“Bowman is learning out in the weather by the seat of his pants, embarked upon a path that gives nightmares to many parents of children determined to be artists.”

        “Like many young writers, Bowman is not just finding his voice, but laboring to control his excesses, learning the hard way (the only way.)”

        -R. Alvarez Writer of HBO’s The Wire. 9780982342619



       A Strange Delicate Flower

       By Craig Bowman

A heart trembling piece written while the author lived on the streets; it begins, as he sets out to find himself alone in Los Angeles with no money or a place to stay. From the first night sleeping on a bridge, things around him are too expensive and not what they seem. Met first by The Devil in Paradise he learns who to trust and how to adapt as the streets threaten his every move. When meeting with his mentor Lukaword, a veteran homeless mystic, he inevitably ends up sleeping outside on the beach for close to a year. It takes place in Venice Beach, a utopian setting of bums and artists that go against normal society. Outrageous characters cross his path such as: Gus the mad camper character, The Mad scientist, Ulysses the universal hobo, Go-Go Dancer the wheel chair lady, and Jean Grinaire a Belgian café artist. Each poetic chapter covers his day to day life, on minimalism of food, methods of adaptation, simplicity in possessions, extremities of herbalism, spiritualism, and self survival as he adapts behind a pizza parlor, on the beach, in an alley, in a movie theatre, or anywhere he can lay his head for the night, living as a homeless California poet. Soon the poet falls in love, and life turns into a dream of comfort and hardship with Violette in the naked van. Homelessness hits harder than ever, and with courage and strength to push forward the young man strives to come up from scratch. His prolonged life style outside unwinds in delicate transitioning chapters, which build up to a miraculous conclusion for him and Violette.


About the Author:

Craig Bowman was born in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1987. He grew up in Lexington, KY, and became a survivalist writer in 2006, when homeless in California. His first full length novel, A Strange Delicate Flower, documented a vulnerable life most can only imagine, receiving immunity to capture ulterior life styles close between truth and dream as his pen could record.