Double Novel Giveaway from Southern Writer and Educator, D.S. Davis

Featuring Florida-focused literary fiction, Each One a Nation and I.P.A

Oct 21, 2024

Hi folks, it’s time for a new Double Book Giveaway!

When I recently reintroduced myself in an interview-esque format, the response was so positive that I decided to extend the same interview questions to some of my other favorite writers. Hence, today, I want to introduce you to Florida novelist, D.S. Davis, aka Drew, and give away two signed paperbacks of his books! He is a brilliant writer and a living saint who spends his non-writing hours teaching autistic children and children with learning disabilities in the public school system as an ESE teacher (exceptional student educator). In 2023, he also began Nightbloomer Publishing Solutions, a small business dedicated to helping independent authors publish their books.

Furthermore, Drew just survived Hurricane Helene, AND Milton, back to back, having to evacuate his home and family members from the Tampa coast, and experiencing all the stress that comes along with that, plus making sure his four cats stayed safe, so please show him some love and share this post if you can, subscribe to his Substack, or grab one of his books for yourself or a loved one.

Here are my copies of his books, including his latest novel, Each One A Nation. Details to enter the giveaway for two of his novels below.

Drew and I met online when he popped into the weekly Writers’ Support Group I host on Zoom with author Lainey Cameron, and I’ve appreciated his writing ever since. I’ve read all his books! He edited and gave me feedback to improve my novel Acid Christmas, also, which was so helpful!

Like my novels, his first book, Storyletter, also includes a fun dose of substance use, including an acid trip, as well as alcohol abuse, infidelity, and writer angst—subjects I understand all too well! Plus, it’s set in Daytona Beach, Florida. I found it relatable and darkly funny, reminiscent also of one of my favorite Florida movies—Harmony Korine’s Beachbum.

D.S.’s second book, Scream at the Mirror, is a short story collection that follows up on a character from Storyletter and captures the attitudes of the youngest and most jaded portion of American millennials.

Then his third book, I.P.A., which I also found quite funny, is set on Florida’s Treasure Coast. It features a clueless, horny, Southern broski who gets mixed up working for a crooked female Mayor with cougar instincts.

Finally, his fourth novel, Each One A Nation, is beautifully written and examines the interconnected lives of students on a high school swim team and their parents in an affluent lakeside community in Georgia. Think American Beauty meets Ozarks.

The Double Giveaway!

In honor of his recent release, D.S. is giving away signed paperbacks of Each One a Nation and I.P.A.! To enter to win, leave a comment on this post or send me an email with one thing you appreciated from Drew’s interview below. (U.S. addresses only, sorry!)

If you live outside the U.S., you can still enter to win the ebook versions.

And without further ado, Meet D.S. Davis!

D.S. Davis (@_dsdavis) • Instagram photos and videos — D.S. Davis and his new novel, Each One a Nation, via his IG.

Who are you?

My name is Drew Davis Stryjewski. I am an educator from Florida who writes literary fiction, Southern fiction, and speculative fiction.

Tell us the premise of your latest novel.

Each One a Nation is the tragedy of the Del Rio family, featuring their neurotic friends, peers and neighbors: the ambitious McWhite family; the haunted Streeters; the upstart Jacksons; Bowen Margeaux, the opportunistic priest; and the Crows — the city’s silent power. Their fragmented lives and lonesome hearts lead them to treat one another with cruelty, to live with paranoia, and to lie pathologically as they strive independently to find an ultimate.

What inspired you to write this book?

Being a bit of a weekend warrior, I usually begin most projects wanting to riff off of books I loved reading. In this case, these were George Eliot’s Middlemarch and Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street.

The suburban setting was easy to write about having grown up in one; the competitive swimming portion I knew something about because of some of my best friends from childhood swam; and the airline industry was something I thought was a good thematic match with competitive swimming.

What is the gist of your favorite scene in this book?

My favorite scene is a conversation with Father Bowen Margeaux and Pat Crow about the nature of young people and how they can be maneuvered for good.

What other books inspired this book?

Additional influences include Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Patrick Suskind’s Perfume, William Faulkner’s Absolom, Absolom!, and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers.

One of Drew’s cats, named Foster, reading Carson McCullers.

If people like XYZ, they will like your book.

David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood.

TV Shows: Mad Men, News Room, House of Cards.

Share your favorite quotes or a passage from the book.

When Sloane finally convinces Peyton to return to shore, the three of them begin their swim back to the dock where Seth and Devyn are waiting for them, locked at the arms and glowing in the dark.
For those of them who remain close, those that bind to one another, the aches and chills of each of their dying former lives can be escaped; only through friendship, the true ultimate.
All told, our country’s greatest export is its young people, especially the wide-eyed, future-bound dreamers among them. We identify them young and teach them that we live not in a nation, one singular thing that moves as a body, but among millions of small nations each with its constitutions and its revolutions, its battles and its profit. The forced waring of these nations, the compression and the shouting between them is to blame for our maladies.

What do you want the reader to take away from reading your book?

I do not have grand designs for the reader, I just try to write books that are decently challenging for the reader but that aren’t pretentious. My big aim is not to waste the reader’s time and to provide them with a worthy read.

Rapid Fire Round

I am…

A recovering dude-bro, a diligent craftsman, and a full-time educator of kids who need the most attention.

I’m most proud of…

Not quitting. There is a temptation when one writes their first novel-sized work to become dismayed when it doesn’t get any attention. I’m glad I stuck with it.

My creations often begin with this...

Almost always a tone. I’m very inefficient and it takes me forever to find the plot but I almost find it more enjoyable that way.

My Morning routine…

I go to work very early so my morning is almost always a half-conscious struggle to find the coffee maker, feed the cats, and get out the door on time.

My flow-state soundtrack…

None. I prefer unintentional ASMR, especially long lectures.

My style and dress…

Comfort and practicality are my main focus. I am sensitive to tight clothing so I wear a lot of black cotton and jeans/chinos. Basically, anything that will piss off Sabrina Scott if I post it on Instagram.

D.S. Davis with author and graphic novelist Sabrina Scott.

My workflow…

I write in a fractured manner and then sew them together and polish them.

My dream home…

Mid-century modern in St. Petersburg, FL. Native-growth canopy in the backyard, overgrown front yard. Koi pond.

A few of my favorite things…

I am nonmaterialistic to a fault. I like good food and good wine, black tea, community events during the daytime.

Movies and TV shows that inspire me…

I do not watch much TV, sorry.

Art and artists I love…

Francis Bacon, George Condo, Storm Ritter, Salvador Dali.

Podcast, newsletter, or blog that I tell everyone about…

CSPAN Presidential Recordings archive. The Florida Gardening Project. The Chris Hedges Report. I am not actually into podcasts as much as I use to be. I am a political junkie, so what I like to do is start broad with the mainstream sites, identify the primary source documents I’ll need to understand the scenario, and then read them through.

A memorable trip…

When my fiance and I were early in our relationship we drove from Tampa to Colorado and back hitting Nashville, St. Louis, Denver, Dallas and Panama City along the way.

Something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but haven’t done yet is…

I’d like to write a whole-hog history of Florida at some point in my life.

Something that holds me back is…

I am not a very organized researcher.

Advice that lives in my head rent free…

If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.

If I wasn’t me, I’d be…

Somebody who is rich and apathetic.

My favorite TikTok account is…

I do not have TikTok.

Tech I can’t live without…

Boring but the IPhone and all of its functions. My life would look radically different without it.