Author: Roxane Gay

Books We Can't Quit: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

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Chosen By: Ally Nicholl

Bullseye Books, 1988

272 pgs/$6.99

I discovered The Phantom Tollbooth at the appropriate age and in the usual way. I was about nine, and it was a battered old copy I came across in the schoolroom shelves during a period of silent reading (a part of the curriculum unofficially known as ‘teacher needs to get the marking done or she’ll be taking it home’).

Choosing a book for silent reading was a serious business. Once I made my selection I was stuck with it until the book review at the end, and the week before I’d suffered through a dismal tale about a young girl’s friendship with a seal so I was desperately in need of something fun. I’d never heard of The Phantom Tollbooth, but it promised fantastical adventures and had a funny dog on the cover.

My subsequent review, which was meant to be a paragraph saying ‘I liked/didn’t like this book because’, ended up more like a dissertation. I clearly felt I couldn’t convey just how awesome the book was without retelling the whole story in a garbled gush. It had everything – a daring quest, a likeable hero I could relate to, endless surprises, quirky humour and edible words. I wanted to be Milo, to find a mysterious tollbooth in my bedroom and go for a drive through a thrilling magical land in my own car. I wanted to conduct Chroma’s orchestra as it played the colours of the sunrise, and wave to the cheering crowds after I helped restore the princesses Rhyme and Reason to the Kingdom of Wisdom. No reading period ever went by so fast.

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For Your Monday Morning Coffee

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1. We would love to have your support in our Spring Funds Drive. Read about it and donate here. We’re half way through the month, but not quite half way to our goal.

2. The April Issue, it’s alive.

2. Mark your calendar for May 23, [PANK] will be invading New York City. More details to come.

4. You’ve still time to submit to the Special Pulp Issue, guest edited by Court Merrigan. Keep ’em coming until July 1st.

Ask The Author: Robert Rothman

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In February, “Arrow” from Robert Rothman.

1. If you were Cupid, what projectile would you use?

Love is savage but an arrow with its expanding tip rips and ravages. I would use a dart that pricks interest, that causes the beloved to turn, startled and aroused by the sharp but not lethal hit of love/pain.

2. What kind of arrows would you have in your quiver?

Love, desire, rapture, adoration, kindness, raw and finished arrows.

3. Robin Hood or Green Arrow – who would win in an archery death match?

Not into death: these arrows bring life. Continue reading →

A Forsley Feuilleton: They Have Since Cut Their Hair Off, Sued Their Fans, And Are Probably Opening A Chain Of Vegan Restaurants

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When Robert Johnson went down to the crossroads and called upon Satan to rise from the fires of Hell to tune his guitar, he didn’t have dollar signs in his eyes and titties on his brain.  Material possessions were of no importance to him, and he already had titties . . . they belonged to a married woman whose husband killed – via poisoned whiskey – the young bluesman.  But before that deathly incident, Johnson used his hellishly tuned guitar to strum with the sureness of a savant and sing with the sorrow of a sinner.  He sold his eternal soul for talent, not fame and fortune.  Robert Johnson wasn’t a sellout.


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God's Autobio by Rolli (A Review by David Atkinson)

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Now or Never Publishing

233 pgs/$17.95

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I picked up God’s Autobio by Rolli. I hadn’t heard a lot of talk about the book. In fact, I hadn’t really heard much at all. Frankly, I’m not sure what I expected. One thing I am sure of is that I did not expect to have this much fun reading.

Rolli seems to have a particular talent for off-hand humorous manner. There is just such a effortless, droll quality to the way that some of the stories in this book are presented that I couldn’t help but enjoy myself. The very first opening paragraph from the first story of the collection, Von Clair and the Tiger, is a perfect example:

Having never been swallowed by a tiger before, Professor Von Claire wasn’t sure what to do about the situation. Strange—whenever one of his colleagues presented him with a dilemma, he could come up with ten solutions on the spot, with plenty of literary allusions, and quotes running gleefully from his pores. It had occurred to him, more than once, that this might be the reason others referred to him as “Tweedmouth,” if that was the term.

 Seriously? This guy is swallowed by a tiger and that situation takes a backseat to his colleagues opinion about him? Frankly, the professor’s approach to the whole set of circumstances is so off-kilter from what it should be that I couldn’t help getting interested in the story. As a reader, I admit that I love the loveable oddball characters.

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Million Writers Award Nominations!

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We made them. It was, as ever, a very difficult choice. We only accept work we believe deserves such recognition. Alas, we can choose only three and this year, those three were:

Story 1: “Becoming Deer,” by Rachel Levy
Story 2: “The Tar Painter,” by James Schlatter
Story 3: “Len and Ernie,” by Jamie Fountaine
Congratulations, Jamie, Rachel, and James!

Ask The Author: Eric Higgins

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“The Inexact Nature” by Eric Higgins was published in the January Issue. Now, Eric discusses prostitution, restraining orders, and illegalities.

1. Who would you prostitute? What would be your pimp name?

I wouldn’t prostitute anyone. To prostitute someone seems deeply despicable.

2. Who would you beatify and pray to?

Beatify, pray to, and pray for ecosystems. (If a corporation can be a who, then I see no reason why an ecosystem can’t be one, too.

3. How do you put a restraining order on desire?

I’m not sure it’s possible; quite a few governments, religions, and social institutions have been rendered inconsequential in the course of attempting to do just that. But if I had to put a restraining order on one of my own desires for one reason or another, I suppose I’d attempt to remind myself of some greater good I would be inhibiting if I slaked that desire. I’m a fan of self-imposed restraint and moderation, so that approach might work. Continue reading →

Legs Get Led Astray by Chloe Caldwell (A Review by Ryan Werner)

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Future Tense Books

168 pgs/$12

I remember being young because I still am. What is there to say about it? I met a lot of people, didn’t have sex with most of them, and then either left them or was left behind by them. This is the story of youth.

I wrote lots of things down, but I made up almost all of them: short stories about airplane-fueled daylight savings time break-ups in three different time-zones, cutting an old man’s head off with a Civil War era saber and driving it down to Mississippi; songs about Robocop and muscle cars, Porta-Potty sex at the county fair. If it was fiction, I made sure of its posterity. If it was true, I let it fend for itself.

Chloe Caldwell is an obsessive stenographer. This is about her and her book of personal essays, Legs Get Led Astray (Future Tense Books, 2012), but it’s about lots of other things, too. That’s why I can talk about myself and you can think about yourself when you read it.

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Ask The Author: Benjamin Rybeck

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In January, “Back-Story” by Bejanmin Rybeck. “The real story isn’t starting yet.”….

1. When is the real story starting?

The idea of “the real” is but a construct used to mediate “the imaginary.” Which is to say, it’ll start on Tuesday.

2. What method would you like your back story told?

Told through languid voiceover in which Jessica Chastain whispers things like, “How did you come to me, Benjamin Rybeck? What are we to you?” Or through newsreel footage played after my death to a group of reporters.

3. Would you stop for a woman on the side of the road?

Actually, that part really happened to me. Late at night a woman ran in front of my car like the beginning of Kiss Me Deadly and then jumped in before I could lock the doors. I gave her a ride down an increasingly narrowing series of one-way streets to her destination while I got really paranoid because a car followed us several miles across the city. But I didn’t get robbed. Instead, she called me “a nice Jewish boy” and gave me a motherly kiss on the cheek before getting out. Continue reading →

Death Wish Winner Announced

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Congratulations to Martha Williams on winning the Death Wish Book Giveaway. Death Wishing author, Laura Ellen Scott, had this to say about judging the wishes submitted and making the difficult decision to choose just one:

“So hard to choose! I have been listening to people propose Death Wishes for six months now, a few of which have been collected over at The Wish Tank, and I have to admit that I tend to prefer witty/wacky wishes over heartfelt ones. However, this time around I find myself so moved by Martha’s family-oriented wish that I wish I could grant it:

‘I would wish that all my favourite memories could fall like rain into the minds of my children, family, friends, and kind strangers, and be absorbed for the duration of a smile (or, in the case of my children, kept forever fresh).'”

Congratulations, Martha. Please send your mailing address through my contact page, here, please, and we’ll get your books to you.
Martha has won the following four books:
Death Wishing (signed), novel by Laura Ellen Scott
The Curfew, novel by Jesse Ball
Echolocation, novel by Myfanwy Collins
Hard to Say (signed), stories by Ethel Rohan 
Thanks, all, for participating.