{"product_id":"living-badly-paperback","title":"Living Badly - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eWalter Cummins\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe twenty-one stories in this collection were picked from among the more than one hundred Walter Cummins published over the decades of his writing career. This group was selected not by any judges but by the author's whims on particular days. His criterion was whether he still liked them and whether he thought they demonstrated what he was capable of creating with the story form. They had passed an initial test of having been chosen by a variety of literary magazine editors for their publication. The works here first appeared in magazines such as the Virginia Quarterly Review, Bellevue Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Florida Review, and Confrontation. They also appeared in one of Cummins' seven short story collections.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe central characters and others lived badly in the sense of Chekhov's lamentation. It's not that they are necessarily bad people, but rather that they don't know how to cope with their circumstances and end up making faulty decisions. Ultimately, they are like all of us in one way or another and deserve sympathy as \"my friends.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWalter Cummins has published seven short story collections-\u003cem\u003eWitness\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eWhere We Live\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eLocal Music\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe End of the Circl\u003c\/em\u003ee, \u003cem\u003eThe Lost Ones\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eHabitat: sto- ries of bent realism\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eTelling Stories: Old and New\u003c\/em\u003e. He also has four collections of essays and reviews-\u003cem\u003eKnowing Writers\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eDeath Cancer Madness and Mean- ing\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eIrresponsible and Maladjusted\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eSeeking Authenticity\u003c\/em\u003e. More than one hundred of his stories, as well as memoirs, essays, and reviews, have appeared in magazines such as \u003cem\u003eNew Letters\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eArts \u0026amp; Letters\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eKansas Quarterly\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eVirginia Quarterly Review\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eUnder the Sun\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eConfrontation\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eBellevue Lit\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eer\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eary Re- view\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eConnecticut Review\u003c\/em\u003e, in book collections, and on the Web. With Thom- as E. Kennedy, he is founding co-publisher of Serving House Books, an outlet for novels, memoirs, and story, poetry, and essay collections. For more than twenty years, he was editor of \u003cem\u003eThe Literary Revie\u003c\/em\u003ew.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis other publications include \u003cem\u003eOur Literary Travels \u003c\/em\u003eand \u003cem\u003eThe Literary Traveler\u003c\/em\u003e, co-written with Thomas E. Kennedy; \u003cem\u003eProgramming Our Lives: Television and American Identity\u003c\/em\u003e, co-written with George Gordon; and collaboration in fifive books on the Vanderbilt-Twombly Florham Estate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe is a professor of English Emeritus at the Florham Campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University, where he taught in the MFA Program in Creative Writing and the MA Program in Creative Writing and Literature for Educators. His degrees are a BA in English from Rutgers and an MA in Humanities, MFA in Creative Writing, and PhD in English from the University of Iowa.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 232\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.53 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e February 06, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47499939184889,"sku":"9781947175976","price":20.16,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/2782\/3097\/files\/eHuItzEhPu9781947175976.webp?v=1773256166","url":"https:\/\/bookscloud.io\/products\/living-badly-paperback","provider":"BooksCloud Book Dropshipping","version":"1.0","type":"link"}