Joe Cottonwood - Writing Career

Writing Career

Cottonwood's first success was his novel Famous Potatoes, published in 1978, often called an "underground novel" due to its countercultural readership and its title. In college Cottonwood at every break would set out hitchhiking around the USA without money or a backpack, going wherever the rides would take him. The experiences formed the basis of Famous Potatoes.

One of Cottonwood's first plumbing jobs was what should have been a half-day project repairing a woman's shower. It turned into a three-day botch, but in the process he became friends with the woman's boyfriend (John Daniel) who wanted to be a book editor. They decided to jointly publish Famous Potatoes under the imprint of No Dead Lines Press. On the day of the press run, Cottonwood got a phone call from a New York publisher (Seymour Lawrence, publisher of Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan) who wanted to buy the book on the condition that there be no competing self-published edition. It was too late to stop the press, so as 500 copies were being printed Cottonwood agreed never to sell them. He still has them.

Cottonwood has written five novels for younger readers: Quake! about the 1989 "world series" earthquake; The San Puerco Trilogy of three novels about three scrappy boys in the small town of San Puerco, California (which bears a remarkable resemblance to La Honda, California); and his newest, Four Dog Riot. His most recent novel for adult readers is Clear Heart, a love story involving nail guns, wet concrete, and strong women.

Cottonwood has issued podcasts of five of his novels (audiobooks in serialized form). He is currently writing the first draft of a memoir as an ongoing blog, with readers invited to comment. He calls it "open-source editing."