Galleys available: national mailing to key review/media outlets 4-5 months prior to publication. Will also participate in the CBSD galley box for this title, to get copies into the hands of sales reps, independent bookstores, and wholesale buyers across North America. National print campaign: 100 finished books will be mailed to key review outlets, specifically targeting the publicity-trail for his previous book, Positively Fifth Street: Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist, The New York Times Book Review, Men's Journal, Time, The New Yorker, Poets & Writers Magazine, The Rumpus, Huffington Post Poetry, The San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, David Sedaris, A. Alvarez, etc. McManus also has 100+ email contacts with the poker press, and is well connected to Chicago Tribune Books, NYTBR, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Time (Lev Grossman), Harper’s, Wall-Street Journal, Bloomberg View, The Believer, and Grantland. National advertising in Poets & Writers magazine, American Poets magazine, the Academy of American Poets newsletter, Rain Taxi, and Redactions. Fall announcements will be submitted to Publishers Weekly. Extensive promotion through BOA's website and blog; Facebook (6,200+ followers), Twitter (4,500 followers), Instagram (700 followers), and Pinterest accounts; print and e-postcards; print and e-materials; and print and e-catalogs. Electronic postcards to announce book publication will be sent to academic contacts, bookstore contacts, and literary bloggers. Electronic newsletter feature will be emailed to BOA's database of 3,000+ contacts. Author will attend the AWP Conference 2016 in Los Angeles, where he will have an author signing. BOA Editions will also be the Presenting Sponsor for AWP 2016, to celebrate its 40th anniversary, which will bring new attention to BOA and its new books. Ebook will be available at the same time as print publication to maximize sales. Ebook ISBN will be included on all press materials, author and publisher websites, and whenever print ISBN is listed. Publisher and author will be promoting both e and p through social media. McManus' previous book, Positively Fifth Street is rumored to be made into a movie by Christine Vachon's Killer Films with Greene Street Productions. John Ridley wrote the screenplay and is expected to direct the film. Extensive promotion at key times during the year, specifically during the World Series of Poker (May-June), and the anniversary of JFK's assassination (November 22). Author will pursue participation on panels for the Irish American experience, lapsed Catholicism, altar boys, Baby Boomers in the Fifties and Sixties, and poker tournaments to further promote the book. Promotion through the author's email contacts and social media accounts. Bursky has a substantive online presence, with a Facebook profile with about 2,100+ contacts, and a Twitter account with about 1,250 followers (handle: @jimbosweetness).

2015 NOMINEE FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION New York Times-bestselling author James McManus offers up a collection of seven linked stories narrated by Vincent Killeen, an Irish Catholic altar boy, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Persuaded at age eight by his grandmother that entering the priesthood will guarantee salvation for every member of his family, Vince eagerly commits to attending a Jesuit seminary for high school. As the meaning of a vow of celibacy becomes clearer to him, however, and he is exposed to the irresistible temptations of poker and girls, life as a seminarian begins to seem less appealing. These autobiographical stories are enlightening and evocative, providing keen, often humorous insight into Catholicism, faith, celibacy and its opposite, as well as America's--and increasingly the world's--favorite card game. James McManus has been called "poker's Shakespeare." He is the New York Times-bestselling author of Positively Fifth Street and Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, among others. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper's, The Believer, Paris Review, Esquire, and in Best American anthologies for poetry, sports writing, science and nature, and magazine writing. He is the recipient of the Peter Lisagor Award for Sports Journalism, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations. He teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.