Robert Ormsby

#DistractionAction: Greatest Hits And B-Sides - #distractionaction Robert Ormsby

If you were to look at everything that I've published over the last few years, I think we'd agree- #DistractionAction is a celebration of depression and #DistractionPassion is a tribute to obsessions.

But then... What is this book and where does it fit in amongst the rest of them?

Some of these stories and poems are pieces that I'm quite proud of, and I feel like they represent the best of what I do as a writer. Though they've been published in other places, I wanted to give you the best that I have to offer in a single volume of work and I guess you could say many of these are what I would consider to be "my greatest hits."

Some of these stories and poems are pieces that I wrote and held onto because I was too shy to share them or hesitant because I wasn't sure if they were even good enough to share. They represent a much more troubled time and headspace and I've decided to finally publish them as some kind of closure. I guess you could say these are the last bits of "unreleased" writings from a very prolific, but painful, few years of my life.

And finally, I've taken some of the stories and poems that I've published in poetry anthologies or on my social media, and they now have a singular space where they can all come together. These "B-sides" represent the best of those writings which were once widely scattered.

The more I try to describe the book, the more I keep likening it to a greatest hits album. And gradually, I become more interested in what the album would sound like than what that book would look like. I start to think of the band and their history. I think of the songs and the stories behind the music.

Robert Ormsby is a writer. But with the help of an alter ego...

Robbie O. could be a singer.