SERIES ONE: 2015 BACKLIST
Kinda Sorta American Dream: Collected Stories, by Steve KarasIn Steve Karas’ debut collection, an unemployed autoworker finds himself at an elite seminar for aspiring Santa Clauses; an IT specialist eagerly awaits the Mayan apocalypse in his parents’ basement as his father descends into dementia. Through fourteen curiously ambivalent studies, Karas methodically examines and reconfigures the core archetypes--dot-com entrepreneurs, hard-striving immigrants, obsessive diner owners--that haunt and dominate the American psyche. Their narratives, set against a dizzying panorama that stretches from the ruins of post-2008 Detroit to the desperate paradise of suburban Florida, evoke the familiar American mythology of army bases, Manhattan high-rises, and Midwestern video stores. The winners, losers and hopeless visionaries who populate Kinda Sorta American Dream are united in their relentless quest to invoke massive disruption in their lives--and their profound doubts about whether such radical change is possible. ISBN: 9780996717502 (Print), 9780996717519 (eBook); $14.00 (Print) $9.99 (eBook).
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The Gender of Inanimate Objects and Other Stories, by Laura MarelloIn the phosphorescent title novella of Laura Marello’s collection, an enigmatic drifter pursues her circuitous path through the intricate cultural terrain of Sweetwater County, California, a patchwork of communities where “everyone speaks the wrong language.” Through subtle, disciplined prose inflected with the deep colors and clear lines of ancient Mykonos and the northern Californian coast, The Gender of Inanimate Objects and Other Stories depicts the liminal and often surreal states of temporarily rootless people--Old World immigrants, grad students, unfaithful spouses at a business conference--who teeter ambivalently on the cusp of freedom as they reach back for the stories and relationships that bind them. Infused with a razor-sharp sense of time and place, Marello’s stories connect the core themes of human connectivity--infidelity, sexual identity, childhood, and ever-present memory--with a serene, sometimes sorrowful awareness of the different ways in which we make peace with ourselves. Shortlisted for Stanford University's 2016 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. ISBN: 9780990454663 (Print), 9780990454670 (eBook); $14.00 (Print) $9.99 (eBook).
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My Father Is an Angry Storm Cloud: Collected Stories, by Melissa ReddishA film studies major gets a meat-processing job supervising the systematic dismemberment and disembowelment of chickens; a troubled loner finds the man of her dreams in a shoebox of horse figurines. College-educated, creative, and faced with no prospects to speak of, Melissa Reddish’s hapless postmillennial protagonists stoically eke out monotonous existences as factory workers, retail sales clerks, and homemakers, staring down their limited lives even as the desperation of everyday life spirals into the no man’s land between fantasy and psychosis. Yet they are also clear-eyed and conscious, calmly aware of--and uncannily receptive to--the most devastating of life’s horrors. As Newpages states, "Reddish is nothing short of masterful in her handle of the short form, perfect for both the avid and the occasional reader." ISBN: 9780990454649 (Print), 9780990454656 (eBook); $14.00 (Print) $9.99 (eBook).
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Come Tomorrow You'll Regret Today: Collected Stories, by Patrick Trotti A high-school dropout struggles through the labyrinthine college admissions process as he is reluctantly drawn into the breakdown of his parents’ toxic marriage. A recovering addict finds out on Facebook that his best friend is dead; a college freshman accidentally comes across his high-school girlfriend on a porn site. Set against a backdrop of abandoned factories, faceless strip malls, and suburban alienation, these unsettling and deceptively simple stories capture the ambivalence and innocence of a generation coming to terms with a fundamentally stagnant world where the disappointments of everyday life are matched, surreally, with a pathological sense of failure. Praised for their “sentences of perfect economy” and “concise, unadorned prose,” these “taut” and “truly frightening” visions of post-industrial despair showcase the startling maturity of a talented writer who is, according to one contemporary, “in full command of his craft.” ISBN: 9780990454625 (Print), 9780990454632 (eBook); $14.00 (Print) $9.99 (eBook).
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Word Citizen: Uncommon Thoughts on Writing, Motherhood, and Life in
“I tell tales that would never make it into coffee table books,” KJ Hannah Greenberg declares in her latest book of essays, “My words are covered in forests that glow at night or seek paths among the guts of aliens’ thinking machines.” In forty-eight unapologetic and sometimes hilarious compositions incorporating Jerusalem cabbies, lizards, and communication theory, Greenberg configures and reconfigures the layers of her identity--successful professional writer, wife, mother, and American-born Orthodox Jew living in Israel--while providing surreally frank, sometimes painful insights into what it takes to reconcile those roles. At once challenging, exuberant, and defiantly strange, these wry reports from the front lines of postmillennial freelancing joyously recount the hormonal roller-coaster of teaching modern rhetoric to college students while pregnant, the unforeseen pitfalls of instructing therapists in creative writing, and the trials and tribulations of dragooning sometimes reluctant children into the editing process. Yet Greenberg’s writings are also unsettling and coded, hinting between the lines at the complex, sometimes tense intersections between career, family, and the creative life. ISBN: 9780990454687 (Print), 9780990454694 (eBook); $14.00 (Print) $9.99 (eBook).
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Reinvent Yourself: Essential Tools from a Brooklyn Psychiatrist Who Has Seen
How do we rise above anger and self-doubt to achieve our most deeply held goals? Countless writers have tried to answer this question--perhaps none with more searing honesty than Dr. Johnny Lops, a respected Williamsburg psychiatrist whose refreshingly no-nonsense and humane approach to personal and professional achievement draws on his own colorful experiences growing up in blue-collar Brooklyn during the 1980s and 1990s. Witty, funny, and sometimes disconcertingly frank, Dr. Lops takes us back to his obsessive, anxiety-ridden childhood (complete with twelve-year-old neighborhood tough guys); his disastrous early dating experiences; and the process of self-discovery that enabled him to become a professional actor, doctor, and amateur marathon runner. In this vividly written and engaging book that is part memoir and part instruction manual, Dr. Lops offers eleven simple, practical, and effective tools for maximizing our performance potential and regaining control over our lives. ISBN: 9780990454601 (Print), 9780990454618 (eBook); $14.00 (Print) $9.99 (eBook).
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