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Category: MARCUS SLEASE FICTION
Nomadic surrealist fiction by Marcus Slease.
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Excerpt from my unpublished novella, The Dreamlife of Honey, just published over here at The Woodward Review at Wayne State University in Detroit. Happy Days!
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After devouring everything Édouard Levé, Thomas Bernhard, Clarice Lispector, Lydia Davis, Annie Ernaux, Rachel Cusk, David Markson, & Jon Fosse, I found a way to move forward with my second autoficiton novel, The Dreamlife of Honey. There are still some touches, forever touches, or maybe tweaks, to move the manuscript into book form, plus, of…
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Jolly good journeys with trio of surreal-absurd readings last night with launch of my book Puppy. Also Rhubarb by Tom Jenks and Vik Shirley’s Grotesquerie for the Apocalypse. Thank you to Michelle Moloney King and Beir Bua Press for organising.
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I have a new prose poem of Hungry Ghosts over at Ghost City Press. There is also a white monkey (Biała Małpa). It’s from my manuscript in progress entitled Hermit Kingdom. A nice summer July issue. You can read it over here: https://ghostcitypress.com/jul21poetry/2021/7/18/marcus-slease Here is a little reading of it.
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A recording of my reading and discussion from The Green Monk and Hermit Kingdom (my manuscript in progress), along with the fabulous poet Colin Herd, is now up with Home Stage on Youtube. Some animal prose poems, fables, magic, surrealism, absurdism, and optimism.
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On Wednesday June 9th, I am reading with the fabulous Colin Herd for Home Stage in the U.K. The event will be streamed live via Youtube. I’ll be reading animal prose poems from my book The Green Monk, as well as some new work from my manuscript in progress: Hermit Kingdom. Surrealistic, minimalist, and sometimes…
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I am super happy to have an excerpt from my novel Never Mind the Beasts in Mercurius Magazine (out of Barcelona and the world). The excerpt is from the immigration to Vegas section. Circus Circus. Meat loaf and bishops. Irish ninjas. Lotsa hunks. You can read it over here.
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Before moving to Spain, I visited my birth country. Portadown, N. Ireland and then Belfast, to see my biological father. He was a gardener. His wife died. I got an old worker´s hat from her father. World War I. We walked the Shankill. Here is the journey. From my novel Never Mind the Beasts. Available…
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In 2016, when I lived in London, I went on many journeys. I was trying to align my mind with my body. Lunch room tongue assessments. Spine alignment. A doom drone concert. A magic rabbit hat. In the basement where I worked, I got the phone call. I was going to become a father. Then…
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“It was The Great Purge of the 90s. “Religion faced the greatest threat from three groups: feminists, homosexuals and intellectuals,” said Boyd K. Packer, a General Authority, in a speech in 1993. In the fall of 1993, six Mormon writers were rebuked for their feminist intellectual leanings. They became the “September Six.” We felt the…
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Terrific review of Never Mind the Beasts in Idler magazine by Robert Greer. “Stylewise it would appeal to fans of both abrupt American Lydia Davis and Soviet absurdist Daniil Kharms . . . A Portrait of the Artist for the Tyskie and Kimchi generation.”
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Have you squirreled away yr nuts? Are you a hidden oogler? Winter is upon us. Here is a short reading.
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When I lived in London, I visited Poland twice a year with my partner. The Polish mountains in the summer. The Manhattan Estate in Katowice for Christmas. For a few years, during spring break, and also summer, we also visited Portugal, Italy, and Spain. We have tried many things for healthier living, mentally and physically.…
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When I lived in the Docklands of East London, next to Commercial Road, it was a battle to keep my gums pink. Here is a short reading, from my novel Never Mind the Beasts, about the many routines from my time in the Docklands. Close to Poplar, in the Lansbury Public Housing Estate. It is…
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When I lived in East London, we walked along the canal near Christmas and ate the Christmas cake. I thought about my family, especially my brother Aaron, gone now 8 years. We were very close growing up as new immigrants in America, and also in Milton Keynes, where he was born.
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Back in the day, when the days were longer, and then shorter, much like today but faster, I began to write poetry under cover of full moon during my Mormon mission. Bloating/unbloating. This was the beginning of my behind-the-scenes spirituality. Now part of my behind-the-scenes novel-in-progress, The Dreamlife of Honey. The second in my nomadic…
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After Turkey, and a stint of dog walking in Italy, he moves to London, falls in love, lands a gig as an adjunct professor at an American style university in London. He feels a sense of community with the avant garde poetry community iand starts to write a novel from his experiences living in various…
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I’ve baked the memories, stirred the sugar bombs, opened the hatch, de-wormed the cat, the best is yet to come.
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They used to call me chisel face. Happy to have an excerpt from my novel in progress, The Dreamlife of Honey, in new body issue of Lighthouse magazine from Norwich.
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Doraji doraji doraji! I walk over the pass where balloon flowers bloom. Hey-ya, hey! An ya hey say yo! I walk over the pass where balloon flowers bloom. Hey-ha hey! An ya hey say yo! Reminds me of mother and twinkling boys. Hey-ya, hey! An ya hey say yo!
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I have finished the second novel of my nomadic surrealist trilogy. The first, Never Mind the Beasts, has the wide lens. The next two the zoom. First person genderless. I am writing a cosmos.
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Don Whiskers and Pineapple live in the Docklands, East London, in a council flat. They visit the river for ancient histories. They take the Mega Bus in the Mega City and visit Amsterdam. They stay on a boat called The Gandalf. Back home, they stand on the balcony from the cheap seats and look at…
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While working in Trieste as a dog walker, and trying to become a writer, he imagines James Joyce, middle class or higher, like almost all artists and writers. He does not have the advantages but also the advantages, coming from somewhere else. You can only do so much, but how much.
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He took a long time to do it, or at least a long time for some. After the mission, at age 20, he went back to N.Ireland and England, tried on a condom at his cousin’s house, just for the fitting. He wanted to become bohemian and watched Pulp Fiction at the theatre. He met…
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After returning home early from the mission, I had my first sexual experience, it was called docking. I took off my secret garments and attended the trial, in a big wooden room. The devils were coming. I couldn’t return to my job at the mercantile. Every job interview in the small town asked me if…
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My debut novel, Never Mind the Beasts, has many movements, from many lifetimes and many countries. When I lived in North America, I lived in many states, both physically and mentally, and you might also say spiritually. I went on a holy mission (from 1993-1994) to Boise, Idaho. Age 19-20. But I returned home early,…
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There is so much of it, and from an early age it was all about the work, working hard to climb a ladder, and we are all climbing ladders, of some sort, hoping for something better, and too much moaning doesn’t help, but it’s there, sometimes hard to put your finger on it, it’s there,…
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Art can help us see and hear and smell and taste and touch with a more attentive mind. And there is so much to explore. Art can help us have a beginner’s mind. Empty and open. Art is my medicine and also my spiritual practice. Here is an interview, upon the release of my first…
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Super grateful. My debut novel, Never Mind the Beasts, 10 years in the making from many countries, is now available for ordering. You can choose Blackwell’s or Amazon. Waterstone’s, Foyles, and Barnes and Noble will be added as an ordering option soon. Here is a description: Never Mind The Beasts is Marcus Slease’s second book for…
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Here is an another excerpt from Part One of my novel, Never Mind the Beasts, coming this month (May 2020) from Dostoyevsky Wannabe. Religious conversion, E.T., a used Chopper, the dole, government housing, wow comics, the toothbrush lesson, Jesus Christ Superstar, rugby and fire hoops, hammer and piggy, a millennium falcon.
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Field Day, the magic of bathtubs & Milton Keynes roundabouts, a pet gerbil, Copperfield Middle School lunch room, a popped football, peer pressures, Bletchley swimming pool, hot chocolate from a machine, brussel sprouts, a man in the bushes, play dough and Worzel Gummidge, a rock through an old woman’s window.
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The days are moving quickly, and also slowly, it is hard to remember where we started. I am watching the news less and less, and trying to stay healthy in mind as well as body. We are now allowed out, in specific time slots, and it is good to walk out there and exercise the…
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Your surname is supposed to tell you all about your lineage and heritage and prestige. Authors, who want to be prestige, have prestige surnames, some even use initials for their first names. I am not prestige.
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Feeling joy, excitement, gratefulness. Proofs finalized. My novel, Never Mind the Beasts, over 10 years in the making, coming out this month from Dostoyevsky Wannabe. The cover. A 1 dollar high roller Vegas chip, sent to the press by Jennifer Hodgson (She is the person responsible for re-publishing Ann Quin’s works with And Other Stories…
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The first part of Never Mind the Beasts begins in Portadown, N. Ireland, in 1974, during the height of The Troubles, and then moves to Milton Keynes, England in 1980s. Here is a sample reading, from part one of the novel, in N. Ireland and Milton Keynes, England (a homeless shelter, a rocket ship in…
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Two more days till the Stay at Home Fringe Lit Fest, out of Glasgow, and everywhere, and I am thinking about what to read at the Dostoyevsky Wannabe event, from my soon-to-be-released novel, Never Mind the Beasts, 10 plus years in the making. How it has mutated over the years, over and over. First it…
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A week from today, on May 8th, 6PM UK time, I am reading from my first novel, Never Mind the Beasts, coming this month from Dostoyevsky Wannabe. Along with some other fab writers from Dostoyevsky Wannabe: Colin Herd, Maria Rose Sledmere Ruthie Kennedy, and Rhian Williams. It’s part of this virtual fringe festival, out of…
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I am super happy to a travelogue from the third novel of my trilogy in progress, The Dreamlife of Honey, in the new issue of Bath Magg.
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In my final year of high school, I moved to a small town in Utah, it was much different than Vegas. Here is a microfiction about small town America, in the early 90s, from my novel Never Mind the Beasts, forthcoming from Dostoyevsky Wannabe in May 2020. It is called “Zion.”
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What did you do in biology? Frogs? Baby pigs? Did you colour the muscles. Identify bones? We had a special project with fruit flies. We had to make them mate. Here is a microfiction about fruit flies in high school, in the early 90s, from my novel Never Mind the Beasts, forthcoming from Dostoyevsky Wannabe in May 2020.…
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My microfictions, a daily record of the lockdown in Spain, days 10-15, just published on The Growler.
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What is lockdown like where you are? I am writing a third person autofiction of my experiences under lockdown down here in Spain. Days one through nine are published over at Bear Review / The Growler. There are two more installments in the future.
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John Prine died yesterday, and I keep listening to “Hello in There.” I’ve been thinking also of a microfiction, from my novel Never Mind the Beasts, forthcoming from Dostoyevsky Wannabe next month, entitled “Destroyer and Preserver.” “Destroyer and Preserver” was written in Madrid in 2016, near La Elipa metro stop. It was my first year in…
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When the virus came to Spain, it gathered momentum quickly. The fear. Death is hanging over us, always, but it is here even closer, disrupting our usual distractions. Fear and more fear. Did you touch it? Do I bleach it? How do we boost our immune systems when we are not allowed out for a…
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Spain is in strict lock down, stricter than Italy, no exercise outside, only outside for groceries, pharmacy. But still the numbers are spiking. Following the trend of Italy, soon the health services will be overrun. The whole world is moving into some form of confinement. Hoarding/not hoarding. It is good to keep up our spirits.…
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Nice mix of one sentence stories over at Monkeybicycle. Happy to have my microfiction, “Merry-go-round,” in the mix. It is from my novel in progress, The Dreamlife of Honey. The Dreamlife of Honey is part of my nomadic surrealist trilogy. The first novel in the trilogy, Never Mind the Beasts, is forthcoming from Dostoyevsky Wannabe in May…
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Here is microfiction, a kind of postcard, or vignette, from Rome, from my novel Never Mind the Beasts, forthcoming from Dostoyevsky Wannabe in May 2020.
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You need the good ones, and not too much of the bad ones, but sometimes in killing the bad ones, you also kill the good ones. You need enough of the good ones, to kill the bad ones. How do you kill the bad ones, without killing the good ones? Here is a microfiction from…
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It is hard to find a good hat. Back then, more than now, I was searching for a good hat. Although a good hat is always a good hat. Here is a microfiction from my novel Never Mind the Beasts, forthcoming from Dostoyevsky Wannabe in May 2020. It is called “Rabbit Hat.”
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Did you know the hunks? I was never a hunk, but I learned to love the word. Hunk. It feels chunky. I love chunky. I like my chocolate chunky, and also my peanut butter. A hunk of hair is also good. And the hunks of the universe. There are so many hunks. Here is a…
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When we immigrated to America, in the 1980s, we started off in a trailer park, in Vallejo, California. We sat on a sofa and watched the telly. There were so many adverts. We weren’t used to the adverts. There were TV Dinners, and for many weeks we watched the meat helper. It was supposed to…
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In the 1980s I lived in Coffee Hall, in Milton Keynes. Near coffee Hall, there was Bean Hill. The underpass between Beanhill and Coffee Hall was painted with a Wizard of Oz theme. Magic! I went to Copperfield Middle School, now closed since 31/3/2004, and there was a special teacher: Miss Foster. It was the…
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The crowd is dangerous, and also liberating, but mostly dangerous. A mob. When you’re younger: peer pressure. When I lived in Milton Keynes, Coffee Hall housing estate, there was a place for playing football, next to the playground. I showed up in my red Liverpool kit. Liverpool was everything, especially Ian Rush. I wanted a…
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When I moved to Madrid, in the summer of 2016, I learned Spanish expressions. One of them was “a bug in the house.” It was also my first year with the famous Spanish lottery. Lower middle class living per always, the lottery was tempting. & we played, like so many millions (or is billions) of…
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Here is a small excerpt, from my novel in Microfiction, Never Mind the Beasts, forthcoming in May 2020 from Dostoyevsky Wannabe. This one takes place in Milton Keynes, England, after the conversion, before immigrating to America. It is called “God is Watching You.”
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Long ago, in another lifetime, I lived in Milton Keynes, England, on a government housing estate called Coffee Hall. Long ago, in another lifetime, I was knocked down by a car, in Portadown, with a poke in my hand. Long ago, in another lifetime, with my childhood friend Tina Adams, playing a game of stepping…
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Happy to have some of my nomadic surrealist prose poems in issue 23 of Blackbox Manifold. These prose poems/microfictions are from The Dreamlife of Honey, the third book of my nomadic surrealist trilogy, still in progress. Thank you to the editors, Alex Houen and Adam Piette! Issue 23 of Blackbox Manifold features work by Josh…
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I’m honored to announce that my story “Jitters” has been nominated for inclusion in Best Microfiction, 2020. The Best Microfiction anthology series considers stories of only 400 words or fewer. Co-edited by award-winning microfiction writer/editor Meg Pokrass, and Flannery O’Connor Prize-winning author Gary Fincke, the anthology will have Michael Martone serve as final judge. Best…
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I don’t like to sell. Perhaps you are a seller. I am not a good seller. Long ago, at Matrixx Marketing I was a seller, but I am no longer a seller. I am not motivated by numbers and targets. Others, I am sure, are motivated by numbers. Looking back, selling accidental death insurance, all…
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The Little Shop of Horrors, a classic from America, about an accidental mass murderer, feeding humans to a plant, from my novel in progress, The Dreamlife of Honey.
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My prose poem, “Flora and Fauna,” part of my nomadic surrealist novel The Dreamlife of Honey, the third in a trilogy, still in progress, just published at OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters. Based on experiences teaching English in Bielsko Biala, Poland. Many years ago. etc.
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Super happy to have an excerpt from my forthcoming novel Never Mind the Beasts (formerly The Autobiography of Don Whiskers) in the new issue of Plaster Cocktail: Invisible Monsters. Thanks to the editors Polina Riabova and Stephanie Maida for including me in this fab issue. Cathartic art and reading! The novel is coming out in…
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This is a very brief excerpt from the opening of my new hybrid novel in progress: Squid on the Barbie. What is relationship between your environment and happiness? Influenced by the classical philosophy of the Epicureans and Buddhists, as well as the revolution of the surrealists, Pineapple and Don Whiskers move to Spain for a…
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I have a flash fiction invisible monster in new issue of Plastic Cocktail. Plastic Cocktail is in Bushwick. Bushwick is in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is in New York City. Someday maybe I will see Bushwick. I have seen New York City, but it was mostly in the movies.
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From my new novel in progress for the summer. It’s called The Dreamlife of Honey. Here is the current description: From the over-stimulation and financial stresses of London to a slower life in Madrid and Barcelona, Don Whiskers and Pineapple are ready to live simply with less ambition. What is the relationship between your environment…
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(Art: Hieronymus Bosch. From Garden of Earthly Delights.
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From book of stories in progress. This one is called “A Mask of Rubber Bands.”
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A small excerpt from my novel in progress, Never Mind the Beasts. This is the early 80’s, on a government housing estate in Milton Keynes, England. Don Whiskers is baptised into a new religion. Learns how to swish whiskey. Becomes a friend of Jesus. Tries to find a hammer. Acquires a Millennium falcon. He is…
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From my 1st novel in progress, Never Mind the Beasts. This excerpt from the section “Howling Dogs and Crinkled Whispers.”
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“A part wants to break away from the other part. The part that wants to break away claims a different culture. How many cultures make the whole. Who are the true people from the part that wants to break away and the true people from the part that believes in the whole.| My flash fiction,…
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Some excerpts from my novel Never Mind the Beasts (formally The Autobiography of Don Whiskers) in the new issue of Dream Pop. “In Milton Keynes, during the conversion, they watch E.T. with the branch, the branch is a small gathering, if it is a larger gathering it is called a ward, they don’t have a…
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The faces in the holes were egg shaped.
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An excerpt from my novel manuscript, The Autobiography of Don Whiskers, is over at #thesideshow. Partly based on experiences in Katowice, Poland, Cercedilla (Spain), Madrid (Spain), and Palermo (Sicily). It is part of an ongoing trilogy of nomadic surrealist novels. Part autofiction, part magical realism. This excerpt begins in Katowice, at the Zoo, with pagan deities:…
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Super happy to have an excerpt from Hermit Kingdom (formally The Autobiography of Don Whiskers) in Adjacent Pineapple. Book 2 begins in Spain (Madrid) and the move to Barcelona. This excerpt is all about the body. And also the great Madrid fiesta San Isidro. It is also about friendship and creating a hermit kingdom as…
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After my brother Aaron died I went on a road trip with my brothers and sisters. We traveled from Utah to the ocean of California. Along the way we stopped in Hurricane, Utah, a place in southern Utah where we used to live. I lived there mainly for my senior year in high school and…
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Do you want the magic back in your life? Me too. Also people. It is so noisy out there. Meaning in here. How about some peace. We are all competing for endless roads to nowhere. But sometimes somewhere. I am at least 60% natural hermit, ditto Ewa. It depends on the day. Of course we…
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Just before leaving London/Tower Hamlets to live in Madrid, I met up with my good friend and fellow artist Stephen Emmerson. We walked across Waterloo Bridge and wandered into a magic hat shop called The Mad Hatter. I ended up with a rabbit hat (thanks to Stephen). It is a special hat. I composed…
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The only award I ever won, and didn’t even enter, was for a poem called “Mr Whiskers and the Picnic Basket.” It was published in Hayden’s Ferry Review as a winner of the AWP Intro Journals Award. I was completing my MFA at UNC Greensboro at the time. Then it was republished at storySouth in 2004. This…
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“My step father grew up in Warrington, he joined the British Army. A way out. Northern Ireland. He married my mother. In Bletchley, we went to the swimming pool. Hot chocolate, in the plastic cup, from the machine. I’ll give you a pound if you go down the slide he said. In London, in the…
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Excerpt from my novel in progress The Autobiography of Don Whiskers A hybrid novel (in the form of an immigrant memoir, prose poetry, and interlocking surreal flash fictions). Some influences include Richard Brautigan, Miranda July, Lukas Tomin, David Lynch, Guy Maddin, and Leonora Carrington (plus more). This except is called THE HOUSE OF…
Never Mind the Beasts 