Böcker utgivna av CLASH BOOKS

Notorious Los Angeles graffiti writer, SOBR, finds himself wanted for a murder he did not commit. With the help of a childhood friend, an LAPD Magistrate Inquirer, SOBR sets out to clear his graffiti name while haunted by a foretelling of his impending death. Set in a familiar version of LA located somewhere in the multiverse where the United States has become ruled by a king, the people worship the Greek and Roman gods, and society is on the brink of a proletarian revolution, ILL BEHAVIOR is an unorthodox take on LA noir and a modern extension of ancient mythology.

LOVE IS THE ONLYSHOCKING ACT LEFT We all know horror. It’s in our face every day. You can try to negotiate the nightmare but total chaos and destruction is just one button-push away. Horror legend John Skipp walks you through the light and the dark with an unflinching eye. Revealing both the best and worst of us, one laugh and scream at a time.   It ain’t pretty. But it’s beautiful. Once you go all the way.

A radically open and unrestrained text, an actual person in a concrete historical situation is a fragmented and meandering poem that captures what it feels like to be one person in a vast, overwhelming, crisis-ridden world. Generative rather than directive, the poem magnifies the small, overlooked moments in life; explores flickering thoughts, impressions, impulses; and wallows joyfully in unending confusion.

A book about suicide goddesses and waterfalls.Legend has it that the first waterfall was created when an angry sea god threw his trident into a cliff with such force that the cliff split open, spewing water like a volcanic eruption. Through the eyes of Nereid, daughter of this angry sea god, we witness the evolution of this primal waterfall into a powerful symbol of beauty, danger, and sacrifice. Through Nereid, we witness the stories of women and girls who commit suicide by waterfall, beginning with Nereid herself, and the waterfall otherworld into which they awaken. Unfolding in spiral rather than linear fashion, this bible of shifting realities and portals between life and death shines light and dark into a world never before imagined. An afterlife which is neither heaven or hell, it is as uncertain as it is beautiful. Intertwined with the tales of Nereid and others in her world is the commonality of the Waterfall, whose elemental/diselemental voice adds its own layers to Nereid''s bible. When the Waterfall speaks, we taste the purity of the first waterfall, we catch the scent of primal element, we are enchanted by the face of magnificent beauty, and we feel the very heartbeat of water as we drown in the roar of the falls. From Nereid''s lifetime of water, through the hidden pools and passages of her watery world, Waterfall Girls is but a small sampling of legends inspired by waterfalls, woven into the heartbreak of suicide. PRAISE FOR WATERFALL GIRLS  "In Kimberly White''s Waterfall Girls, you feel the mist of the rushing water against your skin. The writing is rich and deeply hypnotic, beckoning the reader to keep reading, and to fall. This is an absolutely beautiful and tragic book."  -Cynthia Pelayo, author of Into the Forest and All the Way Through "Waterfall Girls by Kimberly White is a s├⌐ance for the dead, a meditation on grief, pain, and the murky waters that flow in between. Thought-provoking and written with a gorgeous sadness, readers will be mesmerized by this book-turned-scrying glass, unable to look away and impossible to put down." -Stephanie M. Wytovich, author of Mourning Jewelry"Kimberly White''s Waterfall Girls oozes with lyrical beauty & wonder. At once experimental and reminiscent of ancient tragedies, I found myself captivated by every presence, every witness, every chorus of language. If you''re looking for writing that will assist you in escaping wholly into a world of lore and originality, writing that will "force-[fill] your lungs and [wash] your consciousness through the veil", look no further than this stunning book." - Kailey Tedesco, author of FOREVERHAUS, Lizzie, Speak, and She Used to be on a Milk CartonA portrait of the sublime, of an inevitable force at the convergence of beauty and death. The paradoxical overcoming of an irresistible oppressive force by succumbing to it. Grief, suicide, power, and freedom. -Charlene Elsby, author of HexisA grotesque and lyrical trip into ecofeminism and collective story. Waterfall Girls conjure a neogothic precipice, the natural moments when death, mythos, and beauty dive into making the sublime. -Monique Quintana, author of Cenote City

Hello.  I am Homeless.  Soon your head will be my home. No...Your head is already my home. My thoughts are inside of you as you read this. Therefore, I am inside of you now. Living inside you. Walking around in my boxer briefs. Scratching my balls. Rearranging the mental furniture inside your head. Opening the space up in case I feel like entertaining. I plan on entertaining. Thank you for letting me live inside your head. Thank you for giving me a warm place to stay. At least for now.I am Homeless. Hello. Hello...

These poems were written in 2013, 2014, and 2015. They attempt to apply the logic of an illiterate person writing the statement "I can''t read" to poetry. They all failed. Enjoy. "Everything in this book is anatomically correct. It really makes your synapses fire. I especially related to ''russet'' as I am also not a potato. Not quite sure what he has against punctuation though." - Margaret Krackeler, MD"Have you ever wished to inject pure emotion into your body? A syringe containing the pure essence of life itself, wriggling with passion and love and pain? Have you desperately spent years seeking out such a thing? Well it does not exist. But this book is pretty good."-DougDoug, beloved YouTuber

A raw, visceral striptease of the heart, The Smallest of Bones by Holly Lyb Walrath is chilling as it is beautiful.

An Exhalation of Dead Things explores the intersections of mental illness, poverty, queerness, sexual assault, and resilience.

Not unlike his literary forebearers Donald Barthelme and Robert Coover, Damian Dressick brings us a crackling series of dispatches fresh from the postmodernist front. This daring gathering of brief, innovative stories tantalizes the intellect nearly as much as it illuminates the human heart. Drawing from his quiver of flash fictions, prose poems, lists, pie charts and micros, Dressick''s narratives are fully engaged with the wild disorder that everyday feels more and more like the sine qua non of our fractured now. Meet meth-addicted grizzly bears, a coal mining Jesus, grieving alcoholic parents, and murderous villagers whose only speech is culinary in this fleeting edge tour de force....Fables of the Deconstruction.PRAISE FOR FABLES OF THE DECONSTRUCTION"This collection of sixty-three stories is as rich and varied as a patisserie, as nasty and brutish as a Japanese architect in the mid-sixties, as delicate as the swift-moving scents in the coastal air at midnight. To call these stories short-shorts or "flash fiction" is to do them a disservice. While some are indeed short, and many are pleasantly flashy, every one hits home with the weight of boxer''s punch, every one is more beautiful, and more fun, than the last. This is a first rate performance by an artist to be reckoned with."  -Frederick Barthelme, author of There Must Be Some Mistake  "Like Donald Barthelme, Damian Dressick finds himself on the leading edge of the junk phenomena. The thingness of things falls apart delightfully right before our dilated eyes. Fun for the whole goddamn nuclear family."-Michael Martone, author of Michael Martone  "Fables of the Deconstruction is funny, sad, dreamy, and brutal. The stories here veer off in strange directions, happily disobedient to the conventions that plague so much of our current grindingly cautious literature. This is a credit to Damian Dressick, an excitable and exciting new writer who will probably be a big deal someday and, in fact, if you check your heart, already is." -Steve Almond, author of Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life "Damian Dressick writes with gusto and sly humor, and Fables of the Deconstruction introduces a bold and robust new voice of impressive range. A heady debut."-Gary Lutz, author of The Complete Gary Lutz "Damian Dressick''s Fables of the Deconstruction expertly explores the question: why not? Wandering through Dressick''s terrain, you can leave your own (real) life behind for a while. Sit back and enjoy. This little book will make you both happy and sad-with footnotes."-Sherrie Flick author of I Call This Flirting and Reconsidering Happiness

Between the Midwest & the delta. On the bank of the shore & the ice of the lake. Between love & nostalgia. Beside the toad & the squirrel. Between loss. Next to a stranger. In the scent of grapefruit vodka seltzer. Between the sunrise & high noon. In the shape of the bed in the shape of my former body. By the edge. All the places I wish I died.

Leaving the city was not Vernon's choice. Neither was moving into an old house in a bumpkin-run town in the Cascadian forest, where the shadows move and the stairs make a sound like dying crows. It's a relief when Vernon discovers a space inside the walls of his bedroom, a space inhabited by a mysterious girl named Violet. Violet's nothing like Vernon. She's pretty and cool, and she has a closetful of cute clothes. But as Vernon and Violet become friends, Vernon starts to realize that she's much more like him than he thought, leading him down a fairy-tale path of self-discovery. Out of the closet and into the world.

Between these covers you will find haunting unconventional narratives that push the boundaries of genre & form in poetry, fiction & essays. This is our first transmission. Welcome to Black Telephone Magazine.CONTRIBUTORSShane AllisonAzia ArcherTara CalabyL ChanMichael ChangClay McLeod ChapmanKristin CleavelandJacques DebrotBryan EdenfieldCharlene ElsbyMaria GreerLisa GrgasHannah NealElliot HarperVictoria HunterJessie JaneshekCynthia PelayoDimitri ReyesRobin SinclairApril SopkinEmelia SteenekampCrystal StoneKailey TedescoStephanie ValenteStephanie Wytovich

The Paradox Twins is a copyright infringing biographical collage that exists on the Internet, pieced together by an unknown auteur. Named for the famous thought experiment, it concerns estranged twin brothers who reunite at their father's funeral to discover they no longer look alike. Haunted by the past (and possibly the future), they move into their father's house to settle his affairs, only to reignite old rivalries and uncover long-hidden secrets, most of which involve the young woman who lives next door. An epistolary work comprised of excerpts from various memoirs, novels, screenplay adaptations, and documents of public record, The Paradox Twins is an experimental, sci-fi ghost story about the scariest, most unknowable quantity there is-family.

Will today be the day the world burns down? Will a wildfire sweep across the landscape and consume everyone? Will the torrential rains fall and wash them all away? A stark and stunning debut, I'm From Nowhere follows Claire as she mourns the sudden death of her husband and comes to terms with the fact of being a woman without a child, a job, or a man. She confronts a dying planet and an emerging sense of self, while men arrive with offers to save her from herself. Lerman refuses easy answers and searches the treacherous depths of desire, pain, and entanglement, asking readers if it is possible for a woman to reclaim her life and set its terms without succumbing to suicide or submission. Told in subtly experimental, sparse prose, and set in the American Southwest of today or ten years from now, I'm From Nowhere is a "breathtakingly honest, subversive" examination of the stories we are told-and the stories we tell ourselves-about identity, permanence, and love.Praise for I'm From Nowhere: Named one of the best books of 2019 by Entropy and LitReactor. "A heartbreaker of a debut."- Buzzfeed Books "A slim book that packs a powerful philosophical punch."- Kat Solomon, Heavy Feather Review "Lerman's prose is precise and gutting-the experience is like grazing death on the lips. You know you're close to something dark and special, and you want to know it more deeply, so you keep reading on, fervently."- Elle Nash, author of Animals Eat Each Other "Contrary to what the title of her debut suggests, Lindsay Lerman comes from experience, every line dripping with dark humor and honesty. We may not live on this earth long enough to fully understand reality's complexities and contradictions but books like I'm From Nowhere act like anchors, breadcrumbs to carry us through the despair."- Michael J. Seidlinger, author of Dreams of Being "Introspective and intense, this novel brings readers on a journey of self-discovery both smart and emotionally moving."- Chuck Augello, Cease, Cows "Lerman has crafted an impressively insightful and multi-layered look at female identity with a genuine depth that's hard to find."- Biblioculus "Lovely, hushed prose reminiscent of Duras."- Monique Quintana, author of Cenote City "To say a lot without saying much, to pack hints that can explode in a reader's mind in a tiny space, like Lerman has done, is no small feat."- Moazzam Sheikh, Nonconformist Magazine

In this collage of critical reflections, written in the tradition of the short essay running through Francis Bacon and Roland Barthes, the novelist, philosopher, and former New York Times Opinion staffer Mark de Silva looks into matters of both common curiosity and special concern in America today: technological evolution, virtuality, terrorism, the future of the self, the individual's place in a globalized society, the species' place in the natural world, the state of the arts, and the animadversions of the sciences. Above all, Points of Attack is a handbook of the ways of the good life in bad times, and an inoculation against presumption in an era when the axioms of liberal democratic life have come undone and the end of history once again appears a long way off.

On the outskirts of London, 1855, mortician and funeral director Helena Morrigan struggles with her limited finances and the heavy burdens of her past. Desperate to secure herself, she takes up residence in an aged house closer to the graveyard, closer to the lost souls that sense her torment and are determined to take her place in the mortal world. As she tries to tame and free the ghostly figures around her, she becomes acquainted with the owners of the home, the recently orphaned siblings, Eric, Audrey and Christian Tarter. Yet, the souls she wants to save are on edge as a horrific serial killer runs rampant, giving Helena a boost in business and suspicion. Against her best efforts, Helena is suddenly thrown into a bloody mystery where new and old friendships are tested, innocents are maimed and a horrific family secret that threatens her chance at a peaceful existence and her existence itself.

Murder plots. Drugs. A cult forming in the shadows of Hollywood. At the center of it all, Charles Manson and his devoted followers. No Name Atkins gives voice to the Manson family's most notorious member, chronicling in verse her descent into violence.How does someone like Susan Atkins become a killer? These poems unfurl the bizarre, hallucinatory, and terrifying moments that led to one of America's most reviled stories of devotion and death.

Silverfish is a syncretic tour-de-force that recombines elements of Afrofuturism, sci-fi, and wartime fiction with linguistic and literary theories to issue a dire warning about what happens when we choose to pretend our past never happened, thereby ensuring that we stumble blindly into a future we've already lived. Part prophecy, part literary collage, and part social justice remix, it's a wholly immersive, intertextual sojourn. More than just a damning indictment of our contemporary moment, Silverfish is fiction written both for and after the end of history.

Up to 3 people have already read these poems on Tumblr.Now it''s your turn..."Jayaprakash Satyamurthy''s poetry collection "Broken Cup" is a patchwork of vignettes inspired by urban legends, old myths and autobiographical fragments. Seeped in melancholy and darkness, the collection nonetheless shines with a beautiful and strange glow, surprisingly warmer than one could expect. A perfect object of its own, mysterious and attaching. Very highly recommended."Seb Doubinsky, author of The Invisible"Tight, small lyrical pieces that trudge between the darkness and the light. This collection is a rhythmic locomotive traveling through vivid melancholy and stationing in bits of somber retrospection and introspection. Jayaprakash Satyamurthy finds a way to locate the right dose of respite/relief exactly where and when it''s needed. Travel and time consume this book but not in an untimely manner nor in any way that feels out of place. Broken Cup is spaced and paced perfectly in accordance with an adherence to its many moods. This book is a spell cast in many stanzas of sympathetic magic."
Kenning JP Garcia, author of OF (What Place Meant)"If you are looking for a poetry collection to raising your suffering spirits, Satyamurthy''s Broken Cup, with words from poems that are "delicious, sustaining, transforming" as we witness when reading verses like "Naming the Word." Jayaprakash''s verses are so reinvigorating using Billie Holliday with "Mingus" to resonate music on every page in verses like "Before." Poems like "Alive" will make you feel like you are inhaling the senses of Jayaprakash''s "a memory seeded of lilac, maybe/ cinnamon" these mouthwatering poems soothe our senses as Broken Cup becomes a mirror of a life we no longer recognize, Jayaprakash and his memorable mystical lines becomes "[...] an illumination/ to eyes lit from within." In the end, my favorite poem has to be "Jayaprakash" which takes the name of the poet himself, because this one, evokes everything I adore about this poetry collection which beaming through the darkness of our modern times emanating reenergizing poems that are "Luminious glory." We need more poets like Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, he is the antidote to this world of shadows, his words are the poems that glow hope radiating from every page."
Adrian Ernesto Cepeda, author of La Belle Ajar

What is buried can return. Those who are dead can still speak. A witch can be burned, but not silenced. When the abattoir is opened, the dead will rise. Burials is the narrative of those whose voices have been taken away-murdered women, witches, ghosts. It''s about speaking one''s truth, and using magic to heal or to banish, even from beyond the grave."Jessica Drake-Thomas has a wealth of knowledge of things you''ve only tasted in shadows. In this collection of gothic poetry, she opens her palms to let some of these dark whispers free into the night -the freedom of a shared language etching itself into the history of the world, to become legend. As things do when they die and are buried. If you''ve ever heard the begging of the blood moon, pulling you from slumber to tiptoe through the darkness...if you''ve ever gnashed your teeth at a lover''s neck...you will find wisps of your own darkness among these pages. With dark, romantic language, vengeful love spells, and the ghosts of old Salem wandering lost among the brittle paper, Burials is a haunting your soul won''t soon forget."- Mela Blust, author of Skeleton Parade"Burials is at times fierce and at others keening, but most often it is both at once. Jessica Drake-Thomas writes macabre love poems with the dazzlingly morbid whimsy of a young Morticia Addams driving her "hearse in seafoam green," seeking her Gomez in this sad, lonely world. "I have learned that / love is cheap here, / and something is important / about the idea of // a nice girl," she tells us. But for the witch-hearted girl, Drake-Thomas gives us love spells that offer a kind of healing for the haunted, for the many ways love so often fails us."- Lindsay Lusby, author of Catechesis, A Postpastoral "This collection is a mass grave teeming with lovers as executioners, and the bodies left like corpses in their wake."- Kristin Garth, author of Flutter: Southern Gothic Fever Dream and Candy Cigarette: Womanchild Noir

Constructed of words, artwork, photos and personal artifacts, Marginalia is an intimate and unconventional account of what it means to be a hybrid. It seamlessly interweaves experience with elements of sociology and psychology, exploring how one cultivates an identity containing multitudes - queer, trans, mixed-race, other."Morrow''s work speaks to anyone who has felt themselves to be other - which in today''s world, in one form or another, is nearly everyone. A common thread of alienation runs through her various platforms, including her first book, "Marginalia."" wickedlocal.com  "Marginalia may be one person''s search for identity and understanding, but it is applicable to so many people who struggle with figuring out their identity, whether it is as an LGBTQ+ individual, a person of color, or someone who is both. Morrow''s succinct style and creative eye for book design makes it highly recommended for readers of modern queer memoirs." Lambda Literary  "There is a push and pull as Juno searches for the identity that fits both in accordance with herself and the way society perceives her. In the end, she embraces the idea that "we shouldn''t be afraid to claim multitudes." Life is often complex and messy, so why should we be any different? Marginalia is a call to be unafraid of your journey to self-discovery and a powerful first-person account of someone who finds themselves in the margins of our society. These are the stories we need right now, and I hope to see many more, especially from Juno Morrow." The Big Smoke∩╗┐∩╗┐Juno Morrow is a multidisciplinary artist, independent game designer, photographer and educator living in Brooklyn, New York. She is an Assistant Professor of Game Design and Unit Coordinator at the City University of New York''s Eugenio Mar├¡a de Hostos Community College. At Hostos, she has been developing the game design program, the first public degree program of its kind in New York City, since 2015. Prior to that, Morrow earned an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design. As an internationally exhibiting artist and designer, Morrow has presented games and spoken at sites such as SXSW, GDC, MAGFest and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. With over 10 years of experience as an award-winning photographer, she''s had work featured in The Guardian, Dwell magazine and released 3 monographs of urban photography. Her unusual games, often infused with dark humor, feature distinctive aesthetics and novel premises. Examples include Oral Perspectives, a VR game taking place inside the player''s mouth, and Mastering Tedium, an existentialist laundry simulator played inside a text terminal. Recent work includes Pruuds vs. Sloots, a "dumb versus game," and Blood Broker, a consent-based human sacrifice management simulator. junomorrow.com

Sylvia Plath once said, “I want someone to mouth me.” La Belle Ajar is a collection of poems inspired by Plath’s 1963 novel that reimagines the journey of Esther Greenwood within the empowering odyssey of these 20 scintillating cento poems that honor the voice and legacy of America’s most influential modern poet and author: Sylvia Plath.La Belle Ajar was selected in Luna Luna Magazine's ‘Top 5 Books to watch out for in 2020’"La Belle Ajar is a beautiful collaboration between the dead and the living, the muse and the inspired, and a reminder to continue the conversations with the poets who came before us; Cepeda finds the magic of Plath and delicately constructs her enchantment, an enlivening book of poems you will return to reread again and again." —Kelli Russell Agodon, Editor at Two Sylvias Press and author of Dialogues with Rising Tides (Copper Canyon Press)"Adrian Ernesto Cepeda’s new book La Belle Ajar opens up Sylvia Plath’s words and gives them new life, Lovers of Plath and those looking for a book to captivate in the thick honey of self-discovery don’t want to miss this release from CLASH Books." —Tianna G. Hansen, Editor-in-Chief of Rhythm & Bones Press"Plath’s eternal essence — her poetry of confessions, rife with details and darknesses — is woven throughout this La Belle Ajar. The drama, the particulars, and an unlimited glimmering of language oozes in each and every poem. The ghost of Plath seems to be conjured, to find reanimation, in Cepeda’s many inspirations. And while Plath is the muse here, of course, the work stands entirely on its own — unexpected, surreal, and alight. A true tribute, emerging into its own new shape." —Lisa Marie Basile, poet, editor of Luna Luna, and author of The Magical Writing Grimoire"Adrian Ernesto Cepeda’s sensual, electric internal rhythms provoke external, communal ones too. And La Belle Ajar is not just an exercise in homage but a choreographed remix, a translation, a correspondence between words and worlds. Cepeda leaves the door open, in pursuit of readerly access and inspiration. This work vibrates." —Chris Campanioni, Editor PANK Magazine and author of The Internet is for Real"Adrian Ernesto Cepeda’s LA BELLE AJAR is delightful, thought-provoking, and compelling. The lines are both conversational and fierce, lulling us into submission, and then chilling us to the bone at the same time: “she burst /out, I never said, I’m not/godlike.” Cepeda takes Plath, and digs in deep to her life, her struggles, her being, while inhabiting the world as it is now, while conveying the very strangeness of being at all: “I looked empty and subdued,/among the Gillett blades/paper scraps it occurred to/me, I must be idly dead.” This book is meant to be read and loved, with all its complexities, much like a human.”" —Joanna C. Valente, author of Marys of the Sea, #Survivor, and editor of A Shadow Map: Writing by Survivors of Sexual Assault 

The Elvis Machine is a book of poems inspired by living, loving, and hate-fucking in Memphis, Tennessee—a city still kissed with the 1950s. Forged in a dumpster fire of toxic Elvises, these poems are pornographic bad romances, psychedelic love dirges, and threnodies for sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll. They’ll make you laugh off the pain as much as you'll cry, cringe, and feel exposed in this 'No Boys Allowed' clubhouse of feminine rage and healing."Kim Vodicka is the sexier Stephen Wright of poetry, with incisive one-liners so sharp and mind-blowingly funny that you forget how hard you were laughing before you started crying, then started laughing again."–John Skipp, author of The Art of Horrible People“Vodicka’s poetry is a seasick-sweet treasure trove of marvel. Her verses leave you yearning for the kind of love and life you know is bad for you, but you can’t stop reading.”–Elle Nash, author of Animals Eat Each Other“Here is the uncanny valley girl, the B-movie queen, Kim Vodicka, delivering a prize fight of the sexes in poetry where every line is a punch line. This book is the seminal display of misogyny’s trauma, an unflinching exposé of toxic relationships, and an exquisitely honest portrayal of a woman’s most intimate bits. Vodicka peels us to the core. This is what raw feels like.”–Jeanette Powers, author of Dandylion Riot and founder of Stubborn Mule Press“The Elvis Machine is foaming at the mouth all over your pillow. Vodicka takes our balls and wears them like a teething necklace. Her wordplay is as bloody as it is brilliant. This is a love story dissected and displayed of its most vulnerable parts. Once again, she has managed to rock all my sensibilities.”–Kelsey Marie Harris, author of The Jolly Queef 

"The only thing lonelier than being alone is loving the wrong person. Bell’s collection taps into that space, that lack of space, the power of love to spay. When it turns to hate, we might wonder whether or not it was really love in the first place, and we might die wondering. But Regret or Something More Animal gives us hope for the wounded dove, all swan songs aside, and the opportunity to reclaim our hearts and minds. “I am reminded that women writers can eat you alive,” says Bell, and I, too, am reminded."—Kim Vodicka, author of The Elvis Machine"Heather Bell’s Regret or Something More Animal devastates the reader with a field guide to the dissolution of marriage and new life in its shadow. Her poems trace the boundaries of maternal guilt, sexual violence, and love, tenderly exposing their bones in fresh metaphors and bright images. Airy and organic, Bell’s phrases invite the reader into a world haunted by birds, frogs and willows, and punctuated with cigarettes, suicide and real trauma. All the while, Bell sings us through the pain of failure and fear in romance and wings us toward survival’s questions about what it takes to love the shattered self before it is mended."—Daphne Maysonet, Co-Founder of The Corner Club Press"The contemplation of Regret or Something More Animal creates a liminal space, where the speaker becomes more aware of the horror the heart endures, specifically theirs, in an attempt to re-define what love is & re-mend that which has been contorted by years of abuse. The very first line opens the entire premise of this book with, “What’s interesting about the / human heart is the horror of it,” examining the wearing lacerations the heart endures, while preparing us [readers] for a metaphorical surgery that must remove the heart & disembowel it, in order to place the pieces back together. But, no matter what, it will never be the same as it was. Love will never be the same (each time). In Regret or Something More Animal Heather journeys through the heart’s many ventricles, analyzing the architecture of the effects of abusive love & blissful love, & everything in between. The speaker says, “A wound can’t close itself…” & so they attempt to find some suture through experience & re-definition, with the journey itself becoming the true destination."—Courtney Leigh, author of the unrequited <3<3 of red riding hood & her lycan lover (Dancing Girl Press, 2016)“Bell’s poems not only connect they leave teeth marks and you will savor each line that she tattoos around your skin.”—Adrian Ernesto Cepeda,  author, of La Belle Ajar“Heather Bell takes out the wedding dress and feeds it to the wood chipper, with grace and without any traces of mascara running down her face. Bell asks the question we all weep over: how will I ever love again? and then takes us from the breakdown to the breakthrough. “I step back quickly as you do when a caged thing moves,” Bell writes; be ready to stay quick on your feet.”—Jeanette Powers, author of Dandylion Riot

A parasite from Proto Space, summoning memory eaters, funeral machines eating teenagers, space rides to Pleroma, and a frog baby that transcends time and space. These are just some of the stories that will warp your sense of reality until you''re living in Brett Petersen''s mind and you won''t want to leave. PRAISE FOR PARASITE FROM PROTO SPACE "A Confusion Wave beaming in from the farthest-out Far Out, scrambling up to unscramble our partially-scrambled minds." -Ben Loory, author of Tales of Falling and Flying "If George Bataille and Ray Bradbury had a baby, and that baby was GG Allin, and that GG Allin baby read Ursula Le Guin and Charles Bukowski in equal measure, and that now grown-up baby watched Beavis and Butt-Head reruns on summer afternoons, then we might approach describing the phantasmagoric mise-en-sc├¿nes Brett Peterson has put together here in this collection. The contact high one gets is contagious." -Daniel Nester, author of How to Be Inappropriate  "Petersen''s stories are an acid-drenched, kaleidoscopic blend of genres reminiscent of Dick and Burroughs, but with their own unique breed of genius. The experience of reading The Parasite from Proto-Space and Other Stories is not unlike ingesting a powerful psychedelic-one that will leave a lasting impression of your psyche." -Brendan Vidito, author of Nightmares in Ecstasy "Reading The Parasite from Proto Space feels like you''re on a footchase pursued by Mad Mr. Petersen himself. He''s got a messenger bag full of creatures he spliced together in his basement workshop, and every time you think you''re getting ahead, you turn around to check if he''s still behind you and get smacked in the face by a 50-pound alien memory worm that needs you to validate its childhood trauma." -Charlene Elsby, author of Hexis 

A Darkly Humorous Collection of Cartoons Rejected by The New YorkerIt’s become a thing on my bucket list to have one of my cartoons in The New Yorker before I die.Now I have to admit that so far death is winning, but I’m going to keep trying. 

Consisting of fifty barn poems, 50 Barn Poems is an evocative yet accessible sketch of that old barn that haunts the back of your brain. Vague memories of road trips, skateboarding, the ocean, and ping-pong are all reconstructed in the shape of a barn and set on fire. We're not even sure they're poems. Maybe they are just: BARN. Go ahead, take off your shoes and drive off a cliff. The barn awaits.