Now listen, I’m gonna work real hard to make this sound like a public service announcement, so that my editors will finally give me a dinner and a plaque.

What this really is, is a plan to pull my last season’s book “WILL WRITE FOR FOOD,” ($16.95 published by North County Press, Unity, Maine) out of the dumpster, where it’s been sitting since the Chinese mafia sent us that New Year’s card written on bat wings.

OK, the ancient practice of book banning has emerged, and they’re coming for your copy of … OMG that’s bad, you say. I say not THAT bad. A note to the banners: Be careful what you wish for.

We all know what happens to anything that gets banned, or “challenged,” here in America. Americans will scream, “Hey! They’re banning this book. Let’s get a copy and some popcorn and read it.” Then, sales soar. Writers get rich, banners get sick.

So school boards in Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, or in that place where they shot “Deliverance,” are throwing out the classic  books. Are you ready for this list?

“The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. “The Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D. Salinger, “The Grapes of Wrath,” by John Steinbeck, the great “To Kill a Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee, which is still a big seller and a Broadway hit and dozens more.

Oh, and yeah, they hate “Ulysses” by James Joyce. That’s a classic I always read while going through the car wash.

The cowboy governor, Republican Greg Abbott of Texas, sent a list of 850 books to the Texas Education Agency, asking for them to be banned.

Texas has an education agency? You mean that place in the old Burger King next to Ed’s Law School in Mesquite, Texas? Yeah, those guys.

This is about the trillion-dollar mistake Abbott and his “literate” friends just made, including most notably, cartoonist Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel about the Holocaust, because of eight curse words and female nudity.

Here’s where it gets to be all about me, or as She likes to say, “It’s all about you?”

Like most of you, I own or have owned copies of all the books on this list. You can, of course, check them out at your local public library, where you will find two copies of my book, “WILL WRITE FOR FOOD” ($16.95 published by North County Press, Unity, Maine), a collection of stories that HAS NOT BEEN BANNED.

You see where I’m going with this?

Right? Of course you do. You love me and wanna keep me eating. This is what I do. I’ve had a great interesting life and many of you enjoy knowing that.

Here’s where you come in. You sit down and write Susan Collins and Angus King and tell them to ban “WILL WRITE FOR FOOD,” right now.

Then my publisher, North County Press, Unity, Maine, will get it back in the bookstores when they open. And you may be happy to know that I am in the process of putting together my next book, “GUESS WHO DIDN’T DIE FROM OMICRON,” by J.P. Devine.

Place your order now.

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer. 

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