Indie Spotlight: Mellow Pages Library

If you ever needed a reason to fall in love with small press literature (as if I haven't given you a million reasons to do so already, right?...), I've just found the perfect one for you.

Mellow Pages Library. This neat little Brooklyn library and reading room opened their doors back in February, and are doing some fucking amazing things with small press literature. Like, collecting limited runs and out-of-prints of the shit and hanging them all over the walls, inviting people up to read (as in both sit-down-on-the-couch-and-read, and authors-reading-out-loud-from-their books-read), and posting pictures of everyone who donates to their catalog. 

(side note: have you ever noticed how strange a word begins to look when you type it a lot? read read read read read read Read READ read readReadREADread...)

Between you and me, I want to move into that room and throw my naked, small press obsessed body against the walls again and again again and never stop. Yes. I said it. What of it? I also want to be Matt and Jacob's bestie because they love small press literature as much as I do and have tons more of it than I do and they look like cool dudes and who DOESN'T want to be besties with two cool dudes who read and collect awesome literature and SHARE IT WITH THE WORLD, well, ok just Brooklyn for now, or those who can get to Brooklyn, but still, I'm sure THE WORLD is on their list of places to share their books with....

In the meantime, I wanted you to meet them, so you could fall in love with them too, and Matt and Jacob were incredibly obligingly wonderful and threw together this imaginary screenplay for you. Throw your feet up, balance a bowl of popcorn on your knees and prepare to fall in love....

“Toasted Trout Tart on an Alfalfa Bedding”

a Guest Screenplay written by mellow pages library

SCENE 1:

[THE CURTAINS RISE AND SEVERAL CAMERAS ARE POINTED TOWARD A SUBJECT/NARRATOR, SEATED STAGE CENTER. HEAVY LIGHTING. BLINDING LIGHTING. AUDIENCE IS UNAWARE SUBJECT IS ACTUALLY BEING FILMED. SUBJECT BEGINS TO DELIVER A MONOLOGUE:]

SUBJECT: “I heard about Mellow Pages Library when their first young spurts burst onto the indie book scene a few months ago. This was all online. My friend told me one of them had a knife collection. The Founders. The other one had a set of fine shaving razors. Yet they both had beards. Nothing seemed to add down. They were young and in control of their lives. They had everything. Or so it seemed...”

[THE SUBJECT IS IN FACT REVEALED TO BE JAMES LIPTON OF “IN THE ACTORS STUDIO”. AUDIENCE APPLAUDS. HE OPENS HIS EYES, THOUGH THINLY, THROUGH CIRCULAR SPECTACLES. MONOLOGUE CONTINUES]

JAMES LIPTON: “...Everyone wanted a piece of them, their ideas, yet they were giving them away quicker than one could politely ask. And why? This was the new question, the real question. Eventually I found myself experiencing that same eager pull. To ask. What was it these guys had to say for themselves? What were their principles, their morals? I wanted to know. What I didn’t realize, and now regret to disclose, is the discovery of an ‘Underground Indie Book Conspiracy’ Mellow Pages had been drug into and were fighting, at the expense of the wider scene, with hands perfect-bound behind their backs. [LIGHTS DIM HEAVILY, PROJECTOR SCREEN DESCENDS. NARRATION CONTINUES WHILE IMAGES BEGIN TO FILL THE SCREEN. A NORTHWEST SKYLINE APPEARS. TIMBERS AND SOARING EAGLES] This is a story of murk and corruption. Gloom and glitz. A story of boys struggling to stay afloat against the very conspiracy that sent them falling, Underground-Underground. To the Real Underground. [THE PHRASE: “OPERATION DUCK & DIVE” APPEARS ON THE SCREEN IN HELVETICA NEUE LIGHT ITALIC FONT, NO CAPS] This is their story, as they told it. And this is also my story. How I learned about “Operation Duck & Dive”...”

SCENE 2:

[IMAGERY BEHIND FONT FADES FROM TREES TO THE DUSTY STREETS OF BROOKLYN, THEN INTO A LARGE-ISH STUDY WITH A COMPUTER AND LIPTON HIMSELF TYPING AWAY. NARRATION CONTINUES]

JAMES LIPTON [ON SCREEN]: “When I got a chance to interview the elusive northwest beardboys about their mossy beginnings in the heartland of Cascadia my first inclination was to invite them over for a sustainable farm-to-table dinner. It had been a long time since they’d had a good meal and I needed them to talk, talk, talk. Food always arrows to talk.  I had planned a toasted trout tart with an alfalfa sprout bedding yet they refused. As it turned out, the boys only consume Loaded Baked Potato Flavored Kettle Chips and had already begun the five mile ride to my home on two stolen bikes, unbeknownst to me, torn-up flannels wrapped around their faces. One was missing a shoe. Before I could finish a response message I heard a ring at my door. I stood up and peered through the blinds. Could it be?”

[MATT NELSON AND JACOB PERKINS (THE FOUNDERS) BURST THROUGH JAMES LIPTON’S DOOR ON THE PROJECTOR SCREEN. JAMES LIPTON MAKES A SQUEALING SOUND. THE BOYS SIT LIPTON DOWN IN HIS LARGE-ISH STUDY AND BEGIN TO ASK HIM ANSWERS]

JACOB: “James Lipton. We’ve been waiting for your call. In times like these, trust everyone, including your best friends. We know. But we have something to tell you. We’ve been caught up in somewhat of a pickle here, Lipton. Listen, Lipton. THEY’RE OUT TO GET US.”

LIPTON [ON SCREEN]: “I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about, boys. What’s the problem? I thought you could maybe explain some things for me. Small things. I’ve been reading all about you guys. I just wanted to ask you some questions. Really.”

MATT: “That’s what they all say, Lipton. Look, Lipton. Listen. We’ve got nothing left to tell. You said it yourself. You’ve been reading all about us. We know what you’re up to. YOU’RE ONE OF THEM.”

JACOB: “That’s right, Lipton. The old Duck & Dive, hah? Well, let me tell YOU something. We love indie book culture. In fact, we support it. By shelving indie books, buying indie books, hosting indie readers, promoting indie books online, arranging venues in which indie books can be sold. The list goes on. But you know it. It’s all there, Lipton, you just have to see around the lies.”

MATT: “Real lies, yes, Lipton. There are lies. One of them is the old Duck & Dive. You heard of the Duck & Dive, Lipton? Ring a bell? Well, we know all about it. And we’re on to you.”

LIPTON: “I am so very confused but no, no, I haven’t heard of the “Duck & Dive”.”

JACOB: “It’s a conspiracy, Lipton. I’m sure you know what that means.”

MATT: “Of course you do. Sure, you’d like to hear about our 200 square foot space located on Bogart Street right off the Morgan L stop, 56 Bogart to be exact. How you enter the front door and the third door on the left houses a thousand plus indie books loosely defined as a library but also a reading room wherein membership is free upon inclusion of ten books which, I might add, are always property of the member and redeemable at any time. You want to hear all about it.”

LIPTON: “Well, that’s exactly what I’d like to hear but now, well. Now I’d like to hear about this conspiracy of which you speak so aggressively.”

JACOB: “Hear all about it, hah? Well Lipton, hear about this: there are powers that be, Lipton, under the underground. And they want us. They want us back. They’re real far underground. Been fightin’em for weeks. We tell and we tell, and then they ask. It’s like Arabic, Lipton. All right-left.”

LIPTON: “This tells me absolutely nothing. What is this?”

MATT: “Nothing, Lipton? What about us makes us different than other libraries? Hah? Let me tell you. We try our damndest to get printed matter you can’t find anywhere else. Not at a bookstore, a Barnes&Noble. Not at a public library, not at a used bookstore. Yes we try and we try yet still we explain. We want to prove our necessity in our community. We want a collection of books you cannot find anywhere else. That’s our mission, Lipton. You can come in here on any given day and get coffee, light up a cigarette, drink as much beer as you want, Lipton. Hear that?”

JACOB: “You can submit to our Mellow Pages Paired Reviews for free beers. All you have to do is pair two books in the library and write a review involving both. You can buy books at local booksellers and get our stamp, our Mellow Pages stamp, and thereby come to our Free Beer If event and read from that book you bought at that store. And then we’ll give you a free beer. You can hold a reading, a release, a music show, a film screening, a dance, a fundraiser, anything in our space, and we’ll have you drinking a beer in no time.”

LIPTON: “But what is the conspiracy?” [PROJECTION FADES OUT, IMAGE AND SOUND]

SCENE 3:

[THE SCREEN RISES AND THE REAL LIPTON ONCE AGAIN COMES INTO VIEW. HE IS BLINDED WITH LIGHT. HE CONTINUES HIS ORIGINAL MONOLOGUE]

JAMES LIPTON: “As the evening went on the boys Matt and Jacob continued to explain their theory. What I gleaned from the exchange was somewhat vague. Although, to be sure, they had been followed. They had been followed to the house. We heard strange rustling in the bushes and when Matt and Jacob asked to leave, the strange bush figures seemed to run away with them, into the night. I had to rub my eyes at the sight of it. What I was witnessing? They had never removed their torn flannels and as such their expressions were mute. It was all a weird blur. I retreated to my study for some reflection, in the form of written word...” [THE CAMERAS AROUND LIPTON STOP ROLLING]

[AGAIN THE LIGHTS DIM HEAVILY, PROJECTOR SCREEN DESCENDS. NARRATION CONTINUES WHILE IMAGES BEGIN TO FILL THE SCREEN. A NORTHWEST SKYLINE APPEARS. TIMBERS AND SOARING EAGLES] ...“JAMES LIPTON: “...This is a story of murk and corruption. Gloom and glitz. A story of boys struggling to stay afloat against the very conspiracy that sent them falling, Underground-Underground. To the Real Underground. [THE PHRASE: “OPERATION DUCK & DIVE” APPEARS ON THE SCREEN IN HELVETICA NEUE LIGHT ITALIC FONT, NO CAPS] This is their story, as they told it. And this is also my story. How I learned about “Operation Duck & Dive”...””...

Book Giveaway: The Wonder Bread Summer

Since July 2010, TNBBC has been bringing authors and readers together every month to get behind the book! This unique experience wouldn't be possible without the generous donations of the authors and publishers involved.

I'm excited to to bring you next month's 

Author/Reader Discussion book!

We will be reading and discussing The Wonder Bread Summer

with author Jessica Anya Blau

In order to stimulate discussion, 

Jessica and her publisher, Harper Collins, have agreed to give away 

10 paper copies

to residents of the US only

Here is the goodreads description to whet your appetite:

It's 1983 in Berkeley, California. Twenty-year-old Allie Dodgson is a straitlaced college student working part-time at a dress shop to make ends meet. But when the shop turns out to be a front for a dangerous drug-dealing business, Allie finds herself on the lam, speeding toward Los Angeles in her best friend's Prelude with a Wonder Bread bag full of cocaine riding shotgun and a hit man named Vice Versa on her tail. You can't find a more thrilling summer read!

This giveaway will run through June 8th. 

Winners will be announced here and via email on June 9th.

Here's how to enter:

1 - Leave a comment stating why you'd like to receive a copy of the book. 

2 - State that you agree to participate in the group read book discussion that will run from July 15th through the end of the month. Jessica Anya Blau has agreed to participate in the discussion and will be available to answer any questions you may have for her. 

 *If you are chosen as a winner, by accepting the copy you are agreeing to read the book and join the group discussion at TNBBC on Goodreads (the thread for the discussion will be emailed to you before the discussion begins). 

 3 - Your comment must have a way to contact you (email is preferred). 

GOOD LUCK!

Kelly Davio's Guide to Books & Booze

Time to grab a book and get tipsy!

Books & Booze is a new mini-series of sorts here on TNBBC that will post every Friday in October. The participating authors were challenged to make up their own drinks, name and all, or create a drink list for their characters and/or readers using drinks that already exist. 

Tonight, author Kelly Davio gets down in it:

I believe that you can tell a lot about a person from looking at books she reads and the cocktails she drinks. In my case, when it comes to both poems and libations, I have a passion for the classics—though I appreciate a modern twist—and I like my wit and my beverages dry. 

I won't incriminate myself too far in saying how large a role the following two drinks had in my poetry collection, Burn This House, coming to its final, published form (I kid. Hemmingway famously said that one should write drunk and edit sober, though I preferred to do both sober and celebrate and with a cocktail later). Yet when I think about the best flavor analogues for the mood of this book, there are two cocktails that taste, to me, just like poetry.

The first is an homage to the collection’s unofficial mascot. He makes a number of appearances throughout my collection, from his cameo appearance in smacking my window to his cohort’s swarming the streets of England. He even takes a prominent spot as the variegated beauty on the book's cover. It seems only appropriate that my own twist on the Aviation Cocktail should give a nod to the lowly pigeon.

The Wayward Pigeon

•           2 ounces of Aviation American Gin

•           2 teaspoons of maraschino liqueur

•           1/2 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice, a little more or less depending on the acidity of the lemon

•           A brandied cherry for garnish

Shake the first three ingredients over ice, and serve straight up in a martini glass.

The title poem of Burn This House was among the first of the pieces in the book to be published, and as such, it became a controlling tone for the collection as a whole. That favorite poem seems like a perfect partner for my favorite warm-weather cocktail, my ginger-heavy variation on the Moscow Mule.

The Mule that Burned Your House Down

•           2 ounces of vodka

•           4 ounces of naturally brewed ginger beer

•           1 tablespoon of fresh lime juice

•           1 long, thin slice of fresh ginger for garnish and for a delicious, tasty burn

Pour the vodka over ice and the raw ginger in a copper mug (no, a glass won't do), then top off with ginger beer and fresh lime juice.

Plan to make yourself a few of these—you have a lot of poems to get through in Burn This House. Just don’t stand up too quickly afterward. 

Kelly Davio is Managing Editor of The Los Angeles Review, Associate Editor of Fifth Wednesday Journal, and a reviewer for Women’s Review of Books. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Verse Daily, and others. 

Her debut collection of poetry, BurnThis House, was published by Red Hen Press in 2013. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, and she teaches English as a second language in the Seattle area.

Andrew F. Sullivan Takes it to the Toilet

Oh yes! We are absolutely running a series on bathroom reading! So long as it's taking place behind the closed  (or open, if that's the way you swing) bathroom door, we want to know what it is. It can be a book, the back of the shampoo bottle, the newspaper, or Twitter on your cell phone - whatever helps you pass the time...

Today, author Andrew F. Sullivan takes it to the toilet. Andrew's from Oshawa, Ontario. His fiction has been published by Joyland, Necessary Fiction, EVENT and Little Fiction, among other places. His debut short story collection All We Want is Everything is forthcoming from Arbeiter Ring Publishing in June 2013. He no longer works in a warehouse. Find Sullivan at www.andrewfsullivan.com

Intestinal Demons

As a child, I thought it was a joke when someone said they were reading on the toilet. Every bowel movement was fast, sudden, healthy even—I thank my parents for this experience growing up free from constipated hours trapped inside the house, the bathroom walls becoming a tomb to snare me inside a cloud of my own waste. I was lucky to escape those horrors.

Intestinal distress waited far over the horizon, beyond my reach or understanding until I met alcohol many years later. Alcohol will teach you many things—its greatest tool takes the form of consequences. I have learned a lot about consequences since then, mainly the consequences of rye and gin crossing paths in the middle of the night. As time has passed, those easy bowel movements of old have become harder to remember or understand—each one has been flushed away as they all end up in the same place as gold fish, forgotten babies and crocodiles. They belong to a different era, one I can’t really keep track of anymore. Back then, I thought you lit a match to see if your gas would come alive as fire. I still kind of wish that part was true.

I still cannot get much reading done in the bathroom, but it has crept into my life, slowly slipping in around the edges as I get older. I don’t leave many books in there—I still worry about the ghosts of mold and mildew waiting to find a foothold in my apartment. The building is old and the spores are always waiting, patiently biding their time until some sopping wet paperback lets down its guard. I do not trust my aim in the middle of the night and I don’t want to leave library books reeking of ammonia. I bring the book with me and leave nothing behind.

So what do I bring with me? Graphic novels and comic books—for a while it was Hellboy I held in my hands while dealing with all the abject I had to offer. Maybe it was due to his violent adventures in the supernatural muck of our distended world. Maybe it was due to some long implied belief that you’re shitting out a demon, all the terrible things inside you—I was raised Catholic after all. But in the end, I think it’s the stories you can follow without straining under the single light bulb, the ability for a graphic novel to let a narrative to take shape without all the heavy lifting done by words. Mike Mignola and all his artists create a world in Hellboy defined by its shadows, by what is lurking just beyond the edge of the light. Hellboy is a monster fighting monsters, but the real details lie in the design of the panels, the spaces where his battered humanity might shine through with the flick of a wrist or a lighter. That’s a lot easier to look for those moments when you are trapped inside the bathroom with your mistakes from the night before, wrestling with your own intestinal demons. Sometimes I wonder if Hellboy ever had to wipe with that big, stone hand. I hope it never came to that in the end.

Once I have it in my hands, I may end up reading my own book in the bathroom over and over again. After all, just like any child, we will always be fascinated with our own shit.

Where Writers Write: Susie Sexton

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This is Susie Sexton. 

She currently writes monthly columns "Old Type Writer" for a popular local blog “Talk of the Town” and "Homeward Angle" for the "Columbia City Post and Mail" newspaper. She has been a frequent contributor to the literary journal "Moronic Ox," and her poetry was selected by Wayne State professor M.L. Liebler to be featured in "Poetic Resonance Imaging: Behind the Door." She also has been featured in "Writing Raw" and "InD'tale" magazines. 

Her first book "Secrets of an Old Typewriter" is available now as a paperback (as well as download formats) at www.open-bks.com, www.amazon.com, and www.susieduncansexton.com

Where Susie Sexton Writes

I still live in the tiny, cute house in the tiny, occasionally cute town where I grew up. I upgraded to a computer from a Royal Typewriter a few years ago, and that computer sits in our back room that once doubled as an office/rec room for my father. It is a happily haunted house full of memories and love and I try to channel those sprightly specters through my writing.

My workspace, I suspect like that of many writers is cluttered with the ephemera of a life lovingly lived. I have a full-sized cutout of JFK looming above my monitor, more piles of paper than the Library of Congress, ashtrays, half-empty Pepsi One cans, a handy magnifying glass for that itty bitty print they seem to love on the internet, and my faithful feline sidekicks. My space. My cave. And like another one of my heroes Greta Garbo, I want to be let alone…so my cave will likely never be photographed. Magicians never reveal their secrets! ;D

The Indie Ink Runs Deep: Sara Rauch

I'd been tossing around the idea of blogging a tattoo series for nearly a year. I know there are websites and books out there that have been-there-done-that already, but I hadn't seen one with a specific focus on the authors and publishers of the small press community. 

After hoarding the photos and essays I've been collecting from these guys since July of 2012, and with the promise of spring peeking its deliciously sunny head out through all of this winter gloom, I decided there was no better time than now to finally unveil THE INDIE INK RUNS DEEP mini-series!

Today's indie ink comes from Sara Rauch. She is the founder and editor of Cactus Heart Press and a writer of fiction.

“i had to leave the house of self-importance

to doodle my first tattoo

realize a tattoo

 is no more permanent

than i am

and who-

ever said that life is suffering

i think they had their finger

on the pulse of joy.

ain’t the power of transcendence

the greatest

one we can employ”

—Ani DiFranco, “Shroud”

Of the several tattoos I have inked on my body, these two—the Sagittarius constellation and a woodblock print of a eucalyptus tree—were done within a few months of one another.

About a month after I got the eucalyptus tree tattoo, I left my boyfriend of three and a half years, the one everyone thought I would marry and settle down with. Six months later I fell in love with a woman. Those actions transformed the plot of my life.

For some reason, I see the tattoos as a turning point. A sort of reclamation of my body. Because in the act of inking my skin, I began to see who I was, what I wanted. I saw strength. I saw courage. I saw impermanence, and instead of frightening me, it inspired me. There is no escaping the eventuality of my body’s demise, and so I decided I might as well live with it, live in it, as best and as honestly as I could.

And so it was that I walked away from the life I’d built and began again. I’ve never looked back. Not once. That woman I fell in love with is still my partner—my number one supporter, the reason I’m able to give my life over to writing, and to running Cactus Heart.

The tattoos are a detail in my story, and an essential one—a place where transcendence snuck in.

It always sort of surprises me, when someone grabs my arm, or touches my shoulder, and says, “What does this tattoo mean?”

A smattering of stars. A framed eucalyptus branch. Images I had inked into my skin many years ago, for no better reason than I liked them. I thought them lovely.

I’m often tempted to say to those curious questioners: They don’t mean anything. Sometimes art is just art.

But that would be a lie.

The Audio Series: Nan Cuba

Our new audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.


Today, Nan Cuba reads an excerpt from her novel Body and Bread. Body and Bread (Engine Books) was named one of “Ten Titles to Pick Up Now” in O, Oprah’s Magazine.   Nan also co-edited Art at our Doorstep: San Antonio Writers and Artists (Trinity University Press), and published other work in such places as Quarterly West, Columbia, Antioch Review, Harvard Review, storySouth, and Connotation Press.  As an investigative journalist, she reported on the causes of extraordinary violence in LIFE, Third Coast, and D Magazine. She is founder and executive director emeritus of the nonprofit literary center, Gemini Ink (www.geminiink.org), and an associate professor of English at Our Lady of the LakeUniversity in San Antonio.

Click on the soundcloud link to experience Body and Bread, as read by author Nan Cuba:

The word on Body and Bread:

Years after her brother Sam's suicide, Sarah Pelton remains unable to fully occupy her world without him in it. Now, while her surviving brothers prepare to sell the family's tenant farm and a young woman's life hangs in the balance, Sarah is forced to confront the life Sam lived and the secrets he left behind. As she assembles the artifacts of her family's history in east Texas in the hope of discovering her own future, images from her work as an anthropologist—images of sacrifice, ritual, and death—haunt her waking dreams.

In this moving debut novel, Nan Cuba unearths the power of family legacies and the indelible imprint of loss on all our lives.
*lifted from goodreads with love

CCLaP: Women Float

It's May 27th and do you know what that means? CCLaP has another book birthday to celebrate!

Today, we usher Maureen Foley's debut fiction novella Women Float into the world. The book tells the story of 29 year old lonely California pastry chef Win and her decision to take swimming lessons for the first time—finally confronting her hydrophobia and trying to make sense of why her mer-mother suddenly swam off when she was a little girl. She is also dealing with a desperate crush she’s developed on her New Age neighbor, mysterious postcards that keep arriving in the mail, and her bad habit of pathological lying. This touching and humorous look at female relationships and the dramas that come for contemporary women turning thirty also doubles as a loving ode to the small coastal town of Carpinteria and the laid-back SoCal lifestyle that guides it. 

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

Goodreads users are already digging it:

Debbie Wilson calls it "A well crafted poetic tale of the loves and losses in our lives."

Sandra Katsikas says its "A beautifully written story about the power of women and their friendships."

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

When I first read Maureen's book, as it was being shaped and shifted through the editing process, I felt an immediate and interesting connection to our protagonist Win. Though our lives are very different, we both tire and ache over the hole that is left behind when the people we love leave us. Troubled over the crush she's harboring for her neighbor, frightened by the memories that the ocean holds, and powerless in face of emotionally strong yet complicated women, we follow Win on a journey of self discovery - or what I like to call "uncovery". The perfect book for readers who enjoy books that center around strong female characters, friendship lit, foodie lit, SoCal lit, and light LGBT lit. 

You can now purchase a gorgeous, handmade edition of Women Float on CCLaP's website. And you can add it your goodreads shelf too! 

Review copies are still available in Mobi, ePub, and PDF, so if you'd like to review it for us, raise your hand!! I'd be happy to send one over to you. Maureen is also open to doing interviews, audio excerpts, and guest posts. 

Review; A Questionable Shape

Read 5/7/13 - 5/23/13
4 Stars: Strongly recommended to fans of zombie-lit where the zombies are not the be-all-end-all
Pgs: 218
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio
Released: May 2013

Whenever an advanced copy of a Two Dollar Radio book shows up at my doorstep, all other review copies seem to know their place and move sadly out of the way. Not because they are not worthy of being my next-read, but because they know I simply cannot resist the Radio lit. Like a moth to a flame, people, like a moth to a mother-fucking flame.

So it should go without saying that I fell hard and fast into this incredibly introspective "zombie novel that is not about zombies". Bennett Sims has done something with A Questionable Shape that many authors fail to do when writing "monster lit". He has finagled his way out of genre lit-ification. He can stand proudly, shoulder to shoulder, with the likes of Glenn Duncan (of The Last Werewolf) and Colson Whitehead (of Zone One) - authors who refuse to throw good writing out the window for the sake of a flash-in-the-pan paranormal sensation. I feel smarter and more intellectually stable having read this book. Yes, people, a mentally stimulating zombie novel... you've really got to read it to believe it.

Sims ushers us gently into the midst of an undead apocalypse, right at the point where the infection seems to have been contained by means of government quarantine, and life as people once knew it seems possible again. The undead, upon reanimation, before they are caught by the LCDC and locked away, shuffle blindly back to the places they used to haunt when they were alive - regardless of where they reanimated. And since so little is known about their undead status or the nature of the infection that caused the dead to rise again, their basic human rights have been left in tact - they are not to be murdered.

Mike, whose head we find ourselves in, has agreed to help his friend Matt locate his father, whom Matt believes may be reanimated and wandering back to one of many locations - the house he lived in, the local park, the Citiplace where they used to meet up at once a month to see a movie. Matt is desperate to find him before the LCDC does and Mike, to the frustration of his girlfriend, tags along to ensure his friend doesn't get bitten or worse, attempt to infect himself to gain a better understanding of how the undead mind works.

The book follows Mike and Matt for six days, and for a large chunk of those six days, as they move from one potential haunt to another in search of the missing, overweight plumber, we are treated to Mike's sometimes-corney-sometimes-spot-on internal ruminations. Why do the undead seem drawn back to the places that hold the strongest memories for them? Can they think? Can they see? Is there anything that was once them left inside that twitching, rotting corpse? Is Matt off his rocker to be making these daily trips out to the places he thinks his father might return to? What will Matt do if he does find his father?

A Questionable Shape forces the zombies into the background and focuses its lens most intently on what's happening to humanity - bringing the emotional and the introspective to the forefront, casting fear and confusion and uncertainty as its main characters. It offers a powerful perspective on survival, and may have you question who has it worse, those who wander the world infected with undeath or those who are left behind to watch them?

Where Writers Write: Kevin Haworth

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This Where Writers Write is part of CCLaP's Famous Drownings in Literary History blog tour. Check it out:

This is Kevin Haworth. 

Kevin's first novel, The Discontinuity of Small Things, was awarded the Samuel Goldberg Prize for best Jewish fiction by a writer under 40. It was also recognized as runner-up for the 2006 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His collection of non-fiction essays, Famous Drownings in Literary History, was released by CCLaP in 2012, and won Kevin a pre-publication grant from the Ohio Arts Council. A two-time resident of the Vermont Studio Center, he is also a winner of the David Dornstein Prize for Young Jewish Writers and the Permafrost Fiction Prize. His fiction and nonfiction appear in Sentence, ACM, Poetica, Permafrost, and others. He lives in Athens, Ohio with his wife, Rabbi Danielle Leshaw, and their two children, Zev and Ruthie. He teaches writing and literature at Ohio University.

Where Kevin Haworth Writes

We live in a tiny house.  It used to be even smaller—to get to the space where my desk is now, you had to walk out the kitchen door, go through the backyard and past a wall where a big snake lived, and enter the bottom half of the house through a separate entrance.  When we moved in, eleven years ago, the already-small house was divided into a top half, where we lived, and an “in-law” apartment with its own kitchen and bedroom.  Eventually, with two children, we outgrew the luxury of this dedicated guest space, broke through the floor, and installed a spiral staircase that connects the upper half of the house to the lower one.  My office is in that lower half, in a former bedroom that now shares space with the spiral staircase, a walk-in closet, and the door to our current bedroom.  Because of the stairs, some of the noise from upstairs always drifts down, but there’s plenty of desk space and room for books all around.

We are a creative family.  My wife is an award-winning writer.  My son plays the cello and several other instruments.  My seven-year old daughter seems to require two distinct art spaces—a desk for drawing and journaling, and a section of the front porch for painting and displaying her work.  All of our creative spaces bleed into our family spaces.  That can lead to conflict (Now is not the time for cello! my daughter will yell, when she wants to watch television right next to where her brother is playing), but it reflects the priorities of our household.

I’m the fortunate one—my little studio, next to the staircase, backed by a closet—is as private as it gets around here.

Where Writers Write: Eric Hudspeth

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This particular Where Writers Write is part of the Quirk Books blog tour to celebrate Eric's new novel/art book The Resurrectionist! Check it out:

This is Eric Hudspeth. 

Eric was raised in Colorado but lived in several states throughout the U.S. while growing up. He worked as a snow and ice sculptor for nearly ten years, always writing and painting. His love for the arts led him all over the country and eventually to Pietrasanta, Italy where he worked as a marble sculptor. While in Italy, working on anatomy designs of impossible beings, he created the beginnings of what has become The Resurrectionist. Now living in New Jersey with his wife and two children, Eric continues to work as a professional artist.

Where Eric Hudspeth Writes

Where I write has usually been in a single location. I have not been able to do much on the go. I can take notes or jot down ideas but I need to be in the same place for a while before I can write. It can be a hotel or something, I don’t have to be home to write. I used to do everything with a pen and paper but I eventually got used to writing on the computer. The Resurrectionist was largely an art project so I did the drawings on the same desk that I write on. My desk has become crowded these days, which I tend to like it like that way.

When I write I put my feet up and work with the keyboard on my lap. It’s terrible for my neck, but I haven’t broken the bad posture habit yet. It started when I was In italy, I shared a small basement studio with a friend— my side of the room was the kitchen. I didn’t want to sleep on a kitchen floor so I made a narrow bed out of some wood planking I found (at that time I was sleeping on the floor without

 a mattress anyway, so I was used to it). There was absolutely no extra room, the small refrigerator door opened halfway before hitting my bed. Because of the lack of space, I wrote with the laptop on a piece of scrap wood on my lap— and so a terrible habit was born.

I have two children, a toddler and a baby. Over the last few years I’ve been doing a renovation on the entire upstairs of our home so we all packed in downstairs and made a nest of what space remained. The result was cozy but crowded. My son slept three feet from my desk, so not only did I need to be quiet, but I had to work late at night. I dream of someday keeping regular hours. The upstairs renovation is complete and the children sleep there, although I still need to work after bedtime hours.

It’s always a challenge balancing my energy levels. I have always battled insomnia so I try to make it work for me these days. Unfortunately, when I am on a roll and want nothing more than to keep working, I have to pull the plug at some point in order to get a few hours sleep before work the next day. It’s tricky, there are only so many hours in a day.

I can edit or just read while comforting the little ones but usually I just fall asleep too.

You can check out the book trailer for The Resurrectionist here!

The Indie Ink Runs Deep: Christy Fearn

I'd been tossing around the idea of blogging a tattoo series for nearly a year. I know there are websites and books out there that have been-there-done-that already, but I hadn't seen one with a specific focus on the authors and publishers of the small press community. 

After hoarding the photos and essays I've been collecting from these guys since July of 2012, and with the promise of spring peeking its deliciously sunny head out through all of this winter gloom, I decided there was no better time than now to finally unveil THE INDIE INK RUNS DEEP mini-series!

Today's indie ink comes from Christy Fearn, whose novel Framed came out in March through Open Books. Brought up in Lord Byron's childhood home town of Southwell, UK, Christy Fearn was fascinated from an early age with the local poet. She studied English Literature and Drama at Clarendon College and then York St. John University. Her dissertation focused on William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, Byron and the Shelleys. Framed is her debut novel which tells the story of the Nottingham Framebreakers. Byron is a character in the novel, stepping in to aid the local Luddites and making his maiden speech in the House of Lords.

A self-confessed Byron nut, Christy has a tattoo portrait of her hero on her arm, including the line from his poem "Maid of Athens" - Zwή ?ou σaς aγaπώ which in Greek means "My life I love you."

The story behind the tattoo 

I had wanted a tattoo of some sort for a while, but knew that it had to be something I liked enough to have on my body permanently. To begin with, I decided to go for something small, like an eye of Horus symbol. However, I realised that this was quite a popular design and not totally original, so I rejected that. As Byron is my hero I wondered if I could have his portrait tattooed on me. So for my first tattoo I created the Byron design myself, using one of his portraits surrounded by olive leaves (native Greek trees) and then the line of poetry. I chose that particular line because I felt it summed up Byron's attitude to life, and reminds me to make the most of my time. People always ask me if it's real - ie. not painted on, and also if it hurt. It just felt like a scratching sensation, not really painful. It was amazing to see the design appearing. The artist, Terry Stafford, is an expert in shading and portraits. He works in Nottingham. I'm proud to be 'The Girl with the Byron Tattoo'!

The Audio Series: Alina Simone

Our new audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.


Today, Alina Simone reads an excerpt from her upcoming novel Note to Self, which releases June 4th. Alina is a critically acclaimed singer who was born in Kharkov, Ukraine, and now lives in Brooklyn. Her music has been covered by a wide range of media, including BBC’s The World, NPR, Spin, Billboard, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal. She is the author of You Must Go and Win, a collection of essays. Note to Self is her first novel.

Click the soundcloud link below to experience Note to Self as read by author Alina Simone:






The word on Note to Self:

Anna Krestler is adrift. The Internet has draped itself, kudzu-like, over her brain, which makes it even more difficult to confront the question of what to do when she is dismissed from her job as a cubicle serf at a midtown law firm. Despite the exhortations of Leslie, her friend and volunteer life coach, Anna seeks refuge in the back alleys of Craigslist, where she connects with Taj, an adherent of a nebulous movement known as Nowism that occupies the most self-absorbed fringes of the art world. 

     Art, Anna decides, is what will provide the meaningful life she’s been searching for and knows she deserves. She joins Taj’s “crew” and is drawn into his grand experimental film project. But making art is hard and microwaving pouch foods is easy. Soon enough Anna finds herself distracted by myriad other quests: remembering to ask Leslie “How are you?,” reducing her intake of caloric drinks, and parrying her mother’s insistence that she attend hairdressing school. 

     But when Anna’s twenty-seven-year-old roommate—a terminal intern named Brie—announces her pregnancy, it forces Anna to confront reality, setting off a chain of events that lead to a horrifying climax of betrayal.  

     Alina Simone’s Note to Self is a shrewdly perceptive, hilarious, moving tale about friendship, art, and the search for a meaningful life in an era of rampant narcissism.
*Lifted with love from Goodreads