About the Book:

Praise for Story Salon

"Gemstones of narrative. Something new, funny, astonishing."
-Los Angeles Daily News

"Tales tall, tragic, and tantalizing."
-Sunset Magazine

"Stories from all walks and talks of life. Tales of yore and ones that make you scream for more-those that will delight with insight while moving an audience from laughter to tears."
-Studio City Sun

Story Salon is Los Angeles's longest running storytelling venue. What began as an alternative to stand-up clubs and self-conscious performance spaces has been challenging performers and audiences for more than a decade. Created in a North Hollywood coffee house Story Salon now reaches the globe through Podcasting, publishing, and recordings.

The rules of the Story Salon haven't changed since it started: Five to seven minutes of original material performed by the author. The result is a unique blend of observation, memoir and comment that makes the Salon one of the most eclectic entertainment experiences available. More than a dozen solo theater works have been developed at Story Salon, as well as a CD of stories, and several books.

"Live storytelling is a unique art form," says Story Salon founder, writer/actor/comedian Beverly Mickins. "Words spoken aloud paint pictures capable of evoking laughter and tears, the whole range of emotion. People have been telling each other stories since the first campfires, talking about the whole mix of things, important and trivial, that go into making life. Storytelling is one of the ways we figure out how to be human."

Collected here for the first time in Big Book of Stories are more than forty original pieces first performed by their authors at Story Salon.

It's an omnibus of memories, rants, affirmations, and shaggy-dog stories that once opened is impossible to shut.

Learn more at www.storysalon.com
About the Author
The writer/performers of Story Salon include actors, comedians, musicians, photographers, war correspondents, students, life coaches, former clowns, recovering attorneys, one admitted juggler, an international fashion model, several husbands and wives, and one mother and daughter as well as American Comedy Award-winning comedian/writer Cathy Ladman, Emmy Award winning writer Joseph Dougherty, and Story Salon?s producers: Beverly Mickins, innovative Podcaster Lance Anderson, and popular writer/comedian Dan Farren.

About the Author:

Debbie McGowan is an award-winning author of contemporary fiction that celebrates life, love and relationships in all their diversity. Since the publication in 2004 of her debut novel, Champagne – based on a stage show co-written and co-produced with her husband – she has published around fifty further works. She is the author of two ongoing series: Hiding Behind The Couch (a literary ‘soap opera’ centring on the lives of nine long-term friends) and Checking Him Out (LGBTQ romance)... Read More

Other Publications by Debbie McGowan:

• Meredith's Dagger
• Play On...
• The Great Pretendo
• Seasons of Love
• The Great Village Bun Fight
• Never Too Late
• So Long, Little Black Diamonds
• Of The Bauble
• Take A Chance Anthology: A Collection of Gay Romance for New Adults
• And The Walls Came Tumbling Down
• Love Unlocked
• Cherry Pop Valentine
• Coming Up
• Boughs of Evergreen: A Holiday Anthology
• Sugar and Sawdust
• Champagne
• Double Six
• No Dice

Checking Him Out (Series)

• Checking Him Out (Checking Him Out #1)
• Checking Him Out For The Holidays (Checking Him Out Novella)
• Hiding Out (Checking Him Out / HBTC Novella)
• Taking Him On (Checking Him Out #2)
• Checking In (Checking Him Out #3)
• Checking Him Out Box Set One
• The Making Of Us (Checking Him Out #4)

Gray Fisher (Series)

• The WAG and The Scoundrel (Gray Fisher #1 / HBTC Spin-Off)
• Tabula Rasa (Gray Fisher #2 / HBTC Spin-Off)
• Distractions (Gray Fisher #3 / HBTC Spin-Off)
• Gray Fisher Trilogy (HBTC Spin-Off)

Hiding Behind The Couch (Series)

• Beginnings (HBTC Novella)
• Ruminations (HBTC Novel)
• Class-A (HBTC Short Story)
• Hiding Behind The Couch (HBTC #1)
• No Time Like The Present (HBTC #2)
• The Harder They Fall (HBTC #3)
• Crying in the Rain (HBTC Novel)
• First Christmas (HBTC Novella)
• In The Stars Part I: Capricorn-Gemini (HBTC #4)
• Hiding Behind The Couch Box Set One (HBTC Box Set)
• Breaking Waves (HBTC Novella)
• In The Stars Part II: Cancer-Sagittarius (HBTC #5)
• Chain of Secrets (HBTC Novella)
• A Midnight Clear (HBTC Novella)
• Red Hot Christmas (HBTC Novella)
• Two By Two (HBTC #6)
• Hiding Out (Checking Him Out / HBTC Novella)
• Those Jeffries Boys (HBTC Novel)
• The WAG and The Scoundrel (Gray Fisher #1 / HBTC Spin-Off)
• Reunions (HBTC #7)
• Breakfast at Cordelia's Aquarium (HBTC Short Story)
• To Be Sure (HBTC Novella)
• Hiding Behind The Couch Novellas & Short Stories (HBTC Box Set)
• Hiding Behind The Couch Box Set Two (HBTC Box Set)
• What A Scorcher! (HBTC Flash Fiction)
• Tabula Rasa (Gray Fisher #2 / HBTC Spin-Off)
• Goth of Christmas Past (HBTC Novel)
• The Lost Mitten
• The Advent of Reason (HBTC Novella)
• Not My Christmas (HBTC Novella)
• Distractions (Gray Fisher #3 / HBTC Spin-Off)
• Gray Fisher Trilogy (HBTC Spin-Off)
• Perfect Tenor (HBTC Novella)
• Reverberations (HBTC Novel)
• Alumni: Reverberations (HBTC Novel)
• Alumni: Resolutions (HBTC Novel)

Seeds of Tyrone (Series)

• Leaving Flowers (Seeds of Tyrone #1)
• Where the Grass is Greener (Seeds of Tyrone #2)
• Christmas Craic and Mistletoe (Seeds of Tyrone #3)
• Seeds of Tyrone Box Set

When Skies Have Fallen (Series)

• When Skies Have Fallen
• A Snowy Ball (When Skies Have Fallen #1.5)