Schrand has been chosen as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection for Summer 2008.

Pretty exciting news considering the high visibility of the award. You can look for Brandon's memoir at a B&N near you soon. Or you can pre-order it and say you were familiar with his work before he was an award-winning author. (There will be more and increasingly prestigious awards to come, I'm sure.)

I've written about Brandon before on the site, especially back when his late, lamented blog, Chronicle West, was still up and running. He's a fantastic writer and a great beer drinking raconteur. Among other adventures, he and I survived one of the most misguided group camping trips in modern memory.

You can read more details of the award at Brandon's new professional website. (A professional website! This is perhaps the new marker of true and/or potential fame in our wired culture. A site where you might avoid discussing misguided group camping trips, for example.) (Actually, I'm not sure anyone who experienced that camping trip actually wants to write about it, but that's another story.)

Chazzbot sends its warmest congratulations to Brandon and heartily recommends that you find any and all of his published writing and enjoy the shit out of it. (This is my favorite piece of his (in PDF format).) You'll be hearing more about this writer in the near future, and not just from me.

First, Jon D. Lee; now Brandon R. Schrand. Who says Chazzbot doesn't have its digital finger on the literary pulse of the new millennium?