Sunday, December 27, 2015

N@B 2015 Newsletter Vol. 1



Cameron Ashley - Knuckles white on the helm, the intrepid Crime Factory crew sails on with our Oz-born brethren Cam, Andrew Nette, Liam Jose and David Honeybone steadfast through the tempest of international niche publishing. It's been nearly a year since issue 17 dropped and from the other side of the world comfy in my lazy-boy I like to picture Ash vs. The Army of Darkness, kicking against the pricks in the last year to bring us a new Single Shot title, Double Exposure by Kat Clay and the debut novel by Jimmy CallawayLupo Danish Never Has Nightmares (if that title sounds familiar, lookit the Uncle B's Drive-In Fiction novella anthology from a couple years back - Danish won't be the first piece from that book to get the the novel-length expansion - nor probably the last). But c'mon, man. I want my Ashley fiction too. Here's hoping Cam puts out some more of his own stuff soon. Eye itch. Eye need. Eye want.

Jedidiah Ayres - Hey I had my first short story publications in four years in 2015. Back on the horse - not heroin this time! Shotgun Honey Presents Locked & Loaded vol. 3 included my story The Plot and Jewish Noir got less genteel and more gentile with the addition of my piece Twisted Shikse - hey and another story titled Have You Seen Me? was accepted for the 2016 collection St. Louis Noir from Akashic Books. I got to read from that one at N@B-Oxford alongside many heroes and pals in the spring and Twisted Shikse's N@B-Chicago reading was recorded and put to pod by Livius Nedin and Robb Olson of The Booked Podcast. I also had a swell Noirvember co-host gig alongside Mike White and the already missed Rob St. Mary of The Projection Booth and got to discuss Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows. I was pleased to do N@B in Raleigh, Dallas and Denver as well as a St. Louis event this year too. My collection of short stories is currently out of print, but look for a new edition coming in 2016 from Broken River Books... and who knows, maybe Peckerwood's sequel Shitbird flies soon. 

Laura Benedict - The Bliss House trilogy(?)'s second installment Charlotte's Story took us back in time for a harrowing helping of hell and a glorious glop of goth. It's a seedy saga of sex that Publisher's Weekly assured us would trouble readers. I love, love, love having Laura read at N@B events and watch her make the tough guys squirm. She's taking over the world and making you like it.

Pinckney Benedict - For my money one of the chief voices of the Appalachian wild whose every short story contain a novel's worth of heart and haint, blood and strange gave us a couple new ones - Orgo Vs the Flatlanders a graphic fiction in a collection of essays Walk Till the Dogs Get Mean and Zog-19 from How to Live on Other Planets: A Handbook For Aspiring Aliens might be the most whimsical wholesale slaughter since Kurt Vonnegut destroyed the world. Can't wait till there's book's worth of new stuff!

Frank Bill - Frank's kept his head in his work and it looks like his speculative novel The Savage wont be getting to us until early 2017. Fucking hell. That's gonna make for a long year's wait. I'm looking into being cryogenically frozen. 


William Boyle - Bill puts on the grandest N@B events with more noir, shit tons more bar and enthusiastic audience members down in Oxford and I had another swell trip to Mississippi thanks to the dude. Seriously if you want to spend an evening sharpening your general understanding of music, film or literature there are few avenues I could recommend ahead of hanging out with Boyle. Shit, get a taste of it with Death Don't Have No Mercy, his 2015 short story collection. It's a thing of broke-axel beauty. 

Jane Bradley - If you, like me, were bruised up but good by You Believers and or The One Good Thing (her Booked Podcast Best of Anthology-award winning contribution to Noir at the Bar vol. 2) you've been eager for her next novel The Snow Queen of Atlanta too long. Jane, I'm going to hire somebody to break in to your computer and steal it for me. But don't panic, folks - she's got two short story collections you can catch up with in the mean time.

Liam Cassidy - Ex-musician, podcaster, bartender and graphic designer for N@B, Liam's nipple deep in grad school write now and shit, I'm getting itchy for some new fiction from the dude. Everybody who caught his debut reading at the era-ending N@B event in July is too. Stay tuned and maybe license some of his artwork for your book cover, huh? Check it out at his website Cheap Fun.

David Cirillo - Has been building Terminal, a Kindle serial, and quietly turning out other strange tales that can be found for your eReader on Amazon.

S.L. Coney - From debut fiction publication in Noir at the Bar vol. 2 (2012) to St. Louis Noir (2016) one fucking (four year) step. Coney's got chops, teeth, big league chew. Get ready world. You can't handle the tooth.

Hilary Davidson - Next novel, I'm not sure, but damn, her short fiction is always nasty and needed and you can find her story The Siege in the December issue of Ellery Queen Mystery MagazineSister Cecilia appeared in The Protectors 2: HeroesSwan Song in Unloaded and Misteltoe in Thuglit's invite-only holiday anthology Cruel Yule. Plus her story A Hopeless Case (All Due Respect issue 4) won the 2015 Derringer Award for best long story. I think that speaks volumes that you can't say on TV.

Sean Doolittle - Somebody made this guy co-Toastmaster at Bouchercon 2015? I just hope they counted the toast beforehand. If you picked up a copy of Murder Under the Oaks (the 2015 Bouchercon Anthology) look up my boy's story. Meanwhile the big screen treatment of Sean's novel The Cleanup tentatively titled Beg the Devil (okay, that title's pretty badass) has some interesting casting rumors on its IMdB page. Which will hit first, the movie or Sean's next book? I dunno. Which will hit harder? That one's a no-brainer.

J. Christopher Dupuy - Is mysterious... and has disappeared off the face of the earth. So check for him around  the nipples - that's always a good bet. Rumor has it, a long-time-coming novel is ready for to take on the Big Six New York Literati, which is a car right? So, I'm confused. I'm off to the nipples with some questions. Or hey - check in at his website

Les Edgerton - I got to catch up with N@B's favorite ex-con and read with him in Raleigh where he won the night with his story of civility and bonhomie behind bars. Les is one of a kind and I highly suggest you seek out his work and jump if you get an opportunity to hear him read. 

C.J. Edwards - Just the other night somebody came up to me and asked about that guy who read that crazy story at a N@B event. Heh. Get more specific, pal. I figured out eventually that he meant CJ. I've seen Chris read a few times and his shit does get wild, and he is N@B's eyes and ears into the Indianapolis P.D.'s sex crimes division (thanks, IPD for helping nab Jared Fogle btw), but I was more than a little disappointed to discover that he's not actually the author of the Human Cow Milking erotica books I've enjoyed so much. Next time I hear from CJ I'm expecting big news.

Matthew C. Funk - The world needs more of it, booties must be loosed. We want it, we gotsta gotsta have it. Where you at, Funk? 

Jesus Angel Garcia - Here's one you don't see every day: dude writes a religion/sex/southern culture satire and tours the country with a performance art bit, writes songs based on his own novel, forms band around same songs and then goes full steam ahead with the music. Soon you'll hear some kid at a dirty bluegrass festival say "I heard the singer from Three Times Bad wrote a book!" He did, son. Yes he did. Will he write another? Let's hope so.

No comments: