Tis the Season for Like A Champion

This coming February, Vincent Chu will be releasing his debut short story collection, Like a Champion, with 7.13 Books. 

Get this book on your wishlist now!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vincent says Like a Champion pairs well with a gin martini and olives

1. Simple but easy to screw up
2. Classy with a scent of trying-too-hard
3. Smooth though also not smooth
4. Best enjoyed in quick, frequent sips
5. Ends with a salty but satisfying taste in your mouth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vincent Chu’s debut story collection is funny and big-hearted, imbued with a generosity and warmth that reminds us that moments of glory can happen when we least expect it. In eighteen stories that shine a light on people far from champions, Like a Champion is an ode to underdogs and long shots, disappointed worker bees and hopeful lovers, sad office parties and one-sided basketball games. In the words of Kirkus Reviews, "Chu finds ways to turn the everyday into the revelatory."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vincent Chu was born in Oakland, California. His fiction has appeared in PANK Magazine, East Bay Review, Pithead Chapel, Fjords Review, Cooper Street, Stockholm Review, Chicago Literati, Forth Magazine, The Collapsar and WhiskeyPaper. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Sundress Publications Best of the Net. Like a Champion is his debut collection. He can be found online at @herrchu and www.vincentchuwriter.com.

You can pre-order Like a Champion, available everywhere February 28.

Tis the Season for Travels and Travails of Small Minds

Daniel Falatko released Travels and Travails of Small Minds back in back in October with Ardent Writers Press. 

You can grab yourself a copy here. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trials and Travails of Small Minds follows the sideways trajectory of an unambitious career temp worker occupying the most nowhere of nowhere jobs. Nathan spends many a hungover morning and afternoon fetching coffee for his senile slumlord boss in a dust-choked office on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Between gossiping with his lone co-worker in their dangerously untidy office, hanging with a drug-addled neighbor, and dealing with a jealousy-ridden girlfriend, Nathan stumbles headfirst into a clumsy property scam which finds him unknowingly at the center. 

With a cast of characters including a dead beatnik legend, an eccentric and pompous collector of the beatnik's works, a new love interest in the form of a tenant with unclear intentions, and a network of sociopathic former literature professors, a saga unfolds over eight days in August which sends Nathan careening through lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, the suburbs of England, and Beyond in a swirl of comedic intrigue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Travels and Travails of Small Minds is hilarious,entertaining, and weaves a compelling mystery." - Ben Arzate

"You won't read many books like this one, but you'll wish you could." - The Irresponsible Reader

"...a wild mind-trip. Falatko has an interesting take on the world and it’s worth exploring." - Shelf Stalker

 "Falatko has a talent for rich, strange detail and keeps us engaged." - Alternating Current's The Coil

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Daniel Falatko is the author of a previous novel, Condominium. He is a graduate of the MFA in Writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. He lives in New York City.

Tis the Season for The Glamshack

Paul Cohen released his debut novel, The Glamshack, back in June with 7.13 Books. It appeared in B&N's list of 10 debut novels for your Autmn Reading!

You can snag yourself, and your most beloved ones, a copy here. 

Here's a taste of what you'll find inside: 

What is it about Her particular brand of loveliness that turns old Henry to tapioca? She’s not delicate featured, not in the least. She’s got a big, strong jaw, hands that are almost manly, packaged cleavage and lioness hair. The hands remind Henry of his mother’s, no-nonsense, get-the-job-done hands. The jaw and cleavage and hair play superbly with the bearing, which is unhurried, regal, bemused. Her manner is this: you tickle me mildly. And—and this is what turns old Henry to tapioca--She seems to need enchanted moments as much as He does. What’s more, She seems to see enchantment in him. Which makes old Henry feel downright lovely. Even divine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Paul Cohen's fiction has appeared in Tin House, Five Chapters, Hypertext and Eleven Eleven. He won the Prairie Lights Fiction Contest (judged by Ethan Canin), was a finalist in a Black Warrior Review Fiction Contest, received an Honorable Mention in the Glimmer Train Spring 2017 Fiction Open and was named a finalist for the 2016 Big Moose Prize for his novel-in-progress, The Sleeping Indian. His nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Details, the Village Voice and others. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he won a teaching scholarship, he taught writing at UC Berkeley Extension, the University of San Francisco and the University of Iowa. He lives in Boulder, CO.

Andrew Hilbert's Smallpressmas Guide

Yes. I was lamenting a bit on Twitter the other day about the lack of representation for amazing small press books around the holidays. So many of the big name magazines had 'best of the year' lists that just recycled the same handful of titles - Lincoln in the Bardo; Sing, Unburied, Sing; and Exit West, to name a few. Not that those books aren't worthy of the attention that they've acquired. I'm sure they are outstanding, intriguing, and powerful titles. And rather than get all soap-boxy about it, I decided to try a friendly call to arms - I challenged small press authors to consider giving a shout out to other small press authors this holiday season. To help spread the word about the glorious underdogs... the underread but just-as-equally-amazing independent titles that wowed them this year.

Andrew Hilbert was the first to answer my call.

Behold... his small press holiday gift guide!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey! You! You're buying people books for the holidays, aren't you? Why don't you buy a gift for TWO people at ONCE with only ONE gift? Holy cow. What dark arts am I evangelizing for now, you ask. 

Buy small press books.

For one, the stuff you read from a small press is infinitely more exciting than whatever shopping list Jonathan Franzen has written onto his Fruit of the Looms and sent to his publisher. For two, you're not only giving somebody a great readable and shareable gift, you're also giving money to small presses and small press authors just by buying the damn thing. You're killing two birds with one paperback. It's a Christmas miracle.

Here's what I think you should buy for yourself or for someone else.

1. Heathenish by Kelby Losack, published by Broken River Books - Heathenish is a smooth as cough sizzurp tale of fucking up and wandering through near-criminality. Redemption comes, as it always does. Losack displays a true storyteller's economy of words - nothing is wasted, nothing is extra, everything is a gut shot. Read it. Give it to somebody as a present. It's good.

2. The Nightly Disease by Max Booth III, published by Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing - Max Booth III is the funniest writer publishing today. After being screwed by another small press (it happens. It's happened to more of us than we like to admit), Max decided to publish this novel himself and I'm glad he did. The new cover by Matthew Revert is phenomenal and the book is just as funny as it ever was. This was by far the funniest and darkest book I read this year. 

3. Quizzleboon by John Oliver Hodges, published by Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing - It's hard to explain this book. It's a hillbilly gospel. It's funny as hell. It's fast paced and as soon as I read the phrase, "pussy crust," I knew the book was for me. If you have some asshole in your life that will find that funny, this is the book for them. No kidding. 

4. The Snake Handler by J David Osborne and Cody Goodfellow, published by Broken River Books - It's like if Harry Crews wrote Feast of Snakes as an action flick. It's a quick read and it's fun as all hell. I'm looking forward to whatever this collaboration puts out next.

5. Itza by Rios de la Luz, published by Broken River Books - My small press tastes are very Texas centric. I'm a lazy person and I find it very hard to get engrossed in online social circles with people I'll likely never meet. You'll notice every book I've picked is from a Texas publisher. There's reason for that. I'm able to go see the events they put on because they are within a five mile radius of where I live. That's not to say I don't read other publishers, I just read things I've purchased from an actual person with more priority than books I order from a robot named Amazon. That being said, Itza is a great, surreal tale told like it was a story passed on throughout generations. The imagery is vivid and exciting. 

The world is crazy, folks. Why are we spending money on the same old titans of industry who have always tried to dictate cultural tastes? The truth, the excitement, the intensity is at small press level. A few weeks ago there was an article asking about where all the working class writers were. You've got to have your eyes closed if you can't find them. They're right here. They're working at regular jobs and writing for just as many hours. Support them. Share them. Happy holidays and merry Smallpressmas. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Andrew Hilbert is the author of Invasion of the Weirdos and his ongoing audio novella DEERMAN at patreon.com/ahilbert. Keep up with him at hilbertheckler.com and @ahilbert3000 on Twitter.

Tis the Season for Planet Grim

Alex Behr released her debut, the story collection Planet Grim, back in October with 7.13 Books. 

You can purchase a copy, and purchase a copy you should, here. 

Alex says the book goes great with a shot of Tequila!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The introduction at Alex's Dead Rabbits Reading: 

In her essay, “Wet,” Alex Behr writes: “I have books and fabric scraps. I have dead friendships and active stomach bacteria. Famous people never email back anymore.” Honest writing so often juxtaposes what is there to say with what we want to say. It places our dead friendships next to our stomach bacteria. It places our sorrow next to everything that holds and surrounds such sorrow. Alex Behr’s writing does this so well, and as such, it creates out of deep internal sorrow a kind of humor, joy, and hope, even as it moves deeper inward. By enacting the literal heartbeat on the page, with a writing that pulses and quivers even as it describes and moves, Alex gives us literal and lyrical life. “We’re a little rough. It’s OK,” Alex writes in one of her stories. And we are, and it is. And Alex’s writing enacts that roughness – reading it is less like reading a book and more like coming to terms. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From her interview with Emily at Fiction Writer's Review: 

"Behr’s work is full of this freaky, casual sorcery. The stories are by turns funny, grimy, and compelling. Her characters betray themselves and each other at every turn, yet it’s impossible not to care about them because they feel so honestly, messily human."

Alex Behr is a writer, editor, and writing instructor in Portland, OR. Her writing has appeared in Tin House, Utne Reader, Oregon Humanities, Portland Review, Propeller Quarterly, and others. Alex Behr’s debut collection, PLANET GRIM, was published by 7.13 Books in October 2017.

Bronwyn Reviews:We

We by Laura S. Distelheim

Publisher: Goldline Press

Released: 2017

Reviewed by Bronwyn Mauldin

We is a book about wanting. Wanting to live a safe, normal, everyday life. It is about people who live just outside the range of vision of too many Americans, invisible in plain sight every day.

The story opens with a black van taking a freeway exit into a suburb somewhere in the Midwest. The side of the van reads Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The appearance of this van, as Laura S. Distelheim has structured her book, is the “call” and the rest of the book – a series of interconnected short stories – the “response” of a blues ballad. The response echoes through the lives of people terrified by the appearance of the ICE van in their community. They stay home rather than go to work or school. The response reverberates further through the lives of people oblivious to the van, whose wants are disrupted when their students, bakers, painters and balloon blowers disappear.

We is a short chapbook. In less than 50 pages Distelheim gives an intimate view inside the lives of people who live on a knife edge. We see their apartments and their schools; we see the children they keep close and the children they left back home. We feel their want, their hopes and their fear:

“…it’s easier to feel anger than it is to feel fear, which she can’t ever seem to figure out how to live with all the time, the way it ties her heart into a knot and makes her feel like there’s a wild animal trapped inside her rib cage.”

The premise of We is reminiscent of Sergio Arau’s 2004 film, A Day Without a Mexican. Where Arau used satire to show how undocumented migrants are inextricably interwoven into America’s economic and social fabric, Distelheim uses pathos. Her stories of the immigrants themselves are the most compelling; some are absolutely heartbreaking. A frightened mother shouts at her little boy for making too much noise, then tries to coax him out of his terrified corner. A young man fills his long day in hiding doing repairs around the garage he lives in with his mother because he can’t go to the library to look up whether he’s been accepted to college.

Chapbooks are a terrific alternative to social media. They’re small and lightweight enough to slip into a bag or even a pocket. They’re a great length for reading in line at the coffee shop or while waiting for friends. They’re perfect for a bus or train ride home. The best ones, like We, are tightly written and pack a powerful punch. As you finish this book, take a moment to ask yourself, who are “we?”

Bronwyn Mauldin is the author of the novel Love Songs of the Revolution and quite a few short stories. She's also creator of The Democracy Series zine collection. More at bronwynmauldin.com.

Tis the Season for Mr. Neutron

Joe Ponepinto's debut novel Mr. Neutron will be published by 7.13 Books in March. 

But don't let the fact that it's not out yet stop you from getting in to the holiday spirit!

The book goes great with Drunk Jack Frosties

Ingredients
·       1 c. vodka
·       1 c. Champagne
·       1/2 c. Blue Curacao (replace with Tequila for a Drunk Monterey Jack Frosty)
·       1/2 c. lemonade
·       3 c. ice
·       Lemon wedge
·       white sanding sugar



Directions
1.     In a blender, combine vodka, champagne, blue curacao, lemonade and ice. Blend until combined.
2.     Run a lemon wedge around the rim of each glass then dip in sanding sugar.
3.     Pour frosties into rimmed glasses and serve immediately.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the smallish American city of Grand River, things are not so grand. The river is hopelessly polluted. City officials are in the pockets of oligarchs. And its best hope for meaningful change is a platitude-spouting eight-foot giant named Reason Wilder running for mayor.

Gray Davenport, a veteran political operative, isn’t faring much better than his hometown. His wife is about to leave him. He’s working for a mayoral candidate who has no chance to win and who can’t even pay for Gray’s services. When Gray notices that Reason may not be human, Gray embarks on a quest to uncover the truth about Reason’s mysterious origins, and the truth promises to change Grand River and Gray forever.

A satirical mashup of Frankenstein and Veep, Mr. Neutron is a hilarious genre-bender that speaks to the unpredictable nature of American politics today.



Joe Ponepinto is the founding publisher and fiction editor of Tahoma Literary Review, a nationally-recognized literary journal that has had selections reproduced in Best American Poetry, Best American Essays, Best Small Fictions, and other notable anthologies. His novel, Mr. Neutron, will be published by 7.13 Books in spring 2018. He is the winner of the Tiferet: Literature, Art & the Creative Spirit 2016 fiction contest, and has had stories published in dozens of other literary journals in the U.S. and abroad. A New Yorker by birth, he has lived in a dozen locations around the country, and now resides in Washington State with his wife, Dona, and Henry the coffee-drinking dog.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you're interested in reviewing Mr. Neutron, please email me at mescorn@ptd.net. 

We'd love to send you a digital arc!!

Tis the Season for Gunmetal Blue

Gunmetal Blue releases tomorrow with Tortiose Books. It showcases Joseph G. Peterson at his inimitable best. It's delightfully absurd and horrifyingly plausible, a sad and funny look at what happens when our airy fantasies become gritty reality, and when that reality in turn falls apart into madness and nightmares.Consider picking it up this holiday season!

````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

The guys in Gunmetal Blue are looking for some type of transcendence to lift them above the existential difficulties they find in just being alive on the planet. To that end, they like to shoot guns at the gun range; they like to go to the horse track; they fish and probably more than the should, they drink and grieve.

Pair Your Reading of Gunmetal Blue 

with a MARTINI

1. A martini is a crystalline snowcapped mountain that you can ski with your eyes closed.

2. The winter air is scented with the smell of pine and your hair is blown back and your eyes are squinting against all the hurt you've ever known.

3. You proceed zigging and zagging down the slope to the sea-washed margins of the glass where the salt-brined olives await and dolphins swim in a sad pink light.

4. God, you feel like a giant!

5. God!

Joseph G. Peterson is the author of six novels and a short story collection. As a kid he ran through the fields with his brothers chasing rabbits; he fished ponds and rivers for carp; he played kick the can with the neighborhood kids. And then he matriculated to the University of Chicago where he received his BA in General Studies. He tended bar when you could smoke cigars in bars; he labored for the bricklayers who threw bricks at him for quoting poetry on the scaffolds. He still reads Wordsworth and Yeats. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two daughters.

His work has appeared in Banango Street, Akashic Books, Disembodied Text, Anthology of Chicago, Exquisite Corpse, New Millennium Writings, and other journals.

Tis the Season for Leech Girl Lives

"I used to live in the future. Giant leeches ate my arms and then replaced them. Under the circumstances, this was actually a good thing. Anyway now I'm here and I'm looking for someone else from the future."

Should be sung to the tune of "Frosty the Snowman":

Margo Chicago

Has leeches instead of arms.

She was stuck in muck

But the leeches helped

As she crawled away from harm.

Margo Chicago

Makes sure art is safe.

With her cyborg friend

The Bublinaplex defends

Until her banishment day.

She thought it was quite tragic

When her cyborg friend was crushed.

But she doesn’t give a single fuck

If her leech arms inspire disgust.

For Margo Chicago

Must fight giant tardigrades.

And lobopods and mutant things

And break cyborg blockades.

Clunkety clunk clunk

Clunkety clunk

Is how the cyborg factory goes.

Clunkety clunk clunk

Clunkety clunk

Till the factory explodes!

Rick Claypool is the author of Leech Girl Lives. His short fiction appears in TL;DR Magazine, The Mustache Factor, The Allegheny Review, and in the forthcoming Not My President: The Anthology of Dissent. For more, visit rickclaypool.org.

Tis the Season for Bacon's Log

Bacon'sLog is Clam Simmons' third book. Informed by back-up quarterbacks of the 90s, inspired by dollar items on the Burger King menu, Bacon's Log is the spiritual and mythic landscape of the post-industrial midwest. 

From the Prologue of Bacon's Log:

Let me be frank—not many of you will make it to the end. It is nothing personal—the chief obstacle is simple—the main character, Bacon, is as basic and regular as any typical human person you might meet. However once Bacon's particles are forced to collide with unforeseen and unmentionable circumstances you will unearth a tale of a regular human being thrust into an epic odyssey.

When asked what holiday drink might best be paired with Bacon's Log...

Clam intially contemplated boxed wine with candy canes. Then thought better of it and firmly declared that vodka, cranberry and red vines is the must see holiday jam-this side of wassail! 

Clam Simmons is currently in-process with a very prestigious children's soup tournament. You can connect at clamsimmons.com as well as some of the top internet web sites.

Bronwyn Reviews: The Protester Has Been Released

The Protester Has Been Released

Publisher: C&R Press

Released: 2016

Reviewed by Bronwyn Mauldin

The Protester Has Been Released is a smart, hilarious collection of ten stories and a novella by Janet Sarbanes. I’m going to tackle this review in two parts, as the content dictates.

A central theme in Sarbanes’ stories is miscommunication. An American couple with a young child think the housekeeper and chauffer in their Mexico City house are being intentionally unhelpful, when in fact they’re trying to save their lives. An earnest arts collective negotiates a museum residency via email with a half-interested curator. Koko the guerrilla, it seems, has been misunderstood all along by her teacher and the rest of us.

Sometimes the miscommunication is willful. In Meet Koko, for example, we discover she knows far more language than she’s letting on:

“I called my new kitty All Ball because I enjoyed the rhyme. Also, there was an absurdist quality to my Manx cat, with its missing tail and squeaky little voice that put me in mind of the Dadaist sound poet Hugo Ball. But according to Penny in this video, I named it All Ball because I thought it looked like a ball.”

Sarbanes’ sense of humor is dry and razor-sharp. She teaches in the Creative Writing program at CalArts, so her sideways swipes at academia (The Tragedy of Ayapaneco) and at the formal arts world (Sunshine Collective) particularly pack a punch.

Reviewers have made much of the animals that narrate Sarbanes’ stories: Laika the first mammal to orbit the Earth, Koko the signing gorilla, and Rosie the sheep who provided the DNA for the first mammal to be cloned. They’re all real animals who contributed to the development of human knowledge, but never had the opportunity to tell their own stories. Sarbanes gives them voice in these stories, if not agency.

Her narrators, both animal and human, are witty, biting, and bittersweet. An undercurrent of hope runs through the stories, often focused on art. Dolly the cloned sheep brings the flock together with her poetry in Rosie the Ruminant. In Ars Longa, when literally everyone gets cancer, a family is brought together through an arts institute they create in the hospital. Their dead mother offers encouragement:

“As you get older, your powers will diminish, but your wisdom will increase. There’s a sweet spot where your powers and wisdom are just about equal, but usually you can only identify it in retrospect, and have squandered it on getting your teenagers into college. Be on the lookout for your sweet spot. Do something big with it.”

Even Laika, despite her inevitable tragedy, hears the music of the spheres.

The novella that closes this volume, The First Daughter Finds her Way, is a more challenging read. That’s partly because of The Times We Live In. It has become almost impossible to read fictional bad presidents; reality has surpassed the unimaginable. Whatever a writer might imagine is simultaneously too nefarious and not nefarious enough, while also being too ridiculous and not ridiculous enough. Sarbanes’ president is a well-dressed buffoon who’s easily manipulated by stronger personalities around him. He reads like George W. Bush, a president from our more innocent past.

Her fictional first daughter, like the protagonists of the shorts in this collection, is too smart and insightful for the people who surround her. The tone of her narrative verges on young adult fiction, but then she breaks into oulipan list-making and takes the story in unexpected directions. One of Sarbanes’ most deft rhetorical moves comes from the fact that Afghanistan, the first country the US attacked after 9/11, is also the first country in an English-language alphabetical list of all countries in the world. She carries this concept ad absurdum, to great effect, reminding us that the Bush years were not as innocent as we might wish to remember.  

The Protester Has Been Released will make you laugh and it will make you think. It is fiction for our times.

Bronwyn Mauldin is the author of the novel Love Songs of the Revolution. She won The Coffin Factory magazine’s 2012 very short story award, and her Mauldin’s work has appeared in the Akashic Books web series, Mondays Are Murder, and at Necessary Fiction, CellStories, The Battered Suitcase, Blithe House Quarterly, Clamor magazine and From ACT-UP to the WTO. She is a researcher with the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and she is creator of GuerrillaReads, the online video literary magazine.