Man Talking: The Official Website of Mike Heppner
Author of the novels The Egg Code and Pike's Folly
Reply To: pike@mikeheppner.com
News update (11/16/09):
The video of Mike Heppner traveling from Boston to Hartford, CT to award the winner of the Man Talking contest his prize is now on-line. Click here to watch the video.
Dan Pope of Hartford, CT, has won the Man Talking contest by correctly guessing the secret phrase, "Andrew Jackson," which appears on page 199 of the Vintage Paperback edition of The Egg Code. It only took Dan four tries, helped by a gentle and much-deserved clue. Dan has won a single-copy edition of Talking, entirely handwritten by Mike Heppner, plus signed copies of the other three sections of the Man Talking Project: Talking Man, Man, and Man Talking.
OTHER NEWS: Talking Man is reviewed in the June '09 issue of The Chapbook Review.
An original essay about the Man Talking Project appears in the Sept./Oct. '09 issue of
A bilingual edition of Talking Man (English/Sichuanese) has been published in conjunction with
Small Anchor Press and Da Shan International, August '09.
Mike Heppner's Man Talking Project, an original series of three novellas and a coda, has been written about in The New Yorker on-line, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, Conversational Reading, AdFreak, Maud Newton, Media Bistro, The Millions and HTMLGiant. Clare Dudman (98 Reasons for Being) calls the project "...a brilliant piece of writing... innovative, interesting, and absorbing..." and Neil Peart (Road Show) raves "...an artful examination of modern life, and modern love, with perfect dialogue, wry humor, (and) psychological insight."
The four sections were written between 2007 and 2009. One cannot find all of them in a single location, however it is possible to collect and read the project in its entirety.
Part One, Talking Man, was published in September 2008 by Small Anchor Press. Small Anchor Press is a Brooklyn-based independent press specializing in finely crafted handmade books. Talking Man can be purchased exclusively at SA's website, smallanchorpress.com. A second printing came out in February 2009.
Part Two, Man, was released in December 2008. Five hundred photocopies have been left in random locations across the United States for readers to find and comment on. Some of those comments can be read here.
Part Three, Man Talking, the third in the series (but the first to be made available), can be read for free here. Over seven thousand readers have visited since Man Talking went on-line in April 2008.
Part Four, Talking, was a contest that ran from March to September 2009. One winner received a single-copy edition of Talking, entirely handwritten by Mike Heppner, plus signed copies of Talking Man, Man, and Man Talking. The winner was the first person to correctly guess the secret phrase found in one of Heppner's two full-length novels, The Egg Code and Pike's Folly. Dan Pope of Hartford, CT, won in September 2009 by correctly identifying the secret phrase, "Andrew Jackson."
