You can now pre-order The Story of the Y on Amazon. It's due out April 12th, but if you pre-order and send me a copy or screenshot of your receipt, I'll send you a copy of the first Cabal Books release, Golden Rod by Bram Riddlebarger.
Pre-order The Story of the Y here.
EDIT: The copy of Golden Rod has been claimed.
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Submission Call: Memories of Love: A Literary Tribute to The Magnetic Fields and Stephin Merritt
Since
1991, Stephin Merritt and his band The Magnetic Fields have been
putting out beautiful songs with sharp, insightful, funny, and bitter
lyrics. Merritt is a prolific songwriter who's known for his love
songs, the most popular Magnetic Fields album being the triple album
69 Love Songs,
but has also written dark, Gothic music for Lemony Snicket and Neil
Gaiman audiobooks, the songs for avant-garde interpretations of
Chinese operas, and a quintuple album serving as an autobiography.
The Magnetic Fields is even named for a French surrealist novel by
Andre Breton and Philippe Soupault. With all that, and the literary
references littered throughout Merritt's songs, a book of poems and
prose inspired by his work seems like the next logical step. This is
what Memories of
Love
is. With help of the new small press from the UK, Mongrel Press, I'm
bringing this to the world.
What
we want:
We want prose, poetry, prose poetry, one act plays, experimental
pieces, and writing that doesn't fit neatly into any category. We
want it across any genre just as Merritt has written songs in nearly
every genre. We want poems and stories about love, of course, but we
also want stories and poems about vampires, wolfboys, and ghosts. We
want quirky autobiographical fiction. We want stories about crimes of
passion. We want surrealist inspired poems. We want your writing
regardless of who you are. We want new and previously unpublished
authors as well as established ones. We want LGBTQ+ writers and
stories especially. Where would a Stephin Merritt tribute be without
that? We want writers of all races from all over the world, even if
English isn't your first language. Just make sure it's good and it's
inspired by The Magnetic Fields or one of Stephin Merritt's many
projects.
Word
Count: Up
to 3,000 words. Don't worry if it's a little bit over or if it's
especially short. If Merritt proves one cliché, it's that brevity is
the soul of wit.
Please include a short note of what your piece is as well as an
author bio in the body of the email. Please attach your piece as a
.doc or .docx file. Please make the subject of your email “MEMORIES
OF LOVE SUBMISSION: Title Piece – Your Name.”
Formatting:
Please use standard formatting with Times New Roman font at 12 pt. If
you're submitting an experimental work that uses unusual formatting
or different fonts, please include a note of this in the body of your
submission email.
Pay:
20 GBP/25 USD and a contributor's copy.
Deadline:
August 1, 2019.
Save a secret for the moon but send your writing to us!
“The
book of love is long and boring
No one can lift the damn thing
It's full of charts and facts and figures and instructions for dancing
But I
I love it when you read to me
And you
You can read me anything “
No one can lift the damn thing
It's full of charts and facts and figures and instructions for dancing
But I
I love it when you read to me
And you
You can read me anything “
- “The Book of Love” by The Magnetic Fields
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Brief Thoughts 27
Water by Jennifer Wilson
Freja Folsom, a reporter from Des Moines, is assigned to a story about a man who illegally made a well in the city's emergency water supply. She has no desire to work on it as nobody reads environmental stories. However, being at risk for being laid off and finding herself fascinated by the renegade well-maker, she throws herself into the story.
Water is an interesting mix. At it's core, it's a romance about Freja's breakup with a politician and her falling for the man she's writing a story about. However, a big focus on the book is looking at the issue of nitrate pollution in Iowa rivers and what can be done about it. Wilson makes the mixture work.
As the book mentions, environmental issues can be very dry, but I found the explanations of the effects of nitrate pollution here to be interesting. The book is somewhat didactic about the issue, but it doesn't feel preachy. It brings in several characters who would be intimately connected to the issue, public servants, farmers, and people at risk from nitrate poisoning, that the explanations feel very natural. All sides of the issues are presented in a pretty fair way, even though it's clear where the author comes down on it.
While I'm not a huge fan of romance stories, I still found the story here engaging. The dynamic between her former boyfriend, a politician who (surprise!) turns out to be a sleazeball, feels very real. The one between her and the man she's doing a story about feels rather underdeveloped. They don't talk that much, as the man is refusing to share anything, and the reveal of their mutual feelings is a bit sudden. Despite that, it was still a satisfying read.
I think this is a book well-worth reading, even if you're not at all interested in Iowa pollution issues. It was also published through a local Iowa business, so you'll be supporting them by buying it.
Buy Water by Jennifer Wilson here.
Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan
Shane is a completely directionless man. He works as a temp at an insurance company, where he spends most of his time sleeping in the bathroom. He has nothing but resentment for his aggressive girlfriend Gwen, he's having an affair with his landlord's wife, and he's addicted to stealing saltshakers. When his a close friend, a deaf woman who works as a dentist's assistant, turns up dead, he needs to prove his innocence.
This book is just hilarious. It had me hooked from the beginning where a pair of cops find Shane asleep in his bed covered in salt from shakers still in his pocket. Thinking it's cocaine, one of the cops sniffs it. Some of the other ridiculous moments include a wannabe drug dealer who dresses his guinea pig in bondage gear, the sex Shane has with Gwen that leaves him bruised and battered, and the cheap girl's bicycle that barely works that he rides everywhere.
Besides its ridiculous comedy, there's also some great satire of corporate America. Shane despises his job at the company. Besides how empty it is, he hates the false "feel good" attitude pushed on him and the other employees and how the others accept it. If you've ever worked a job with bullshit "team building exercises" and mandatory "fun" events, you'll get where he's coming from.
I think this is a hilarious and excellent novel. I'm looking forward to what Paul Neilan does next. If he ever does. This book was published in 2007 and he's put out nothing since. He has a blog, but it hasn't updated in over a decade. It's a shame that he'll likely end up a one book author.
Buy Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan here.
Freja Folsom, a reporter from Des Moines, is assigned to a story about a man who illegally made a well in the city's emergency water supply. She has no desire to work on it as nobody reads environmental stories. However, being at risk for being laid off and finding herself fascinated by the renegade well-maker, she throws herself into the story.
Water is an interesting mix. At it's core, it's a romance about Freja's breakup with a politician and her falling for the man she's writing a story about. However, a big focus on the book is looking at the issue of nitrate pollution in Iowa rivers and what can be done about it. Wilson makes the mixture work.
As the book mentions, environmental issues can be very dry, but I found the explanations of the effects of nitrate pollution here to be interesting. The book is somewhat didactic about the issue, but it doesn't feel preachy. It brings in several characters who would be intimately connected to the issue, public servants, farmers, and people at risk from nitrate poisoning, that the explanations feel very natural. All sides of the issues are presented in a pretty fair way, even though it's clear where the author comes down on it.
While I'm not a huge fan of romance stories, I still found the story here engaging. The dynamic between her former boyfriend, a politician who (surprise!) turns out to be a sleazeball, feels very real. The one between her and the man she's doing a story about feels rather underdeveloped. They don't talk that much, as the man is refusing to share anything, and the reveal of their mutual feelings is a bit sudden. Despite that, it was still a satisfying read.
I think this is a book well-worth reading, even if you're not at all interested in Iowa pollution issues. It was also published through a local Iowa business, so you'll be supporting them by buying it.
Buy Water by Jennifer Wilson here.
Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan
Shane is a completely directionless man. He works as a temp at an insurance company, where he spends most of his time sleeping in the bathroom. He has nothing but resentment for his aggressive girlfriend Gwen, he's having an affair with his landlord's wife, and he's addicted to stealing saltshakers. When his a close friend, a deaf woman who works as a dentist's assistant, turns up dead, he needs to prove his innocence.
This book is just hilarious. It had me hooked from the beginning where a pair of cops find Shane asleep in his bed covered in salt from shakers still in his pocket. Thinking it's cocaine, one of the cops sniffs it. Some of the other ridiculous moments include a wannabe drug dealer who dresses his guinea pig in bondage gear, the sex Shane has with Gwen that leaves him bruised and battered, and the cheap girl's bicycle that barely works that he rides everywhere.
Besides its ridiculous comedy, there's also some great satire of corporate America. Shane despises his job at the company. Besides how empty it is, he hates the false "feel good" attitude pushed on him and the other employees and how the others accept it. If you've ever worked a job with bullshit "team building exercises" and mandatory "fun" events, you'll get where he's coming from.
I think this is a hilarious and excellent novel. I'm looking forward to what Paul Neilan does next. If he ever does. This book was published in 2007 and he's put out nothing since. He has a blog, but it hasn't updated in over a decade. It's a shame that he'll likely end up a one book author.
Buy Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan here.
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
Top Ten Reads of 2018
This year, I did a podcast with critic, podcaster, and fellow voracious reader Jeremy Maddux where he and I listed our favorite reads along with discussing numerous other things that happened this year.
You can listen to that podcast here.
Skip to 1:24:00 if you just want to listen to the book portion. Meanwhile, here are what my picks are. Keep in mind, these picks are based on the books I read in 2018, not necessarily books published in 2018.
Top Ten Reads of 2018
10. The Consumer by M. Gira
Review here.
9. The Weird by S.C. Burke
Review here.
8. High Life by Matthew Stokoe
Review here.
7. A World of Horror, edited by Eric J. Guignard
Review here.
6. The Rim of Morning by William Sloane
5. Roses Are Red, Violets Are Stealing Loose Change from My Pockets While I Sleep David S. Atkinson
Review here.
4. Throat Sprockets by Tim Lucas
Review here.
3. Revenge of the Lawn/The Abortion/So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away by Richard Brautigan
2. In the Desert of Mute Squares by M Kitchell
Review here.
1. Mountainhead by New Juche
Review here.
Honorable Mentions
A Creeping Plague Will Take My Place by Philip LoPresti (Review here)
The Myth of Mental Illness by Thomas Szasz
Golden Rod by Bram Riddlebarger (Review here)
You can listen to that podcast here.
Skip to 1:24:00 if you just want to listen to the book portion. Meanwhile, here are what my picks are. Keep in mind, these picks are based on the books I read in 2018, not necessarily books published in 2018.
Top Ten Reads of 2018
10. The Consumer by M. Gira
Review here.
9. The Weird by S.C. Burke
Review here.
8. High Life by Matthew Stokoe
Review here.
7. A World of Horror, edited by Eric J. Guignard
Review here.
6. The Rim of Morning by William Sloane
5. Roses Are Red, Violets Are Stealing Loose Change from My Pockets While I Sleep David S. Atkinson
Review here.
4. Throat Sprockets by Tim Lucas
Review here.
3. Revenge of the Lawn/The Abortion/So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away by Richard Brautigan
2. In the Desert of Mute Squares by M Kitchell
Review here.
1. Mountainhead by New Juche
Review here.
Honorable Mentions
A Creeping Plague Will Take My Place by Philip LoPresti (Review here)
The Myth of Mental Illness by Thomas Szasz
Golden Rod by Bram Riddlebarger (Review here)
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
New Review of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Saying Goodbye
"When taken in isolation, the stories convey an idiosyncratic sense of
humor and the absurd. Here, Arzate’s imagination excels. His knack for
extravagant absurdities, and the strangeness of daily life, rarely fails
to entertain."
So says Daulton Dickey, author of Flesh Made World and webmaster of Lost in the Funhouse.
Read the full review here.
So says Daulton Dickey, author of Flesh Made World and webmaster of Lost in the Funhouse.
Read the full review here.
Thursday, December 13, 2018
A New Two-Part Series at Silent Motorist Media
At Silent Motorist Media, I have a two-part series detailing the history of the Residents, one of my favorite bands. Read them below.
Santa Dog’s a Jesus Fetus: A Look Back at the Residents, Part I
Santa Dog’s a Jesus Fetus: A Look Back at the Residents, Part II
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