40 Short Stories About Bikes (Paperback)

Bikes, drawings, bikes, drawings, bikes, and drawings... I’d have to say these are my two loves in life.  Here and there I would draw a bike because I enjoyed it.  After awhile it became sort of a small collection of drawings.  In 2010 I started working with this amazing writer—Jennifer Weitman.  Half way through our first project together I had the idea of doing a bike book as well.  Jennifer could write the short stories and I could draw the bikes.  Like almost everything in life, we both had several projects going on, but kept working on this bike book.  In the end it became the nice round number 40—so that is what we called it: 40 Short Stories About Bikes.

Whether it’s going grocery shopping, on a leisure ride, blasting downtown, embarking on a couples adventure, or being a hot dog on your bike, we wanted to convey all different sides of bike culture and naturally with a sense of humor.

So on behalf of Jennifer and myself, we hope—sincerely hope—you enjoy these short stories and drawings.  And hey, after you’re done reading we suggest taking a good old fashion bike ride. 

Jennifer Weitman Since childhood Jennifer thought she would be a librarian when she grew up. She practiced reading aloud to her dolls and stuffed animals, each lined up on her bed listening attentively as their young owner practiced her reading voice and expression. As she got older, her dream of becoming a proponent of children's literature diminished and eventually was replaced with aspirations of becoming a fill-in-the-blank who wrote. Working closely with her great friend Karl Addison on their first book Zoo! Creatures of Curiosity her goal has been reached and she hopes that their creative partnership will flourish so that she doesn't have to "fill in the blank" anymore. Jennifer graduated from Seattle University's creative writing program. This is her second book. About - Karl Addison "I like the idea of taking back public space, and giving someone a reason to look down the street, up at the walls, and not at their shoes. It's so easy to become numb to your environment with the amount of ads trying to sell you something all the time." -Addison interview with The Stranger Addison currently lives and creates in Berlin. As Karl Addison's art and vision evolves-from blank slate, to pen, to paper, to mural, to installation, to unoccupied public space-so does our understanding and comprehension of the world around us. We may not notice his input, infiltrating our subconscious-our everyday-but it's there. His purpose (it seems) is three-fold: to amuse us the first time we discover one of his pieces, to draw us in-inviting us to take a closer look, and to make us stop and see every minute detail-and in a sense, to stop and see him. He wants us to value his tiny lines, his details, to appreciate his world-view and hopefully, start extolling the tiny details in our own lives.