Out Past the Wires

Listeners to Picott’s songs know the craft and the beauty, the perfect words, of his vignettes of working-class life and love. They will hear a similar voice in these short stories, and they will recognize the insight and the honesty about hard times.

And yet that honesty, while brutal in places, is seamlessly delivered through the crafting of his characters’ brutally honest dialogue and dialect. An often treacherous realm that he navigates with the skill of a seasoned novelist.

Picott engages his characters at moments of crisis, epiphany, and sometimes collapse. In their lives they suffer injustice, obsolescence, and violence. And yet, they are recognized and witnessed, without judgment. The characters in this debut collection of twelve short stories will stay with you long after the last page is turned