Float Plan released September 15, All Proceeds to Benefit Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund
Author Rob Hiaasen’s thoughtful reporting and columns are familiar to a broad community, from Annapolis to Baltimore. His long career writing for the Baltimore Sun and Annapolis Capital Gazette ended when he was gunned down in the newsroom shooting on June 28, 2018. For many years prior, Hiaasen had been developing a novel, which is now being published posthumously.
“It is a privilege to publish Rob’s work,” said Kevin Atticks, director of Apprentice House Press. “Float Plan is a long-form example of the writing that endeared so many readers to his columns.”
Float Plan is available in paperback, hardcover and ebook formats.
Apprentice House Press will donate all proceeds from the sale of Float Plan to Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, at the request of Rob Hiaasen’s wife, Maria.
When I say publishing fiction was a lifelong dream of Rob’s, I mean it. On July 23, 1989, he wrote about it in the journal he kept for our then infant son Ben. “This preoccupation of mine to be a novelist haunts me,” he said in the first of several journal entries about his goal. “It preys on my insecurities as a writer.”
Although Rob confessed in that journal to Ben that he worried about not having the self-discipline to finish a book, his actions prove that fear unfounded. He crafted Float Plan by writing at night and on weekends, and he spent years attempting to perfect his creation. What’s more, Rob thought deeply about his characters. I see proof in the notations about Parker Cool and Will Larkin left behind in the moleskin notebooks he parked on his nightstand, in his car, and in his briefcase.
As bittersweet as it is to see Float Plan published posthumously, our family is pleased that readers will get to experience this comic tale of a midlife crisis set in Rob’s beloved Annapolis. We take great pride and joy in seeing the fulfillment of Rob’s dream – and our dream for him.
—Maria Hiaasen, August 9, 2018
About Float Plan
When life throws you overboard, learn to float.
Will Larkin teaches algebra and has been married 2.92 years (he never rounds off). He has no children, two friends and one dog. His life is perfectly routine until he loses his wife, job, dog, boat and even his freedom all in one spectacularly hard year.
He also didn’t plan on falling in love with vet tech named Parker Cool.
Float Plan is a contemporary novel featuring a chainsaw attack on a gazebo, a basset hound named Dean and a life-saving mozzarella stick. At its quirky, serious heart, the story is about what happens to a young man who steers himself toward love, forgiveness and happiness. Or close enough.
Float Plan is also a love letter to Annapolis and Baltimore – and to fathers and mothers, old friends, dogs, boats and second chances.
Float Plan Details
- 226 pages
- Hardcover: 978-1-62720-199-5 / $28.99
- Paperback: 978-1-62720-200-9 / $18.99
- Ebook: 978-1-62720-201-5 / $9.99
- Buy now
About the author
A native of Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Hiaasen lived in Maryland for almost 25 years, where he wrote for The Baltimore Sun for much of that time. More recently he was an award-winning columnist and editor at The Capital in Annapolis. His published fiction is a short story in the mystery anthology, Baltimore Noir (Akashic Press). Hiaasen’s journalism has also appeared in The Washington Post Sunday Magazine and The Los Angeles Times.
About the Apprentice House Press
Apprentice House is the nation’s first entirely student-managed book publisher. Students at Loyola University Maryland are responsible for every aspect of the publishing process, from acquisitions to design and publication of every book. Our mission is, first and foremost, to educate students about the book publishing process. As a program within the Communication Department at Loyola University Maryland, it is driven by student work conducted in three courses: Manuscript Evaluation & Development, Book Design & Production, and Book Marketing & Promotion.
Students in these courses serve as staff in Apprentice House’s acquisitions, design, and marketing departments, respectively. After students leave the courses, AH professors and AH student staff sustain the on-going operation of the company and market its new releases and backlist titles.
