We should always remember that there’s something else in the world apart from the common place.      

– Thomas Bernhard

Chris Dietz has lived a life with books. As a boy, he read to excess, then he started keeping notes, then a journal. He taught off & on for 40 years, mainly in the sciences, mainly at the college level. Eventually, he focused on curriculum development, and advanced classes and programs at Cochise College, area charter schools, and with the US Army.

In 2017, Dietz learned his hip replacement was leaking Cobalt & Chromium in to his body. No one in the medical community had a clue what to do, or what the long term affects might be. Two surgeries later, and with the unflinching support of his loving family, and Dietz was able to lay aside his cane in 2020. What happened was that from 2017 – 2022, in that 5 year span, Dietz completed 10 novels, most occurring at or around a place called, Coltrane, AZ. Maybe it was the Cobalt – (3 of these novels had 1^st drafts written before 17)

There are 5 novels available now, via Amazon etc…and it’s easy to google a title and Dietz to see the novels pop up. The 2 new novels are Coltrane, AZ and Naco Pink. The 5 books were designed by Bill Dietz, and these most recent creations are exquisite. The 5 novels are standalone works, so you can read them in any order. However, there is a rough time line from the so called now to a near future. That pattern looks like this:

Now Novels                                                                                  

Hinterland – an Adult/YA novel, follows birdwatchers at a BnB near Coltrane who get swept up in a crack in the space/time continuum…yes, that’s right: alternate realities, alternate histories collide.                                            

Trilobites! – an Adult/YA novel. Don’t you just love books with exclamation points in their titles? Two young people race across the country to save the last (?) male Trilobite. They want to take the impossible creature back to its home!                         

Art Town – a Very Adult novel takes place in Coltrane, as there have been murders! Poets are on it! Artist detectives? Yes!

Naco Pink – Adult novel. Water in the Southwest is running low. The new border has Mexico bringing in supplies – food & water, for the small towns on the US side rapidly fading. Two young women are out to figure what / why are pink roadrunners, pink antelope jacks, pink coyotes showing up.

Coltrane, AZ – Adult/YA novel. All through the American West the only option seems to be consolidation, small towns’ populations coming together in the major cities, where giant living complexes are constructed. If you don’t want to consolidate, then you can remain in your town, take your chances, with the power off. That’s what happens in Coltrane, AZ, where groups of young people and old people, and all the in betweens that decided to stay, find themselves thrust in to circumstances beyond expectations. Weird fiction…with SF elements.

Near Future

If you’re curious about the other 5 books which will eventually see publication, hold on to your underroos and check this out:

Chulo Boy – It’s 1963and a midwestern boy dreams of becoming a naturalist, only to have a zoo truck carrying animals crash near his home —

Mars Needs Women– A dying man in despair writes stories or dreams or visions of Mars.

Here Come The Hitler’s– A middle class white family grows up in the American Midwest of the 60’s.

November– An erotic novel.

The Big Space Fuck: The War Between Venus &Mars— It is what the title says it is. (Title ripped off from Vonnegut!)

There is a vitality, a lifeforce, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.

– Martha Graham to Alice de Mille