Local Author Launches Debut Fiction Collection

This story originally appeared in The Centre County Gazette.

State College-based author Michel Lee Garrett will launch her debut fiction collection, “Born a Ramblin’ Man,” at a public event at 6 p.m. on Saturday, April 26, at The Print Factory in Bellefonte.

“Born a Ramblin’ Man,” a book of 14 short stories about “outlaws and outcasts,” was officially released on Tuesday from crime fiction publisher Shotgun Honey and received advanced praise from award-winning authors and critics.

Libby Cudmore, author of “Negative Girl” and “The Big Rewind,” credited Lee Garrett as “not only a brilliant writer, but an important one.” Additionally, James D.F. Hannah, author of “Behind the Wall of Sleep” and “Because the Night” described Lee Garrett’s “vivid eye for character … storytelling sensibility, and an unquenchable thirst for justice,” and author and critic J.B. Stevens commented on the collection’s outstanding prose, top-shelf pacing, and luscious imagery, labeling Lee Garrett as “a true wordsmith.”

“Born a Ramblin’ Man” has been nearly 10 years in the making, with the collection’s oldest story written in 2016, Lee Garrett said in a press release.

“The stories in this book are many things: a celebration of the outcasts society has pushed to the side, an exploration of how inequity manufactures injustice, a literary chronicle of the strange world of small-town central Pennsylvania and a labor of love I am so excited to release into the world,” Lee Garrett said.

According to Lee Garrett, the cast of characters scattered throughout “Born a Ramblin’ Man” includes “country-singing vagabonds, small-time pickpockets, transgender runaways, small-town drug dealers, corrupt judges and public officials, serial killer priests, crooked cops, thieving magicians, private detectives and more.”

Those familiar with Lee Garrett’s previous work will recognize the protagonist of half of the stories in “Born a Ramblin’ Man,” Raymond Reynolds.

Over the course of seven stories in the collection, Reynolds evolves, learning from mistakes and experiences and finally finding his place as a small-town Pennsylvania private detective. Lee Garrett’s press release shared that readers may notice shared characters, settings and connections between stories in the collection.

“Ray is a little bit of me, a little bit of my father, a little bit of punk rock spirit and a whole lot of outlaw country,” Lee Garrett said. “Equal parts your classic noir detective and your beleaguered everyman just trying to make it through another day. I think everyone can find a little bit of themselves in Ray.”

Copies of “Born a Ramblin’ Man” will be available for purchase during the public launch event on Saturday at the Print Factory, 130 S. Allegheny St., Bellefonte.