Ches Smith is a former seminary student turned atheist with a degree in Bible and a minor in philosophy. Upon realizing there isn’t much an atheist can do with that degree and there isn’t much anyone can do with that minor, he took up writing so he could say things from a safe distance that would otherwise get him burned at the stake. His first novel, Under the Suns, was self-published in 2014 and his second novel, The Author Is Dead, was released on October 1st, 2018 by Literary Wanderlust, a Denver-based independent publishing house.
The Author Is Dead
A failed suicide, a failed writer, and a failed husband, Ches is tragically depressed–that is, until he finds his muse in punk rocker/ militia-marketer/ free-spirited Thalia. Ches is haunted by Thalia’s ghost–or perhaps a hallucination–and grows obsessed with writing her story…but due to his increasingly erratic behavior, he is quickly self-destructing. The pressures of public school IT work, a middle school revolution, an ex-wife, a crazed father, and an emotional crime spree culminate in a fantastic meta twist, creating a surprising end to this fabulously witty dark comedy.
