Category: MARCUS SLEASE FICTION
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The Woodward Review
Excerpt from my unpublished novella, The Dreamlife of Honey, just published over here at The Woodward Review at Wayne State University in Detroit.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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OPENING TO DREAMLIFE OF HONEY
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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PUPPY LAUNCH!
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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Mr Peabody
Here is Thursday’s microfiction. A little romantic story. It’s called “Mr Peabody.” From Hermit Kingdom. My book in progress.
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GHOST CITY PRESS
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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MEET THE POET
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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HOME STAGE LIVE READING
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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Mercurius Magazine
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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Down the Shankill
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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Doom Drone
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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CHUMS
“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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Post Punk
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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Squirrels and Ooglers
Have you squirreled away yr nuts? Are you a hidden oogler? Winter is upon us. Here is a short reading.
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Travels from Never Mind the Beasts (Part One)
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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Pink Gums
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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The Future is in the Wind
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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How are your Jollies?
From North Las Vegas to a dentist in Turkey, to the house of 100 beers in Northern Poland, there are many travels. Dear Mercury, patron saint of thieves, these are my multi-faced identities. Dear readers & listeners & fellow travellers, here are some journeys:
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The Art of Everyone
” I take the train to Barcelona. The train enters a tunnel. A baby coughs very lightly, an older man clears his throat. The tunnel, that’s where we all go, light or no light no one is to know. My amphibian throat gurgles, will the language spill out of me, it is a great accomplishment.…
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MOON HERMIT
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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LOVE IS TO SPOON AS ROCK IS TO CHIP
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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The Best is yet to come
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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What are you growing into?
I stole boxing gloves from K-Mart, it is not in the story. I masturbated to MiGs, it is not in the story. I scraped the edges of my sundae with a wooden spoon, it is not in the story. I masturbated my friend under the table in the library, it is not in the story.…
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THEY USED TO CALL ME CHISEL FACE
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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SOUTH KOREA 2006
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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NOMADIC SURREALIST TRILOGY
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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THE DOCKLANDS
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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BORA
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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YOUNG LOVE
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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THE TRIAL
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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THE HOLY MISSION
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,…
Never Mind the Beasts 