Man Talking: The Official Website of Mike Heppner
Author of the novels The Egg Code and Pike's Folly
Reply To: pike@mikeheppner.com
NEWS: Talking Man reviewed in the June '09 issue of The Chapbook Review.
An original essay about the Man Talking Project will be appearing in the Sept./Oct. issue of
Poets & Writers. Check back for more details.
Mike Heppner and Small Anchor Press announce Talking, the fourth and final in a series of novellas released in 2008 and 2009.
The Man Talking Project has been written about in The New Yorker on-line, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, Conversational Reading, AdFreak, Maud Newton, Media Bistro, The Millions and HTMLGiant. Clare Dudman (98 Reasons for Being) calls the project "...a brilliant piece of writing... innovative, interesting, and absorbing..." and Neil Peart (Road Show) raves "...an artful examination of modern life, and modern love, with perfect dialogue, wry humor, (and) psychological insight."
The four novellas were written between 2007 and 2009. Three of the four were released in full over the past year. One cannot find the entire project in a single location, however it is possible to collect and read the project in its entirety.
Part One, Talking Man, was published in September 2008 by Small Anchor Press. Small Anchor Press is a Brooklyn-based independent press specializing in finely crafted handmade books. Talking Man can be purchased exclusively at SA's website, smallanchorpress.com. A second printing came out in February 2009.
Part Two, Man, was released in December 2008. Five hundred photocopies have been left in random locations across the United States for readers to find and comment on. Some of those comments can be read here.
Part Three, Man Talking, the third in the series (but the first to be made available), can be read for free here. Over four thousand readers have visited since Man Talking went on-line in April 2008.
Part Four, Talking, is a piece of writing; it's also a contest. One winner will receive a single-copy edition of Talking, entirely handwritten by Mike Heppner, plus signed copies of the other three sections. A short documentary film will feature the author awarding the prize to the winner in person (if practical). The winner is the first person to correctly guess the secret phrase, which can be found in one of Heppner's two full-length novels, The Egg Code and Pike's Folly. Both novels are available as Vintage paperbacks.
Contest Details:
The answer to the Talking contest has been sealed in a post-marked envelope and is being held by a third party, attorney Daniel Keane. It will be opened and made public at the end of the contest.
Contestants must email their guesses to Mike Heppner through this website to be eligible.
The winner will be determined by the timestamp on the email's header. In the unlikely event of a tie, one winner will be decided at random.
Contestants may only submit one guess per email. Limit ten guesses per person. Guesses are not caps-specific, but they must be spelled correctly. The correct guess must contain only those words included in the secret phrase. Any single guess may not exceed ten words.
