The Music Box

One of the great advantages of my non-traditional career path is that I get to meet some really bright people doing some very interesting things. One of those people is M. Nyssim Lefford, a Berklee College musician & recording engineer who got her Ph.D. at MIT’s Media Lab. When she’s not lecturing at Georgia Tech or at another technical university somewhere up near the Arctic Circle in Sweden, or doing music & recording sessions, she’s writing experimental fiction – and even more amazing is that she’s sent much of this work to me over recent years to get (literary?) feedback. I warned her early on that my linear, structured view of fiction (i.e., expecting to see the traditional exposition/rising action/climax/denouement scheme that everyone learned in high school) might not be particularly well-suited to her non-linear short stories and plays. But she nonetheless continued to entrust me with her efforts, and a few years ago, on a trip to Abu Dhabi, I was reading an early draft of her first novel – a book called The Music Box.

I’m happy to tell you that The Music Box is now available through amazon.com – although, given its structure, you’re going to have to read it on an e-reader like Kindle (yes, I’m sure I mentioned that her fiction is experimental!). So definitely check it out! I think you’re really going to enjoy it, just like I did (in both early & final versions!).