Latest Release

AFK

There haven’t been any otters in Otter Rock, Oregon, since 1921.

But after two friends stumble onto a black barn that might soon change.

When fifteen-year-olds Atsuko and Lyric aren’t gaming or watching 
Bob’s Burgers, they’re out surfing. It’s something that helps Lyric cope with the recent divorce of his parents and also distracts Atsuko from her grandmother's failing health.

But it's an older surfer who's trying to find his way back into the world after a recent tragedy that will truly test the two friends.

AFK is a story about loss and the toll it can take on those left behind.

It also a story about setting things right that were put wrong long ago.

About Me

Jamie Zerndt

Jamie Zerndt is the author of Jerkwater, The Cloud Seeders, The Korean Word For Butterfly, and The Roadrunner Café. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his son who never tires of humiliating him in Fortnite.

“Compact and tightly plotted, this outstanding work is packed with emotion and restlessness.”

- Publisher's Weekly review of Jerkwater (starred review)

Other Books

The Korean Word for Butterfly

The Cloud Seeders

The Roadrunner Cafe

Jerkwater

"By turns harrowing, comical, and heartwarming." -BlueInk Reviews (starred review)

When 64-year-old Kay O’Brien hears her young Ojibwe neighbor, Shawna, scream out on the lake behind her house, she wants to help. Kay knows the girl’s mother was killed years ago by a white man. What she doesn’t know is that Shawna may soon be in trouble herself. But Kay and her son, Douglas, are both fighting ghosts of their own. Kay keeps her husband’s ashes on top of the TV and talks to him every day while drinking stiff Manhattans and trying to ignore the onset of Alzheimer’s. Douglas, too, is carrying around the guilt of having ignored his father’s last request which may have been the cause for his heart attack.

These three lives become intricately woven together in a small Wisconsin town where racial tensions are churning just beneath the surface of what often appears to be placid, everyday life. JERKWATER is, ultimately, a story about the damage we sometimes do on the difficult journey toward healing.

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