Ex-this, former that. Noah Seymour has a second chance, having been ambushed by Bands Back Together, a reality TV show that reunites once-popular bands for a televised concert. Pondering whether to take the stage again, Noah daydreams about his past in The Vows: his first tour (a disaster), his first album (nominated for a Grammy), his first love (a fellow musician already in a relationship), and his final betrayal. Now a high school teacher in New Orleans, maybe Noah can use The Vows' reunion as a means to bed flirty guidance counselor Chloe Sorensen? Or maybe it's his ticket out of writing lesson plans, unjamming copy machines, and loosening neckties at three o'clock? But can Noah in good conscience abandon Miles Lafayette, his hipster student who follows him everywhere, seeking his advice? Furthermore, is it even possible for an ex-rock star to improve the second time around, like a song in reprise at the end of an album? Dizzying chord changes, bright lights, band mates, and a ex-lover come crashing back into Noah's life, whether he's ready or not. Indie Darling is a novel about a man who has lost the luster of his life-and the choices he makes to get it back.
About the Author: Travis Ian Smith is the author of The Salt Flowers, a collection of poetry published in 2010 by MT Pages. His words and work have appeared in journals such as Red River Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, The Grasslands Review, Texas Observer, The Austin Chronicle, Volpe, and the anthology "Is This Forever or What?: Poems & Paintings from Texas," published by Greenwillow Books in 2004. Of his poetry, Guggenheim fellow and author of The Oval Hour Kathleen Pierce writes, "Travis Ian Smith's poems are extraordinary because they bear and praise a world where transcendence is available if we surrender to the physical aspect of ourselves and things very nearby us, like flowers, or lovers, or a star. Words and lines written from such a place are rare in poetry because a maker of such poems must be diligent not to be carried completely by the emotional current of longing, whose extreme is sentimentality. Travis's poems move headlong onto this poetically dangerous edge with patience and clarity and grace. I would say they always have. His poems are wonderfully alive at the very delicate brink of delight." Travis Ian Smith received his MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University, where he was awarded a grant by the Sewell-Elam Foundation for his distinguished graduate work. In 2002 his poem "Still Life with Boy and Trees" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2016, A Feather Imprint, a literary press that Smith founded, will publish his fiction debut, Indie Darling, a novel about a musician's last chance at redemption. A resident of New Orleans, Travis Ian Smith teaches literature and film at the School of Continuing Studies at Tulane University.