Long Gone & Lost: True Fictions and Other Lies by Bobby Horecka

Long Gone & Lost: True Fictions and Other Lies by Bobby Horecka

Finalist for 2021 Texas Institute of Letters’ Sergio Troncoso Award for Best First Book of Fiction

Bobby Horecka writes short fiction laced with truth. He tells tales of a man who had the roughest of starts in life. Through the fireside bardic storytelling tradition, readers learn of the resilience of children and the power of love to redeem even the most damaged. As the young man grows, he discovers a talent for observing and recording stories, ultimately becoming a newsman with the bad luck and poor timing of entering a dying field. These partially true, tongue-in-cheek stories offer a first-hand look, at the demise of the American newspaper, and at a slice of the unique Czeck community in and around Lavaca County, Texas. You might've just started out or reached the jumping off spot. Maybe you're the rainy-day saver who never left anyplace without charting a precise destination and itinerary first, or you're plumb astounded you got where you're at and couldn't tell me what happened last night much less what's in store six weeks from now. You might have a working man's calloused hands the calloused soul that only the mistreated know or the calloused heart that comes with having yours shattered too many times. Everybody needs to catch an occasional break or they risk becoming Long Gone & Lost...

“Horecka’s Long Gone & Lost is a melange, a mix of writing including fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry by a longtime journalist who knows how to whip sentences into shape. Perfect for post-virus reading at inland beaches.” —A. Rooney is the author of The Autobiography of Francis N. Stein, Fall of the Rock Dove, and The Colorado Motet.

Bobby holds an MFA in creative writing and a BA in English. He's taught at Texas State University, Hardin Simmons University and, most recently, Victoria College, and as of April 1, he embarks on 38th year as a working journalist, having worked all facets of the news business, and collected writing, photography and design awards from press groups at the regional, state and national level since 1995. He currently serves as editor to five South Texas weekly newspapers, where he serves as lead page designer, writer, photographer, ad salesman, deliquent account collections, onsite carpenter, licensed electrician and occasional auto mechanic. His journalistic works have published worldwide and still regularly appear well beyond his own pages, and his more literary works–short fictions, poems, prose and photography–have appeared in several anthologized works and literary magazines, including Amarillo Bay, Bluestem Magazine, Scribe, and The Ocotillo Review.