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J. ADAMS OAKS

J. Adams Oaks received his MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. His work has appeared in The Madison Review and River Oak Review, as well as Hairtrigger 21 in which the original beginning of this novel appeared and won the National Society of Arts and Letters regional competition. His work won an Illinois Arts Council award in prose, Chicago Public Radio’s “Stories On Stage” contest and was performed and recorded at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Currently, he is an invited lecturer at University of Chicago. He curates a gallery reading series for Around The Coyote and is a member of the Serendipity Collective for which he writes, teaches, and performs. He lives in Chicago. This is his first novel.

FEATURED TITLE
Why I Fight
On Sale in early 2009

Left alone for days on end, 12-1/2 year old Wyatt Reaves burns down the family house. His parents lose everything and lose control, but Wyatt’s favorite uncle, Spade, whisks him away to “safety.”

Spade may not feel one way or the other about his strapping nephew, but eventually he sees potential in the boy -- to earn money, in the bare-fist fight racket.

The two travel America, living off Wyatt’s earnings and the goodness of lady friends. Who am I? is the question behind the boy’s developing sense of who he isn’t.