Kickstarter

From AL MARTINEZ, Pulitzer Prize winning Los Angeles Times newspaper columnist:

"I love Patrick Caneday's work. He seeks out the humanity in us and writes about it in the kind of seamless prose that any author would envy, in a style that only a few can achieve. I have always looked forward to reading his columns and now I have them at hand to consider them in pleasure. Thanks, Patrick, for the immensity of the gift you have given us and continue to give."

Hi, folks!!! It's simple. I'm trying to raise some finishing funds to publish a collection of the most popular and favorite of my Small Wonders newspaper columns, AND MORE. Since I began writing the column (check it out at www.glendalenewspress.com and www.burbankleader.com), I've had a lot of people ask when a book would be coming out. Well, here it is. BUT, this isn't just a collection of previuosly published columns. I've written a series of new, longer essays exploring life and what it's like to be human with the same honesty, emotion and (hopefully) humor that you get each Saturday with Small Wonders. Just more.

Take a look at the rewards I'm offering for your pledge. All monies are going directly to the design, editing, printing and marketing of a paperback book. I've already set this all up with a self-publisher and paid the initial fees. This is going to happen!

PLEASE PASS THIS ON to anyone you know who might be interested. There are buttons above to share this on Facebook and Twitter. Your support and encouragement is greatly appreciated!

Want to know more? Here you go:

Patrick Caneday spent nearly 20 years in Hollywood, working his way from errand-running production assistant to successful post-production executive. With a good job and a loving family, he was quite content. But contentment in a sensible job isn’t always enough. Patrick had a desire to write. Though he gave little serious thought to writing as a career, writing was always a passion and something he yearned to explore. When he had time, of course.

One day in the fall of 2008, Patrick took a “mental health day” from his full time job to simply enjoy a beautiful day in his hammock and do a little creative writing. What came of this was a short essay that he decided to submit to the forum page of his local newspaper. The essay was printed a few days later. In fact, the editors asked if he had more such creative essays to submit. After sending in two more the following week and seeing them published, the editors were so taken with Patrick’s writing style and off-center view of seemingly mundane things, that they asked if he’d like to have his own weekly column in the newspaper.

Patrick was suddenly a writer. And a paid writer at that (enough to take his wife to the movies).

Within six months, his column, Small Wonders, was expanded from the twice weekly Burbank Leader to the larger and daily Glendale News Press. Small Wonders has become a staple for these newspapers and something readers eagerly await each Saturday morning.

Small Wonders is devoted to the heart-wrenching and the knee-slapping, the nostalgic and the nonsensical. From the view of a “house dad,” it’s about the sweet, silly and frustrating things kids do. And the stupid things parents do in return. From the view of an average person, It’s about average people and what makes them so above average. It's about life, culture, religion, bacon, ice cream and caterpillars. And when he can't find anything else to write about, Patrick shines the dentist's light upon himself and his struggles, and tries to get people to see themselves in our shared humanity. Each week readers are offered something different to consider, or merely something to entertain them.

But at its heart, Small Wonders is about the things we all take for granted, no matter what the topic. People want a break today; a break from the angry, contrived rhetoric of our infotainment culture; a break from the troubling realities of our time. People want to know they aren't alone in the world. They are looking for wonders. Small Wonders.

A victim of the global economics of our day, Patrick lost his full time job when the company he was working for went out of business. But, with the support and encouragement of his wife, Patrick used this as an opportunity to take a sabbatical from the conventional working world and explore what it would be like to be a writer.

This was the inspiration for the book, "Crooked Little Birdhouse: Random Thoughts on Being Human."

As a collection of previously published Small Wonders columns, "Crooked Little Birdhouse" gathers readers’ favorites and the most popular of Patrick’s written ramblings in his weekly newspaper column. But it is more than that. By including a handful of newly written and never before published longer essays, "Crooked Little Birdhouse" becomes an exploration of a writer’s psyche and a man looking back at events that changed his life forever. "Crooked Little Birdhouse" looks at of what would happen if you were given one year to be what you always dreamed you could be. And the result may surprise you.