Not Dark Yet is the literary debut of James Alan Gill. Set in rural Southern Illinois, these stories delve into the complex lives of working-class Americans.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN, UNITED STATES, October 23, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- CASTOFF PRESS is proud to announce the release of Not Dark Yet, a debut short story collection by James Alan Gill. Set in the fictional town of Matin in Southern Illinois, these stories delve into the complex lives of working-class Americans.

This is not a Norman Rockwell portrait of small-town life. The scenes are not saccharin and sentimental. The protagonists aren’t damsels and heroes. They’re working people, facing the threat of layoffs, failing health, and the prospect of another day without many choices other than to just keep going. In a world obsessed with influencers, billionaires, and clickbait politics, their stories deserve to be told.

Set in the years between 1992-2002, James Alan Gill brings the fictional Matin County to life with stark, lyrical prose and a misfit cast of characters trying to find solace, hope, and redemption in the bars, bedrooms, and blacktops of Southern Illinois.

The collection has already drawn high praise from prominent authors and editors:

Not Dark Yet unfurls like a fantastic roll of film capturing the hidden pockets of wonder in the lives of the denizens of James Alan Gill’s Illinois town of Matin. People fall in and out of love, race cars, make friends, make tracks, as ordinary lives reveal the extraordinary, all the while wrestling with the fundamental question, Can you really live the life you want and still please the people who love you? — Whitney Otto, New York Times Bestselling Author of How to Make an American Quilt and Eight Girls Taking Pictures.

"Gill writes, with grace and humor and pain, about small-town life. This evocative chronicle of plain lives in crisis belongs on the same shelf as the stories of Bobbie Ann Mason and Raymond Carver. Poignant and powerful." — Benjamin Percy, author of The Ninth Metal, Red Moon, and Thrill Me

"I get annoyed by stories about people who don’t have jobs, stories about people vacationing in Europe, and stories about people whose most pressing concern is that they didn’t land that internship in New York City. Thank goodness for James Alan Gill, who writes stories about people I know, people I recognize – working-class people who are flawed but trying their level best to navigate the treacherous and heartbreaking world they live in. Not Dark Yet is an impressive debut." — John McNally, author of The Book of Ralph and Ghosts of Chicago

"James Alan Gill is a master at creating a world and inviting the reader to live in it for a while: a place we recognize but don’t know, populated by characters we know intimately yet have not met before. He is a gifted storyteller who shines a loving light on an oft-overlooked part of the country—the Midwest—and in doing so reveals its landscape of narrative riches. I have been a fan of his fiction for years." — Stephanie G’Schwind, Editor-In-Chief, Colorado Review

"James Alan Gill writes from the heart, and from the forgotten gritty places of the American Heartland." — Jennifer Acker, Author of Massachusetts Book Award honoree The Limits of the World.

Not Dark Yet is now available at Independent Bookstores, Amazon, B&N, and Apple Books through CASTOFF PRESS and costs $17.00 in the U.S. (prices are higher in Canada).

For more information or to request a review copy, please contact:
Brittany Lang, Editor-In-Chief
editor@castoffpress.com
Website: castoffpress.com

About the Author:
James Alan Gill was raised in a town with no stoplights by a family of coal miners, then attended Southern Illinois University at Carbondale where he earned degrees in History and Creative Writing. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Colorado Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Common, Sou’wester, The Laurel Review, Midwestern Gothic, Fried Chicken and Coffee, Atticus Review, Book of Matches, and Prime Number Magazine. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is a seven-time winner of the JD Supra Reader’s Choice Award for his writing in the legal technology industry.

CASTOFF PRESS
Castoff Press is a small, independent publishing house in Minneapolis focused on highlighting worthwhile literary projects that have been passed over by corporate publishing.

Brittany Lang
Castoff Press
editor@castoffpress.com

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