About Stupid Alabama by Michael Wines:
So there’s this nerdy fifth-grader named Melvin. He lives in Brooklyn, and wants nothing more in life than to go to computer camp. There he can build the ultimate robot to thwart his enemies, do his chores, and make him look cool in front of girls. Instead, he gets his butt kicked by a bully and a guilt trip from his parents. Somehow, after an epic day of defeat, worry, and woe, he agrees to spend the summer in stupid Alabama with his stupid biologist Uncle Petro. On the drive, Melvin and Petro pick up a couple of burping alligators from the Bronx Zoo, mistakenly become international terrorists, and somehow survive the fartapocolypse. Petro is attempting to save the Red Hills salamander from extinction and drags Melvin through the culture and wilderness of the deep, dirty South. Along the way he encounters a freakish group of characters, including a horse-sized dog named Choopy, Melvin’s best friend Chucky (AKA DJ Chuck-N-Stuff), and a few other wierdos, including a butt-chinned, New York reporter ruining their already stupid lives. Stupid Alabama, growing up to discover not all things are stupid, but a lot are.
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Author Bio:
Michael P Wines was born in the great wide North. He moved from Flint, Michigan, at age eight to a tiny town in middle Tennessee. The first thing he remembers about the South was seeing a blue-tailed skink scurry up a grapevine, which he had never encountered up North. He decided he had moved to the jungle and has spent most of his life since exploring it. After more than two decades of living all over the Volunteer State, he found himself in Auburn, Alabama, still fascinated and freaked out by the Southern culture and ecology. Though he claims to be a Yankee at heart, he is often found covered in red dirt at a rockabilly show, folk-art festival, eating BBQ (only Memphis style, obviously), or chasing some slimy, scaly Southern creature through a sandy pine forest.
Mike received a master’s degree in biology at Auburn University where he studies rare and endangered reptiles and amphibians. He’s helped catch crocodiles in Costa Rica, pythons in Florida, alligators in Georgia, and cottonmouths in Alabama. He focuses on the Red Hills salamander (the Alabama state amphibian) and the Eastern Indigo snake. His lab mates call him The Hatchmaster for his freakish ability to incubate reptile eggs, while Mike more often refers to himself as the mascot of the herpetology lab.
Before graduate school, he spent several years as a keeper at the Memphis Zoo, where he took care of the Komodo Dragons, venomous reptiles, spiders, giant tortoises, crocodilians, and a few fish and fuzzy critters. He developed a weekly stage show titled: “Living with Venomous Reptiles.” Finding the best way to educate people on wildlife was to entertain them with it, his first snake-poop joke was born.
Mike had several magazine articles published. In 2011 one of his short stories was published in a book called Summer Gothic- A Collection of Southern Hauntings. Besides the writing, Mike not a bad woodworker as can be seen at his website: www.wineswoodworks.com. He also plays a mean game of dodge ball.