Author Suffers ATV Accident after Returning Galleys

BY Rudy Mars (CMP)

Kalamazoo, MI – After returning corrected galleys of his new novel, Contrary Motion, author Andy Mozina flipped his all-terrain vehicle on a dirt bike track outside Parchment, MI, seriously injuring himself in a celebration gone horribly wrong.

“Yeah, I was trying to do a wheelie,” Mozina admitted from his porch where he was recuperating, wearing unusually tight bicycle pants; a T-shirt with the sleeves and shoulders cut off, leaving a sort of tube top; and a cast on his forearm that appeared to have a zipper on it.

“I was just so relieved to be sending back those damn galleys,” the author said defensively. “By the end, I couldn’t tell a serial comma from a serial killer—you ever get that way?”

Eyewitnesses suggested alcohol was a factor in the accident.

According to several members of the Parchment High School marching band, on Wednesday afternoon Mozina towed a trailer holding two ATVs into the school parking lot, looking for someone to “off road” with.

“No one was interested,” said Blake Dent, a trombonist, “so he offered a case of beer to whoever went with him.”

Dent was persuaded.

“It was a mistake,” Dent said. “He got drunk really fast and started driving around half-standing up with a finger in the air, like he was number one. Then he went ass over tea kettle as soon as he got on the track.

“He wouldn’t let me take him to the hospital. Wanted to sober up, I guess.”

“I felt fine at first,” Mozina said from the comfort of his porch. “It was just a concussion and my arm.”

Mozina emphasized that the physical injuries from his ATV accident pale in comparison to the psychic damage he suffered composing the novel.

“Everybody thought my last book was morose and pervy,” he explained. “This new book is much more sensitive. It’s about a harpist, for Christ sake. I went super deep this time. I basically gave my soul a concussion writing that sucker.”

Mozina claimed he spent his entire advance on a “fleet“ of ATVs. He said the accident wouldn’t discourage him from the recreation he loves.

“The freedom I experience traveling off road is second to none,” Mozina declared, pulling two sweat bands from a Ziploc bag between his knees. He slipped them on his wrists, stretching one over his cast. “Pavement is for losers.”

Contrary Motion will be published on March 8, 2016, by Spiegel & Grau.