The Empty City - Berit Ellingsen

The Empty City is a story about awakening to inner truths and one's own self. It is told in short episodes that describe a place, a dream, a question, a memory, a fantasy or an event.

Urban explorer and lucid dreamer Brandon Minamoto discovers that outside his thoughts and emotions exists a world that is silent and open, surrounding him and everyone else. The silence starts picking him apart and makes him question his sense of self and his past. But behind the noise and the stories, there is something constant and unchanging.

An excerpt is online on the book webpage, together with links to interviews: Empty City.

More information about the research for this book is up in Necessary Fiction's Research Notes.

Berit Ellingsen is a Korean-Norwegian fiction writer whose stories have or will appear in Everyday Genius, SmokeLong Quarterly, Blue Fifth Review, Metazen, decomP and other literary journals. Berit was a semi-finalist in the Rose Metal Press Chapbook Competition in 2011 and her chapbook What Girls Really Think was published by Turtleneck Press in February 2012. Berit’s novel, The Empty City, is a story about silence.

Berit Ellingsen: The Empty City

PS: there's also a personal review of the book in the editor's blog: Zen and the Empty City


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related links: philosophical, novels

Shrayan - Abha Iyengar

Abha Iyengar's novel Shrayan - an adult fantasy tale - explores an individual’s quest for acceptance in an unfamiliar and unforgiving world: Shrayan emerges from the underground, a fully formed creature, not quite human in appearance. In the dark forest where he finds himself, he is surrounded by snakes. Brought to the city and made to dance as an ajooba, he breaks free and learns dancing and martial arts. He falls in love to discover that beauty has its own price tag. The night he achieves stardom, he leaves his clamouring fans and takes to the streets, hoping to find his lost son.

In his quest for his self, Shrayan discovers aspects of his personality that he did not know existed, and also learns to come to terms with what he is and deal with the challenges that life throws up for him as he knows best. Love is difficult to find and hold, friendship has different meanings, and trying to fit into a world concept is neither possible not required, these are some of the things he learns.

Abha Iyengar is an internationally published freelance writer and poet who lives in New Delhi, India. She is a Kota Press Poetry Anthology contest winner, conducts creative writing and poetry workshops and has written several screenplays. Her poem film “Parwaaz” has won a special jury prize at the film festival at Patras, Greece and has been screened to acclaim at various international film festivals. Abhha blogs at Encounters of an Everyday Kind, where she currently hosts the new edition of the language place blog carnival: "The Other".

Abha Iyengar: Shrayan
e-book

The Love Story of Paul Collins - Donigan Merritt

A line in the Kate McGarrigle song, "Heart Like A Wheel," states: And it's only love that can wreck a human being and turn him inside out. The Love Story of Paul Collins illustrates that tragedy within a story and a setting of thoughtful and emotional literary power, set in a provincial Central European capital during the year preceding September 11, 2001.

For an excerpt of the novel, click here: "This country feels like home to him now..."

Donigan Merritt was born in southwest Arkansas in 1945, and left home at the age of seventeen. He has worked as a journalist, scuba diver, fishing boat captain, sailing instructor, and university professor. He has a BA and MA degree in philosophy; the BA is with Honors from Simpson College, the MA is from the Claremont Graduate School. He also has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from the Iowa Writers Workshop. His first novel, One Easy Piece, was published by Coward-McCann in 1981. Since then, he has published seven novels, the most recent: Blossom, published by Author House, 2011. He has lived in California, Slovakia, South Africa, Germany, Washington, DC, and Buenos Aires.

Donigan Merritt: The Love Story of Paul Collins
205 pages
paperback: $7.99
kindle: $3.52

Freight - Mel Bosworth (Folded Word)

Freight by Mel Bosworth is an unflinching, quirky novel that follows a flawed yet lovable everyman as he searches for Home. We never learn his name. Nor do we learn her name—the woman whose freight is still too much for him to carry. But we know he likes soft things. We know he works through pain. We know his childhood still clings to him, despite his graying hair. And through knowing him and all his freight, ours is easier to bear.

You can read an excerpt at Darksky: I Lost. And in Brooklyn: I Found. For an unwritten tune of Freight, try this Freight video.

Update: Freight will be released on the 9. September + received review praise by the Publishers Weekly: "...subtle and delightful... fantastically innovative..." (whole review)

Mel Bosworth lives and breathes in Western Massachusettes. He's never met a cup of tea he didn’t drink, a donut he didn’t eat, or a cat he didn’t try to pet. When Mel isn’t consuming things or making new feline friends, he’s usually busy writing. He is the author of the short fiction chapbook When the Cats Razzed the Chickens and Other Stories (Folded Word, 2009) and the novella Grease Stains, Kismet, and Maternal Wisdom (Brown Paper Publishing, 2010). There's an author talk with him and Jessie Carty online at Daily s-Press: author talk: Mel Bosworth & Jessie Carty on breathing, writing, scares, yielding, greed and more

About Folded Word (+PicFic + unFold + Heron)
Folded Word is an independent press that continually seeks new ways of connecting readers to new literary voices. Though we do sell our books and chapbooks, we offer free poetry and fiction to the public in our Twitter-zines PicFic and unFold, as well as our print broadside, Heron. We also value craftsmanship, both of literary works and the medium in which they are rendered--as demonstrated by our handcrafted Signature Series chapbooks. Folded Word is managed by J.S. Graustein with the support of Rose Auslander, Casey Murphy, and the entire Folded family of contributors.

Mel Bosworth: Freight
release date: 9. September
209 pages
paperback: $14 + 1$ shippping worldwide
e-book: $3.50

Open City - Teju Cole (Random)

Teju Cole's novel Open City tells the story of a young Nigerian-German psychiatrist in New York City five years after 9/11.

Published by Random House and reviewed in the New Yorker, this novel technically doesn't exactly belong into this blog on indie books and online literary magazines. Yet if you visit the Links section of the author's page, you arrive at a very indie note in section 4. Right between links to the African Cities Reader and Vanity Fair  Teju Cole states: "I’m a frequent contributor to the excellent online journal Qarrtsiluni."

Small open world, it is. This cross connection also reflects in 2 recent reviews from fellow bloggers Jean Morris and Parmanu, who both are contributors to qarrtsiluni - and to BluePrintReview.

"It’s not a total surprise to see a friend first encountered through the different blogs he’s kept now find considerable success with his first novel. Not a surprise, but a new and engaging experience," notes Jean Morris in her blog post "Open City opens here". And if you follow the contributor link above, you arrive at the visualization of this cross connection: Ekphrasis 1: Jean + Teju Cole.

The second blog post, by Parmanu, is actually a letter to Teju Cole with a reflection on reviews in general, and also on the difference the earlier connection makes: "Looking at these reviews I sometimes wonder how I would have responded if I had known nothing about the author. Would it have been a different book for me?" - The Review Cycle

About Teju Cole
Teju Cole was born to Nigerian parents and grew up in Lagos. His mother taught French. My father was a business executive who exported chocolate. At fifteen he published cartoons regularly in Prime People, Nigeria’s version of Vanity Fair. Two years later he moved to the United States. Since then, he spent most of his time studying art history, except for an unhappy year in medical school. He currently lives in Brooklyn.

Teju Cole: Open City

The Life Cycle of Software Objects - Ted Chiang (Subterranean)

Locus online, the Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field, announced the 2011 Locus Awards Winners. For the Category "Best Novella", the winner is "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" by Ted Chiang, pulished by Subterranean Press.

Ted Chiang is a science fiction short story writer. In his novella The Life Cycle of Software Objects, he takes a fresh approach to the development of artificial intelligence: "Chiang's novella--the second piece he's ever published that's long enough to stand on its own, following the 2007 Hugo- and Nebula-winning "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate"--is a welcome surprise: a triumphant combination of the rigorous extrapolation of artificial intelligence and artificial life, two of the high concepts of contemporary SF, with an exploration of its consequences for the ordinary people whose lives it derails." - Publisher's Weekly

The novella is available as book, and is also inlcuded in the Fall issue of Subterranen Magazine online: The Life Cycle of Software Objects.

You can read an unusual interview with Ted Chiang at BoingBoing, where he talks about science fiction, philosophy, religion, and technology - here's a taste: "Science fiction is very well suited to asking philosophical questions; questions about the nature of reality, what it means to be human, how do we know the things that we think we know". Link: Ted Chiang on Writing

Locus Awards 2011
The winners of the other categories are listed on the Locus Awards Page 2011, here some of the winners:
- Best Science Fiction Novel: "Blackout/All Clear" by Connie Willis
- Best Fantasy Novel: "Kraken" by China Miéville
- Best first novel: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin

related links: time + space, novels + novellas, prize winners

Bloody War - Terry Grimwood (Eibonvale)

Bloody War. Always on the news, from somewhere around the world. War seems to be something humanity just cannot get out of its system. And yet, for most of us here in the UK, war is little more than a spectacle where we sit comfortably, tut-tutting over horrors taking place in far off and unknown lands, before returning to our grumbles about the spending cuts or immigration or whatever else it is that sets you off. That’s as far as it goes, save maybe for memories and stories of the dark days of WWII. But just suppose that all-out war was to come to Great Britain again? This dark, bloody and very British apocalyptic novel explores just this idea.

Imagine George Orwell’s 1984 updated for 2011, with the focus on family, character and relationships rather than political ideology, and you might have the measure of Bloody War. This book, like our society, is one where politics has become an opaque and distant game, and where most people can see no further than their own living rooms. If we are not careful then the price for such false comfort, Terry Grimwood seems to suggest, may one day be terrible indeed.

Suffolk-born Terry Grimwood started his working life as an electrician and is now a college lecturer. Along the way he has been a quality assurance manager, project manager and technical author. He has written and directed three plays and runs the Exaggerated Press. His novella, The Places Between is available from Pendragon Press and his novel Axe will be published by bad Moon Press in late in 2011.

About Eibonvale Press
Eibonvale Press is a small press run by a writer, artist and reader who loves books. "It's as simple as that. It is not intended to be particularly commercial or make large sums of money for me or anyone concerned (though it would be nice if it did, of course!), but it aims to produce beautiful and lovingly-designed editions of excellent writing in modern horror, magic realism and the surreal."

Terry Grimwood: Bloody War
Hardcover (276 pages.) £22.00
Paperback (276 pages) £8.99

thematically related books, featured in this blog:
- Battle Runes - Writings on War (anthology)
- Sally Weigel: Too Young to Fall Asleep (e-book)

Dr Jesus and Mr Dead - Cooper Renner

Cooper Renner's novel Dr Jesus and Mr Dead tells an immortal adventure that leads from medieval England to modern New Mexico.

When the Black Death struck Pleasant Wimberley, England, in 1349, it infected every resident. Only two survived, locked in stasis by the plague, unable either to die or to age, doomed by their immortality to be forever on the move. Through the centuries, 30-year-old Richard Dedemon spread suffering and even death as often as he could. But he never suspected that he was not unique, that an extraordinary 12-year-old hounded his steps in secret, diligent to undo the evil his former townsman sowed.
Their journeys intersect, for a final confrontation, in 1980s New Mexico where Dedemon poses as a traveling tent evangelist and faith healer as he plots his greatest devastation: the unleashing of another plague upon the unsuspecting people of the Southwest. Can Jonathan, with six centuries of experience trapped in a 12-year-old's mind, discover his enemy's intentions before it is too late?

An excerpt of the novel is available online: Dr Jesus and Mr Dead - excerpt.

Cooper Renner's fiction has appeared in New York Tyrant, Keyhole, The Anemone Sidecar and other publications. He is translator of Mario Bellatin's Chinese Checkers: Three Fictions (2006) and editor at the online magazine elimae. His poetry collection Mosefolket was published in 2007 under the name Cooper Esteban.

Cooper Renner: Dr Jesus and Mr Dead
e-book, Kindle
2,99$

Life After Sleep - Mark Brand (CCLaP)

In his mini-novel Life after Sleep, Mark Brand takes a look at the world that might just await us around the corner -- a place where GPS, Facebook and cellphones mesh perfectly to tell us where even in a nightclub to stand, yet traditional enough for couples to still have fights over groceries, and for office politics to still have enormous repercussions.

It is the day after tomorrow, and a device has been invented that immediately induces REM sleep, otherwise known as "Sleep" with a capital S. Society has been transformed. The average person now only needs two hours of rest a night. The work day is officially sixteen hours long. Americans party at clubs until daybreak, then log into virtual worlds and party in a reunified Korea all morning too...

Mark R. Brand is a Chicago-based science-fiction veteran and former medical assistant. An interview with him regarding the process of writing this book is available online: CCLaP Podcast 68: Author Mark R. Brand

CCLaP / Pay what you want! Like the previous CCLaP-books featured in Daily s-Press ("99 Problems" by Ben Tanzer, "Too Young to Fall Asleep" by Sally Weigel), this book is published on a "pay what you want"-basis: "it means you pay only what you want for an electronic copy, even if you want to pay nothing, making this mini-novel (available in EPUB, PDF and MOBI/Kindle editions) easily worth taking a chance on."

About CCLaP
CCLaP Publishing is an imprint of the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, an organization dedicated to promoting the best of the underground and cutting-edge arts.

Mark Brand: Life After Sleep
mini-novel
electronic book
"Pay what you want" at website
kindle version: $5.87

related links: e-books, novels + novellas

The Last Jewish Virgin - Janice Eidus (Red Hen)

The Last Jewish Virgin is Lilith Zeremba, a vibrant young woman in rebellion against her emotionally complex feminist mother. Lilith is determined to make her own way—on her own terms—in the world of fashion, but she unexpectedly finds herself in a place where mythology and sexuality collide. She meets two men to whom she is drawn in ways that feel dangerous and yet inevitable: the much older, wildly mercurial and mesmerizing Baron Rock, and Colin Abel, a young, radiant artist determined to make the world a better place, one socially progressive painting at a time.

The Last Jewish Virgin, an innovative, humorous, and universal tale of longing and redemption, refreshes and reinvents the classic vampire myth for a contemporary world in which love, faith, and politics are forever intersecting and evolving.

Janice Eidus two-time O.Henry Prize winner, author of The War Of The Rosens, lives in Brooklyn, New York and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. An interview with her about the novel is online at Fiction Writers Review: Vampires are People, too.

About Red Hen Press
The mission of Red Hen Press is to discover, publish, and promote works of literary excellence that have been overlooked by mainstream presses, and to build audiences for literature in two ways: by fostering the literacy of youth and by bringing distinguished and emerging writers to the public stage.

Janice Eidus: The Last Jewish Virgin
160 pages
ISBN-10: 1597093939

Sylvow - Douglas Thompson (Eibonvale)

In his novel Sylvow, Douglas Thompson follows his cast of characters through a spectacular clash between everyday life and life on the evolutionary scale – as society dissolves and is stripped away under the onslaught of surreal environmental disaster. The novel explores the disastrous state of civilization and its effect on both ourselves and the world around us – in the process touching on elements as diverse as literary surrealism, philosophical tract, horror, disaster novel and visionary science fiction.

"Thompson likes his maybes, his doubts and ambiguities, the darkness of the forests of our minds. Come in and enjoy this wild walk in the woods, and step out again unscathed –maybe." - Martin Bax, from the Introduction.

Douglas Thompson has published short stories in a wide range of magazines and anthologies, most recently New Writing Scotland, Chapman, Ambit, and reviewed architecture for The Herald. He won second prize in the Neil Gunn Writing Competition in 2007, and currently works as an architectural designer and computer 3d-visualiser. His first novel, Ultrameta, was published by Eibonvale Press in August 2009.

About Eibonvale Press
Eibonvale Press is a small press run by a writer, artist and reader who loves books. "It's as simple as that. It is not intended to be particularly commercial or make large sums of money for me or anyone concerned (though it would be nice if it did, of course!), but it aims to produce beautiful and lovingly-designed editions of excellent writing in modern horror, magic realism and the surreal."

Douglas Thompson: Sylvow
hardcover: 274 pages, £22.00
paperback: 308 pages,  £8.99

editor's note: there is a related review on visionary/desaster books (and films) online in the editor's blog, including a novel by Doris Lessing, Sylvow (with a quote), the film 2012, and our dealing with those future scenarios: "popcorn armageddon"

Xu Xi - Habit of a Foreign Sky (Haven Books)

In her novel Habit of a Foreign Sky, Xu Xi explores the abrupt shift for Gail Szeto when her mother, her last family member, is killed in an accident. For Gail, a mixed-race, single mother who buried her young son only two years prior, all she has left is a hard-won career at a global investment bank. Life rapidly goes into free fall for this woman with a complicated past, who was once so sure of her direction in life, and who now isn't able to see a clear future path.

This novel is finalist for the Inaugral Man Asian Literary Prize. An audio interview with Xu Xi is online at: Xu Xi explains the multicultural appeal of the novel (recommended).

Xu Xi, an award-winning fiction writer and essayist, has edited several literary anthologies including Fifty-Fifty: New Hong Kong Writing. She currently teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts and is Writer-in-Residence at City University of Hong Kong, where she founded the first international MFA program that specializes in Asian writing in English.

About Haven Books
Haven Books is a dynamic English-language press based in Hong Kong, their books focus primarily on Asian and international themes, and are enjoyed worldwide by readers of all ages. "We publish strong, fresh titles on a wide variety of topics - including exciting fiction, cookbooks, photography and travel books, children's illustrated books, young adult novels, and reference books. A founding member of the Independent Publishers of Hong Kong, Haven Books actively promotes Asia-based writers and literary organizations."

Habit of  a Foreign Sky - Xu Xi
ISBN 978-988-18967-2-8

related links: international, novels, prize/best of

Angels Carry the Sun - Phoebe Wilcox (Lilly)

Angels Carry the Sun is the debut novel of Phoebe Wilcox. Set in the early 1980s, in a pocket of rural poverty in one of the wealthiest counties in Pennsylvania, it tells the story of Flora’s four-year obsession with Finn, her high school teacher, as revisited during the summer before she leaves for college. It is a lyrical, spirited, quirky and tender coming-of-age story.

You can listen to Phoebe Wilcox reading from Angels Carry the Sun in this book video, and here's Phoebe talking about her book.

"Beautiful, poetic, tragic. Witness the miracle of words that is Phoebe Wilcox...then back away slowly." - Matthew "Nobius" Evelsizer, Calliope Nerve Media

Phoebe Wilcox's poems and stories can be found in The Chaffey Review, Bartleby-Snopes, River Poets Journal, ginosko, Wild River Review, Gloom Cupboard, Sixers Review, and many other literary magazines. She is the author of a poetry chapbook, Recidivist (Lilly Press, April 2010). An excerpt from a second novel, Flower Symbolism for Dummies has been published in Wild Violet. Two of her short stories have been nominated for the Pushcart prize: "The Librarian and the Janitor", and "Carp with Water in Their Ears" (River Poets Journal Spring 2008, pdf journal link). Lilly Press has nominated Angels Carry the Sun for the PEN/Faulkner award.

About Lilly Press
Lilly Press is the publishing wing of River Poets Journal. The press publishes fiction/poetry chapbooks/anthologies/journals, and is interested in imaginative work that lasts in your memory long after the reading. Recent publications include River Poems - An Anthology.

Phoebe Wilcox: Angels Carry the Sun
novel
220 pages, $14.95
ISBN: 0980177561

Everything Was Good-bye - Gurjinder Basran (Mother Tongue)

Everything Was Good-bye centers around Meena, a young Indo Canadian woman growing up in the lower mainland of British Columbia and traces her life as she struggles to assert her independence in a Punjabi community. Raised by her tradition bound widowed mother, Meena knows the freedoms of her Canadian peers can never be hers, but unlike her sisters, she is reluctant to submit to a life that is defined by a suitable marriage. Though a narrative moving between race and culture, it is ultimately a story of love, loss and self acceptance amidst shifting cultural ideals.

This novel won the Search for the Great B.C. Novel Contest, chosen from sixty-four manuscripts by Jack Hodgins, who described it as "a fascinating story, skillfully written, of a rebellious young woman's remarkable courage.”

Gurjinder Basran studied creative writing at Simon Fraser University and The Banff Center for the Arts. Her work was shortlisted for the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and earned her a place in the Vancouver Sun’s annual speculative arts and culture article, “Ones To Watch.” A 2006 graduate of Simon Fraser University’s award-winning Writer’s Studio, Gurjinder has read her work at the Vancouver International Writers Festival and has been both a panelist and facilitator on writing at the 2007 Writer’s Studio alumni symposium. She lives in Delta, British Columbia with her husband and two sons. This is her first novel.

About Mother Tongue Publishing
Formerly Mother Tongue Press, Mother Tongue Publishing concentrates on publishing unique, bold and stimulating books of British Columbia art history, fine art and literature. Recent publications include Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary B.C. Poetry, edited by Mona Fertig & Harold Rhenisch, and 4 Poets - this new BC poets series features emerging and established BC poets in a fresh format that explores the broader scope of the poet’s work.

Gurjinder Basran: Everything Was Good-bye
novel, 288 pages
ISBN 978-1-896949-07-9

related links: international, gender+race

The Women of Nell Gwynne’s - Kage Baker (Subterranean)

Kage Bakers's novella The Women of Nell Gwynne’s was nominated for a Hugo Award and a World Fantasy Award in the Best Novella categories. On May 15, 2010, the work was awarded the 2009 Nebula Award in the category novella. Sadly, Baker didn't live long enough to receive the award.

Set in early-Victorian London, The Women of Nell Gwynne’s is a steampunk novella that tells the story of Lady Beatrice - once a proper British daughter, until tragedy struck and sent her home to walk the streets of London. But Lady Beatrice is no ordinary whore, and is soon recruited to join an underground establishment known as Nell Gwynne’s - the finest and most exclusive brothel in Whitehall; and at the same time, the sister organization to the Gentlemen’s Speculative Society. "The beautifully drawn Victorian era is neatly spiced up with futuristic technology such as mechanical eye implants. Baker’s fans will delight in this slight, bawdy and funny confection." - Publisher's Weekly

There's an excerpt up on the publisher's page, just scroll beyond the reviews: Excerpt Nell Gwynne's .

Kage Baker (June 10, 1952 – January 31, 2010) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She was born in Hollywood, California and lived there and in Pismo Beach most of her life. Before becoming a professional writer she spent many years in theater, including teaching Elizabethan English as a second language. Her first stories were published in Asimov's Science Fiction in 1997.

About Subterranean Press
Subterranean Press specializes in scifi, horror, suspense, and dark mystery genres, and has published Peter Straub, David Morrell, Dan Simmons, Poppy Z. Brite, Robert Bloch, and others. They also publish the online magazine Subterranean.

Kage Baker: The Women of Nell Gwynne’s
120 pages
ISBN: 1596062509

What May Have Been - Gary Percesepe & Susan Tepper (Cervena Barva)

What May Have Been is a novel in letters exchanged between the artist Jackson Pollock and his fictional lover, a young woman called Dori G. Gary Percesepe and Susan Tepper have created a luminous love story that takes place sometime during the late 1940’s, in that sandy wonderland at the eastern tip of Long Island known as The Hamptons.

“In this extraordinary novel, Pollock tells his lover that things like paint and wives are very small in the scheme of things. Gary Percesepe and Susan Tepper show how the great scheme of things is, in fact, in literary art, captured in paint and wives and a Montauk surf and a silky scarf and narrow hips and a cold water flat and a used Ford. Brilliantly conceived, brilliantly executed, this is a stunning book about art and about life.” —Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

An interview on "What May Have Been" with both authors is up in fictionaut: Checking in with What May Have Been.

Susan Tepper is the author of Deer & Other Stories (Wilderness House Press, 2009) and the poetry collection Blue Edge. Over 100 of her stories, poems, interviews and essays have been published in journals worldwide. Susan hosts the reading series FIZZ at KGB Bar, and is Assistant Editor of Istanbul Literary Review (online journal based in Turkey). Where You Can Find It, her second novel, is available.

Gary Percesepe is Associate Editor at Mississippi Review (now Rick Magazine) and serves on the Board of Advisors at Fictionaut. His works have been published in Salon, Mississippi Review, Antioch Review, Westchester Review, Big Muddy, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Review of Metaphysics, New Ohio Review, Enterzone, Intertext, Luna Park, Istanbul Literary Review, Pank and other places. He has just completed his second novel, Leaving Telluride.

About Cervena Barva Press
Cervena Barva Press was inaugurated in April 2005. In a mere 5 years, Publisher Gloria Mindock has released 52 chapbooks and 20 full length books. Projected for this year are 7 more books. Cervena Barva Press has published authors Gary Fincke, Lucille Lang Day, CL Bledsoe, Nancy Mitchell, Kathleen Aguero, Linda Nemec Foster, George Held, Eric Greinke and many other unique voices.

Gary Percesepe & Susan Tepper: What May Have Been
novel in letters
104 pages, 15$
ISBN: 978-0-9844732-8-1

Masala Moments - Dorothee Lang (Cautionary)

Masala Moments is a travel novel that includes ancient tales, lessons of karma, and modern myths. Based on her own journeys through Asia, Dorothee Lang takes the reader on a journey that leads from the West to the East, and offers a glimpse into the sameness we share, Indian or German or Canadian or American. For those who are longing to go, it includes an extra chapter with practical travel advice.

"India in a teacup. Its flavour in pages. Its aroma in words. That is Masala Moments, the thoughts of an intrepid traveller through the maze of crowds, chaos and centrifugalness that is India." - Smitha Murthy

Dorothee Lang is founding editor of the literary online journal BluePrintReview. Her writing has appeared in numerous online and print magazines, among them: The Sunday Herald (India), The Mississippi Review (USA), Zeit Online (Germany), Dublin Quarterly (Ireland), Word Riot (USA) and others. She holds a degree in economics and advertising, and lives in the South of Germany.

Cautionary Tale Press
Cautionary Tale Press is the publishing venue of Cautionary Tale Magazine, edited by Eric Wrisley, and featuring short stories, and regular series ("The View from the West Hill", "The Dictionary of American Diction", "These Here United States").

Dorothee Lang: Masala Moments
a travel novel
164 pages, $15.00
amazon / luluISBN 978-1-4116-4293-5

Dance Your Way to Psychic Sex - Alice Turing

“We easily believe what we ardently desire to be true.”

Psychic Dancing is a New Age sensation, but is it a trick of the mind? A harmless self-help technique? Or a breakthrough in human consciousness, which will end all pain and disease?

Henrietta thinks people should stay the hell out of each other’s heads, keep their hands to themselves, and dance with people they know. Not with strangers. Not in public. And especially not psychically. That’s just ridiculous.

Leo makes money from reading minds, but detests all things psychic. Henrietta is falling in love with Leo’s girlfriend Belle, who loves Leo, who loves Denzel, who will only love him back if Leo says he’s gay. And all four of them are heading for a momentous Event which will turn their lives inside out.

Alice Turing is a published novelist whose first publisher ceased trading and whose second novel was published by Random House, but only in Germany. Several UK editors liked the book, but were worried that it would not be commercial enough. In the end she decided to self-publish and take some control back. She is not seeking fame, fortune or thousands of readers. She just wants to create a beautiful thing.

Alice will be printing a high quality hardback in limited print runs of 100 at a time. She is asking for payment in advance, and will not be holding copies in stock: Each print run will not be printed until enough people have ordered the book.

Alice Turing: Dance Your Way to Psychic Sex
novel
hardback, £10.00
ISBN: 978-0-9566566-0-5

relates links: novels

Flowing in the Gossamer Fold - Ben Spivey (Blue Square)

She folded her arms holding an invisible baby, combing its invisible hair, picturing it a blond; she would do that, and I would watch from around corners, holding the wallpaper and shutting my eyes in the dark, I’d only listen, but I knew what I’d have seen: her long legs and that invisible child.

Like the tagline to David Lynch's film Inland Empire, “a woman in trouble,” Flowing in the Gossamer Fold is a surreal, emotional, and trenchant novel of man in trouble.

“Part Jungian allegory, part surreal dreamscape, part Odyssean tramp, Ben Spivey’s Flowing in the Gossamer Fold is a romp through distorted time in a landscape carved by sudden oceans built from perpetual rain, where a cityscape has sidewalks littered with disappearing sages, and an edenic forest is graffitied with the father’s word. The sentences of Malcolm Blackburn’s midlife crisis are charged with the energy of a young man—the young man who penned this fucked up vision of pain and forgiveness, of what is ultimately the lesson of life: it’s beautiful, and it sucks.” –Jamie Iredell, author of Prose. Poems. a Novel., and The Book of Freaks

Ben Spivey has words at Abjective, Everyday Genius, The Corduroy Mtn., and others. An excerpt from Flowing in the Gossamer Fold was a StorySouth Million Writers Award notable story of 2009. He lives in Atlanta where he frequents the Solar Anus reading series (for whom he's read) as often as possible. He has two cats.

About Blue Square Press
Blue Square Press is located in New York and Atlanta. Forthcoming books are Theater-State by Jack Boettcher (2011) and Fuckscapes by Sean Kilpatrick (2012). An interview with Co-Editor David Peak about the formation of the press can be read in the most recent issue of Knee-Jerk Magazine.

Ben Spivey: Flowing in the Gossamer Fold
novel
164 pages, paperback, $14

related links: magic realism, novels

The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)

What happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution?
In The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi explores the effects of bioengineering and a world in which fossil fuels are no longer viable. Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko, the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.

Paolo Bacigalupi’s writing has appeared in High Country News, Salon.com, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. His short fiction been anthologized in various “Year’s Best” collections of short science fiction and fantasy, nominated for two Nebula and four Hugo Awards, and won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best sf short story of the year.

His debut novel The Windup Girl was named by Time Magazine as one of the ten best novels of 2009, won the Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards, and is a finalist for the Hugo Award. His most recent novel, Ship Breaker, has just been released from Little, Brown (more). He currently lives in Western Colorado with his wife and son, where he is working on a new novel.

About Night Shade Books
Night Shade Books is an independent publisher of quality science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Founded by Jason Williams in 1997, Night Shade Books has been publishing science fiction, fantasy and horror for over a decade and currently publishes about 30-35 titles a year, and appears regularly at genre conventions.

Paolo Bacigalupi: The Windup Girl
novel
hardcover, 376 pages, $24.95
ISBN 978-1-59780-157-7

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