Happy to announce that we’re publicizing Paul Beckman‘s Peek: Stories (Big Table Publishing). More about Paul Beckman and Peek below:

About Peek:

“Moving seamlessly between voyeurs and Vespas, Kosher soap and secret lives, Peek goes from clever to heartbreaking to outright bizarre with equal dexterity. It’s as if Woody Allen and Charles Bukowski got your favorite uncle hammered all weekend and made him spill the family dirt in perfect, flash fiction sized bites.”

—Nancy Stohlman, The Vixen Scream and Other Bible Stories

“Paul Beckman explores the relationships between the peekers and the peeked at in this creative collection of flash fiction. PEEK is a large and vast range of stories that show off his creative skill as a writer and his flexibility to easily move between completely different voices. The stories fit together so well that even though they are all different, not one of them feels out of place amongst the others.”

—Eleanor Hemsley, Sabotage Reviews

“Paul Beckman’s irresistible stories give us a world in which everyone thinks about sex all the time, and nobody hesitates to get what he or she wants – whether it’s sex, a last laugh before being executed, or a substitute mother who’ll do the complaining when your real mother has died. Some of these dark, ambitious stories of desire and anxiety are hilarious. In others the joke is on the startled reader, who has not quite anticipated how far our fellow creatures – and Beckman – will go.”

—Alice Mattison, When We Argued All Night

“In stories both accessible and profound, rife with humor and pathos, Paul Beckman’s Peek delivers. Telling details, nuanced themes and characters are all demonstrated here, with a range that is stunning. What a stellar collection this is.”

—Robert Scotellaro, Measuring the Distance

“Paul Beckman’s work is always fresh, evocative, and engaging and never more so than in the pages of Peek. I found so much to like about this collection that just a peek was impossible. After reading one story, I found myself immediately turning to the next. Good books are hard to put down, and this is a good book by anyone’s measure. I wish I had written so many of these wonderful pieces. But the next best thing to writing a great story, is reading one, or two, or three…”

—Michael C. Keith, Everything Is Epic

Paul Beckman lives in a small shoreline town in Connecticut with his wife Sandra.  Their blended family of five children has to date produced ten grandchildren. In 1999, Paul received his MFA from Bennington College while working full time in the real estate business from which he now retired.

He has also been a restaurateur, bartender, pin setter, carpenter, Teamster, Air Traffic Controller, numbers runner, builder, butcher and paper boy amongst other callings in his life. Some of his passions are traveling, photography, snorkeling, diving and of course reading.

His recently had a collection of Flash and Micro Fiction published in print and online “Maybe I Ought to Sit In a Dark Room For a While” and continues to write and have his work published both in print and online.

His first published collection was Come! Meet My Family and other stories.

He is a member of PEN USA.

Paul is pleased to have his work published in New Zealand, surprised to have it translated into two German anthologies of Humor by Jewish Writers  and thrilled to have several of his short stories turned into plays. Additionally he’s been published in Great Britain,Sweden, Prague, Canada, India and Australia.