Category: fiction

  • Connor Coyne Reads From Midwestern-Noir Novel Hungry Rats 2/5

    In Hungry Rats, the Rat Man, a serial killer, is on the loose in Flint, Michigan.  Meredith Malady, a high-school girl with a dysfunctional family and a terror of rats sees some common threads between her own life and the killer’s MO.  She runs away from home to unearth a trail of clues, determined to catch a killer, but unsure what she’ll do when she meets the Rat Man face-to-face.

    Connor Coyne has been published in Santa Clara Review, Moria Poetry Zine, Dick Pig Review, The Saturnine Detractor, and the Flint Broadside. He has a website at connorcoyne.com and a blog devoted to the apotheosis of the Gothic. Connor grew up in the East Village of Flint, Michigan, and has lived in Chicago and New York City.  This year he published his first novel, Hungry Rats, but he is even more excited by the birth of his daughter, Mary Adelina.

    “Hungry Rats is an emotional and aesthetic tour de force about deep matters of the human heart. Author Connor Coyne shows why the novel is still the most important medium to write about what matters in a manner that matters.”  — Jeffery Renard Allen, author of the Heartland award-winning novel Rails Under My Back

    For more info: http://hungryrats.com

  • Carol Novack, Joseph Suglia, Garrett Cook and Eckhard Gerdes

    Eckhard Gerdes’s new 2-in-1 book of novels is “The Unwelcome Guest” plus “Nin and Nan” and is published by Enigmatic Ink (http://enigmaticink.com/) and Carol Novack’s collection of stories “Giraffes in Hiding” is forthcoming from Spuyten Duyvil Press (http://carolnovack.blogspot.com/). Garrett Cook is the author of “Jimmy Plush, Bear Detective,” published by Eraserhead Books (see http://jimmyplush.blogspot.com/). For info about Joseph Suglia, see josephsuglia.com.

    Eckhard Gerdes is the editor of The Journal of Experimental Fiction, an occasional publication dedicated to the furthering of forefront fiction. He has published criticism in The Review of Contemporary Fiction, American Review of Books, Electronic Book Review, and other magazines. His fiction has appeared in Fiction International, Notre Dame Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Golden Handcuffs Review, Coe Review, Oyez Review, Rampike, and in many other fine magazines and journals. Gerdes’s previoius novel, My Landlady the Lobotomist, was a top five finisher in the 2009 Preditors and Editors Readers Poll and was nominated for the 2009 Wonderland Book Award for Best Novel of the Year. His The Million-Year Centipede was selected as one of the top ten mainstream novels of 2007 in the Preditors and Editors Readers Poll and was nominated for the 2008 Wonderland Award. He has twice been the recipient of the Richard Pike Bissell Creative Writing Award for excerpts from Przewalski’s Horse, has also been a finalist for both the Starcherone and the Blatt fiction prizes for his unpublished manuscript White Bungalows, and for Cistern Tawdry he was nominated for the Georgia Author of the Year Award in the Fiction Category. He lives near Chicago and has three sons, to whom this new book is proudly dedicated.

    Carol Novack is the former recipient of a writer’s award from the Australian government, the author of a poetry chapbook, an erstwhile criminal defense and constitutional lawyer in NYC, and the publisher of Mad Hatters’ Review http://www.madhattersreview.com/. She immigrated to a mountain ridge in Asheville in May, and will be launching her collection of fictions, fusions, and poems, “Giraffes in Hiding: The Mythical Memoirs of Carol Novack” (Spuyten Duyvil Press), due to emerge this October. Works may or will be found in numerous journals, including American Letters & Commentary, Caketrain, Drunken Boat, Exquisite Corpse, Fiction International, Gargoyle, Journal of Experimental Literature, LIT, Notre Dame Review, and Otoliths, and in many anthologies, including “The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets,” “Diagram III,” and “The &Now Awards: the Best Innovative Writing.” Writings in translations may or will be found in French, Italian, and Romanian journals.  See her blog http://carolnovack.blogspot.com/

    Garrett Cook, a 27-year-old author of horror and Bizarro fiction, is the winner of the First Annual Ultimate Bizarro Showdown. He has four exciting pulp novellas in print, including the first two books in his infamous and destined-to-be cult classic trilogy Murderland.

    Joseph Suglia earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literary Studies at Northwestern University. His other books include Hölderlin and Blanchot on Self-Sacrifice, Years of Rage, and the first edition of Watch Out . What will become of him is anyone s guess. In Suglia’s Watch Out, Jonathan Barrows is a perfect being. He’s arrogant, defines pompous and is arguably the first human to benefit from Body Deity Morphia (confidences that oneself has a Godly physical existence). Knowing JB is like kissing your lover on the lips and tasting your own sexual flavors. Familiar, exotic and taboo.

  • Adam Levin Reads The Instructions

    Instructions

    Local Chicago writer Adam Levin’s The Instructions (McSweeneys) begins with a chance encounter with the beautiful Eliza June Watermark and ends four days later with the Events of November 17. This is the story of Gurion Maccabee, age ten: a lover, a fighter, a scholar, and a truly spectacular talker. Ejected from three Jewish day schools for acts of violence and messianic tendencies, Gurion ends up in the Cage, a special lockdown program for the most hopeless cases of Aptakisic Junior High. Separated from his scholarly followers, Gurion becomes a leader of a very different sort, with righteous aims building to a revolution of troubling intensity.

    The Instructions is an absolutely singular work of fiction by an important new talent who has already been compared to David Foster Wallace by New York Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times.

    Adam Levin’s stories have appeared in Tin House, McSweeney’s, and Esquire. Winner of the 2003 Tin House/ Summer Literary Seminars Fiction Contest and the 2004 Joyce Carol Oates Fiction Prize, Levin holds an MA in Clini-cal Social Work from the University of Chicago and an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. He lives in Chicago, where he teaches writing at Columbia College and The School of the Art Institute.

  • Richard Thomas Reads From Transubstantiate with Otherworld Authors

    TransubstantiateRichard Thomas’s Transubstantiate constructs a collection of voices that reveals a disturbing futuristic vision of terror and beauty. The novel’s island paradise, its imprisoned inhabitants, and the digital presence that works to control them, merge with ancient forces of rite and belief to create a surreal and devastating collage. This is a work that captures a world we almost know, its realities enough to raise an uneasy sense of potentiality. Richard Thomas was the winner of the ChiZine Publications 2009 “Enter the World of Filaria” contest.  His short story “Maker of Flight” was chosen by Filaria author Brent Hayward and Bram Stoker Award-Winning editor Brett Alexander Savory.  Some of his publishing credits include Cemetery Dance (Shivers VI, early 2010), Living Dead Press (Eternal Night: A Vampire Anthology), 3:AM Magazine, Word Riot, Dogmatika, The Oddville Press, Colored Chalk, Cause & Effect, Gold Dust, Vain, Nefarious Muse, Troubadour 21, Cherry Bleeds and Opium. In his spare time he edits and designs for Colored Chalk and Sideshow Fables and is a workshop moderator at The Cult (chuckpalahniuk.net). He is currently writing his second novel, a neo-noir, transgressive thriller entitled Disintegration.  Richard is also a member of the Horror Writers Association.

    “Transubstantiate is, is — it’s a visual: that 2001 baby opening its eyes in the monolith, but the monolith is shrouded in this story of loss and hope and identity, and encoded in the cadence of that story, if you listen close, is the genetic map with which to draw this impossible celestial infant, opening its eyes on the page, looking right into you.”  Stephen Graham Jones, All the Beautiful Sinners, Demon Theory, The Ones That Got Away

    “Transubstantiate is an intricately-woven dystopian thriller, with every thread pulled tight. This is a solid debut from Richard Thomas.”
    —Craig Clevenger, The Contortionist’s Handbook and Dermaphoria

    Also joining the bill is Chicago author Laura Griffith, who will read from her book Remember, David Rosenstein all the way from Colorado to read from newly released The Silk Worm, and Nik Korpon from his soon to be released Stay God! (Otherworld Publications).

    For more info: http://www.otherworldpublications.com

  • J.Thomas Tucker reads from The Datemaker Chronicles

    DatemkrChron

    J. Thomas Tucker hails from Central Iowa. The area is not exactly a melting pot of liberals, but he was drawn into the Woodstock culture of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Tucker bought into “Hippiedom” and experimented with more than his share of illegal substances. His understanding of this world and the mind of the addict led him to write this story. The Datemaker Chronicles is an embellished true story. Tucker’s journeys across the United States were documented by handwritten notes following the “heroine” Elizabeth Jones (Not her real name) and were transcripted into print over a seven-year period. Tucker’s influences are J.D. Salinger, Cormac McCarthy, The Beatles, and the First Amendment.

    No one ever grows up dreaming of becoming a junkie, yet there are plenty of addicts in the world. Elizabeth Jones is one of them. Liz is one smart cookie; just ask her. She has the world in the palm of her hand, but when her reckless ways put her on a one-way street heading to the darkest back alleys of the ghetto, she won’t return and never attempts to make a comeback. Life on the streets is like that. In her case, it swallowed her whole. Yet, for Elizabeth, it was not always like that. She had been married once. She wore fine clothes and attended exclusive soirees, but four years into a nasty habit of smoking crack changed her style—and her fancy. A gluttonous, insatiable addict, her sexual proclivities allow her to support her drug use by selling her body without much ado. With a daughter in the fray, this unabashedly scandalous and loosely biographical account of drug addiction is truly eye opening. If you are a user or know someone who is, this book paints a realistic picture of what life is like for a strung-out, middle-aged junkie. In it, Tucker examines addiction and the fall of a woman who was a willing accomplice to her own demise and paid dearly to live life in the fast lane.

    For more info: http://www.jthomastucker.com

  • CHRIS CONNELLY READS FROM ED ROYAL

    ED ROYAL COVER

    Ed Royal is Connelly’s third book and first work of fiction. In this new book, Connelly has written a coming of age story for the criminally insane, a passionate romance for the sociopath-at-heart, set in early 1980’s Edinburgh, through deserted streets and up ancient hills, straddling the silent divide between the polite silence of the middle class and the stark violence of the working class, navigated crudely and clumsily with hallucinogens around enough twists to keep you reading ravenously until the stunning conclusion.

    Chris Connelly is the author of the books Confessions of the Highest Bidder and Concrete, Bulletproof, Invisible & Fried. He grew up in Edinburgh where he formed his first band THE FINI TRIBE in 1980, before fleeing Thatcher’s Britain for gainful employment as the lead singer for The Revolting Cocks and countless other hedonistic rock bands. He now divides his time between writing fiction, making solo albums, and playing in his band The High Confessions.

    For more info: www.ed-royal.com / www.chrisconnelly.com

  • Michael O’Flaherty Reads Shiny Shiny

    ShinyShiny

    Shiny, Shiny: A Novel by Michael O’Flaherty is a retooled, rocket-fueled Alice In Wonderland for the grandchildren of Marx and Coca-Cola.

    In his critical essays on rock and roll for The Baffler, Michael O’Flaherty investigated the complex attempts of human subjectivity and imagination to transcend the political and social constraints of everyday life. Now, in his novel Shiny Shiny, that exploration broadens and deepens into the realm of dreams and possible worlds. The narrative tracks the protagonist, Jane, as her quest for a place to open up and become one takes her from memories of her ‘70s/‘80s girlhood, to exurban family life, to armed communist revolution, only to end in the one destination she never expected….

    When put on the spot, O’Flaherty will cite writers like Jane Bowles, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean Rhys, and Eduardo Galeano as having influenced his work.  But comic books, punk rock, and the wide world of TV (sometimes observed while semi-conscious) have played an equally important role in his writing.

    For more info: http://www.goodbaitbooks.com/index.htm

  • Jean-Christophe Valtat Reads From Aurorarama

    Aurorarama

    Info about the book: Set in the glittering Arctic city of “New Venice,” Jean-Christoph Valtat’s Aurorarama imagines an intricate “steampunk” society populated with anarchists, hypnotists, rock stars, drug-addled bohemians, dapper secret police, and a secret society of subterranean garbage collectors. French author Jean-Christophe Valtat has drawn on a wealth of research about Arctic exploration, Victorian mysticism, and 19th-century technology to create a truly unforgettable literary adventure tale that calls to mind Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the graphic-novel classics of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, and such genre-bending literary sensations as Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell or Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series.  Smart, playful, sexy, and surreal, Aurorarama marks the first book in an enchanting new trilogy.

    So whether you’re into science fiction/fantasy or just fiction, whether you’re into steampunk or neo-Victorian, or you just want to come out and support an independent bookstore, you should come. And! Wine will be served. At least one french accent will be there for your enchantment. And of course there will probably at least one person with brass goggles. Come wearing your steampunk gear, and the best costume gets a prize! Need some help with understanding what steampunk is? Here’s some helpful info:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk

    [Valtat] has a magical sense of shape, and a gift for lyrical prose that are rare in modern writing.

    —La Croix

    Jean-Christophe Valtat is a writer of “beautiful energy.”

    —Le Monde

    Nabokovian.

    —Words Without Borders


    For more info: http://mhpbooks.com

  • Tao Lin Reads From Richard Yates

    RichardYatesTaoLin

    Richard Yates is a startling change of direction for Lin: his trademark minimalism takes on a much darker edge as he narrates the story of a young man dealing with the consequences of an affair with an underage girl.  But buried within Lin’s work is a more troubling question—what exactly constitutes illicit sex for a generation with no rules?  Tao Lin’s second novel tracks the relationship between writer Haley Joel Osment, a New Yorker in his early twenties, and Dakota Fanning, his 16-year-old lover.  Moving between Fanning’s suburban home and Osment’s Wall Street apartment, the couple increasingly shuns the outside world as they work to navigate the moral ambiguity of their love. But as they grow more obsessive and become more intimately involved, Fanning reveals her increasingly self-destructive personality.  Osment’s own guilt and anger entrap him as they find the relationship—and their lives—hurtling out of control. 

    “Richard Yates is hilarious, menacing, and hugely intelligent. Tao Lin is a Kafka for the iPhone generation. He has that most important gift: it’s impossible to imagine anyone else writing like he does and sounding authentic. Yet he has already spawned a huge school of Lin imitators. As precocious and prolific as he is, every book surpasses the last. Tao Lin may well be the most important writer under thirty working today.”
    —Clancy Martin, author of How to Sell

    For more info: http://www.mhpbooks.com and http://richardyates.info

  • Author Kyle Smith Reads from His New Novel 85A

    85A

    Kyle Smith will read from his Chicago-set coming-of-age novel out this summer from Bascom Hill Publishing Group. Set in late 1980s Chicago, 85A follows its half Johnny Rotten, half Holden Caulfield antihero, Seamus O’Grady, through a watershed day in his adolescent life. As a gay teen from a conservative Catholic home—in one of the most racist neighborhoods of a notoriously segregated city—Seamus begins to seek his niche in 1980s Chicago’s multicultural punk and bohemian circles.

    Originally from Chicago, Smith infuses 85A with the rich detail of his own experiences with the Chicago punk scene as his protagonist struggles with universal themes of identity, rebellion and belonging. Today, Smith lives in Brooklyn, New York and regularly contributes to Edge, The Brooklyn Rail, and WhiteHot Magazine.

    “Like Holden [Caulfield], Seamus serves as an important reminder of the universal urge to self-define in a world hostile to anyone who dares to be different.” – Edge on the Net

    “[Seamus’] treatment at the hands of his family and his teachers is heart-wrenching.” – Booklist

    For more information, visit: http://85anovel.com/events.htm