To the Last Drop
a novel by Andrew Wice
Biography and other works
Author Bio
I was born Andrew David Wice in 1974 to two Political Science professors in Pittsburgh, PA. I learned to walk in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was raised in New Jersey and Washington, D.C. In the spring of 1991, during the first Gulf War, I served as a page in the United States Senate.
I graduated from Macalester College (St. Paul, MN) in 1996 with Honors in English for my first novel, After Bells Had Rung and Were Silent.
After college I began my peregrinations around the country. I have lived, written novels and tended bar at a ranch in the Colorado Rockies, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Key West, New Smyrna Beach (FL), NYC again, Sedona (AZ), Iceland, and currently Madrid (NM).
I used to travel in the company of a handsome border collie named Sora. He was named for a Japanese poet. He was a good dog, and remains responsible for finding my present home: Madrid, New Mexico. First a coal-mining and later ghost town, it is a tiny island of artists and freaks located south of Santa Fe in the high desert mountains. For many years I was the music manager and bartender of the legendary Mineshaft Tavern.
Over eleven years of writing and submitting six novels, I have collected around 200 rejections. Therefore, I am very pleased that the wise and intelligent people at the Bauu Institute Press are excited to publish my novel To the Last Drop. I will be traveling to a bookstore near you in 2008.
I was born Andrew David Wice in 1974 to two Political Science professors in Pittsburgh, PA. I learned to walk in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was raised in New Jersey and Washington, D.C. In the spring of 1991, during the first Gulf War, I served as a page in the United States Senate.
I graduated from Macalester College (St. Paul, MN) in 1996 with Honors in English for my first novel, After Bells Had Rung and Were Silent.
After college I began my peregrinations around the country. I have lived, written novels and tended bar at a ranch in the Colorado Rockies, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Key West, New Smyrna Beach (FL), NYC again, Sedona (AZ), Iceland, and currently Madrid (NM).
I used to travel in the company of a handsome border collie named Sora. He was named for a Japanese poet. He was a good dog, and remains responsible for finding my present home: Madrid, New Mexico. First a coal-mining and later ghost town, it is a tiny island of artists and freaks located south of Santa Fe in the high desert mountains. For many years I was the music manager and bartender of the legendary Mineshaft Tavern.
Over eleven years of writing and submitting six novels, I have collected around 200 rejections. Therefore, I am very pleased that the wise and intelligent people at the Bauu Institute Press are excited to publish my novel To the Last Drop. I will be traveling to a bookstore near you in 2008.
Other Novels
AFTER BELLS HAD RUNG AND WERE SILENT (1996) is the story of a girl's life from age 8-18, told by ten different narrators.
THE JOURNEY ITSELF IS HOME (1998), wherein the narrator learns that he has gotten a young girl pregnant. He travels around the country trying to find the runaway on a journey that echoes the travelogues of the haiku poet Basho.
PIRATES OF CRUDE (2000) is a story about modern-day pirates who prey on drug smugglers in the Caribbean. The modern pirates operate in the same waters using the same tactics as the pirates of olde centuries. Machine guns have replaced cannons, engines have replaced sails, cocaine has replaced doubloons. Little else has changed. The story bulges with sex, drugs and violence as well as sly bedevilments, peppery history and black humor.
THE MALIGNANT INFERNO (2002) is a dystopic novel in the spirit of 1984 and Brave New World. In a near-future where convenience is the ideal, what happens when a member of the privileged class drops through the floor of his society and must make an exodus on foot across the desert with a dog?
SACKING ICELAND (2004) is the story of an American writer in Iceland composing a novel. The journal of the writer (set in Iceland) and the novel-within-the-novel (the story of a high school football team in the U.S.) are cut together to create a multi-layered literary adventure.
THE OBJECT: A LOVE STORY (currently in its 1st draft) is the story of a woman's life from birth to death. It is told by fifty distinct narrators, some who know her as intimately as a lover and others who simply cross her path. A portrait in negative space, the novel explores both the isolation and interconnectivity of human lives.
THE JOURNEY ITSELF IS HOME (1998), wherein the narrator learns that he has gotten a young girl pregnant. He travels around the country trying to find the runaway on a journey that echoes the travelogues of the haiku poet Basho.
PIRATES OF CRUDE (2000) is a story about modern-day pirates who prey on drug smugglers in the Caribbean. The modern pirates operate in the same waters using the same tactics as the pirates of olde centuries. Machine guns have replaced cannons, engines have replaced sails, cocaine has replaced doubloons. Little else has changed. The story bulges with sex, drugs and violence as well as sly bedevilments, peppery history and black humor.
THE MALIGNANT INFERNO (2002) is a dystopic novel in the spirit of 1984 and Brave New World. In a near-future where convenience is the ideal, what happens when a member of the privileged class drops through the floor of his society and must make an exodus on foot across the desert with a dog?
SACKING ICELAND (2004) is the story of an American writer in Iceland composing a novel. The journal of the writer (set in Iceland) and the novel-within-the-novel (the story of a high school football team in the U.S.) are cut together to create a multi-layered literary adventure.
THE OBJECT: A LOVE STORY (currently in its 1st draft) is the story of a woman's life from birth to death. It is told by fifty distinct narrators, some who know her as intimately as a lover and others who simply cross her path. A portrait in negative space, the novel explores both the isolation and interconnectivity of human lives.
Haiku
I am a published haiku poet. A selection of my haiku from all over the world, exquisitely framed, is on exhibition at Range West Gallery in Madrid, NM. You are cordially invited to visit them.
This haiku has been nominated for the venerable Pushcart Prize by The Journal of Truth and Consequence:
This haiku has been nominated for the venerable Pushcart Prize by The Journal of Truth and Consequence:
She has me
toasting her with tequila
alone in my night kitchen
toasting her with tequila
alone in my night kitchen
The following haiku are a slim selection of those composed while visiting Japan in the Spring of 2007:
Sunbeams lance
through low churning clouds
hawks circle on broad wings
stiff like kites
Mountains above Usuki :
pale cherry blossoms
bloom among the pines
Sho chu with my brother
to the moon sky
up through clouds of sakura
Some unnamed scent,
some unseen bird’s song
haunt this cool green bamboo forest
Usuki Stone Buddha
century lips still red
just about to speak
Beauty looked at me,
pulling on her boots ...
Kannon’s temple
in Spring rain
This night ferry
leaves a long wide wake
under bright moon,
cold wind on deck
Boy runs up,
Tatasakiyama monkey
smacks him across the face
Steep cemetery paths,
lichens splotch the crowded tombstones,
hill-top wind
Other Endeavors
through low churning clouds
hawks circle on broad wings
stiff like kites
Mountains above Usuki :
pale cherry blossoms
bloom among the pines
Sho chu with my brother
to the moon sky
up through clouds of sakura
Some unnamed scent,
some unseen bird’s song
haunt this cool green bamboo forest
Usuki Stone Buddha
century lips still red
just about to speak
Beauty looked at me,
pulling on her boots ...
Kannon’s temple
in Spring rain
This night ferry
leaves a long wide wake
under bright moon,
cold wind on deck
Boy runs up,
Tatasakiyama monkey
smacks him across the face
Steep cemetery paths,
lichens splotch the crowded tombstones,
hill-top wind
Other Endeavors
I am a contributor to the witty, sarcastic and sardonically irreverent sports website I Dislike Your Favorite Team, created by one of my college roommates.