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Joe Cottonwood

Joe Cottonwood is a writer who has made several of his stories available as free audiobooks.

Book 1 of the San Puerco trilogy

Boone Barnaby lives in a small town full of large characters: San Puerco, California. There's Boone's father, who loves Studebakers and doo-wop, and who has a habit of walking around the dark streets of town late at night carrying a can of gasoline. There's Boone's friend Danny, who has nothing—sometimes not even a home—but who wants everything, even if he has to steal for it. There's Boone's other friend Babcock, who finds trilobites and organizes a picket line and looks like a wet coconut. There's Walt, the soccer coach, who drives a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. And there's Boone himself, who has a few problems: His soccer team is thrown out of the league. The dogcatcher is after Boone's dog. The town hoodlum is throwing rocks. Boone's father is arrested for burning down houses. The adult world doesn't seem fair, but with the help of his friends—Danny and Babcock—Boone tries to make things right and maybe learn just who he is and what he stands for.

Book 2 of the San Puerco trilogy

A fat boy with the blues. A skinny girl who runs marathons. And a con man on the lam. If you liked Clear Heart, or if you liked Boone Barnaby, you'll like this one, too. The themes are a bit more grown up than Boone Barnaby, but it's still family-friendly for reading. For any age it's my brand of writing: humane, down to earth, good-natured, sometimes funny and sometimes sad.

Babcock plays electric guitar. He's writing songs - and trying to figure out the true meaning of rock and roll - but he keeps coming up with the blues. Babcock is trying to start a friendship with a girl, Kirsten, who is as different as can be: Kirsten is skinny; she hates insects. And she's white. Babcock is fat; he speaks to dragonflies. And he's black.

In some ways Kirsten is like a dragonfly: quick and bright. She never walks; she runs everywhere. Her family has money. Her mother thinks Babcock is a little too “rough.” Opposites attract. But can they make music?

Babcock's family is struggling for money. Then Babcock's Uncle Earl moves in - and he moves into Babcock's bedroom with Babcock's menagerie of animals (including Martin Luther Kingsnake.). Uncle Earl is a con man on the lam. Uncle Earl used to play drums for Chuck Berry. Babcock wants to be Chuck Berry. Uncle Earl wants to coach a Little League baseball team - as a “business venture.” Babcock hates baseball. Babcock wants to learn “charm” from Uncle Earl. Uncle Earl wants to learn how to live a normal life and marry a normal woman - who happens to be Babcock's schoolteacher. Maybe Babcock and Uncle Earl have something to teach each other.

Babcock's father runs a car repair shop. At night, in the kitchen, he draws cartoons. Some day he wants to quit repairing cars and sell his cartoons. But nobody's buying.

Kirsten is hotheaded. Sometimes she needs protection - from herself. Her mother tries to protect her - from Babcock. For help with his problems Babcock goes to an unlikely source: his Uncle Earl, the man with good charm and bad behavior. But the biggest lessons from Uncle Earl - and, perhaps, from rock and roll - are not what anyone expected.

Carpenters and craft, friendship and rivalry: Wally is building a mansion for a dot-com multimillionaire in the Silicon Valley of California. As the dot-com's stock keeps rising, the size of the house - and the owner's ego - keep growing. Wally and his colorful crew may be into something that's over their heads. When little guys work for bigshots, who gets nailed?

From bungling to burglary, from demolishing concrete to racing beltsanders, from love of tools to falling in love, everyone will encounter Wally's Laws of Construction - or are they Laws of Life? Each house, it seems, is a miracle.

Willy Middlebrook is a nice boy from the suburbs, a Vietnam vet, a college drop-out majoring in Human Kindness. Framed for the murder of a cop, Willy goes on the lam from the law. With hopeful heart and broken balls he lives among the people of the humble cafes and dusty bars, underground.

Four smart kids. One busy town.

Bowie Brown plays guitar - and uses it as an assault weapon. Mimi Bucher lives in a secret bedroom in a shopping mall. Jaz McGuire is determined to never grow up and to never hear mention of ess ee ex. Hoot Howard collects waterfalls - until somebody steals them.

Hoot has a mother with lime-green hair. Bowie has a father who sings to a ghost. Jaz has a mother who is too Chinese. Mimi has nobody at all.

A couple of neighbors nicknamed Curly and Moe just might be starting a multi-billion dollar software company in a garage - if only they can cash their first check.

It's the beginning of another year of school in Menlo Park, California in the year 1998, a time of change, the end of a millennium.