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New Release: Becoming Mirsky by Paul Beckman (Fiction)

Becoming Mirsky by Paul Beckman Červená Barva Press, 2023

Paul Beckman's last flash collection, "Kiss Kiss" was a finalist for the Best Indie Awards for short story collections 2019. Paul had a micro-story selected for the 2018 Norton Anthology New Micro Exceptionally Short Fiction, was one of the winners in the 2016 The Best Small Fictions and his story "Mom's Goodbye" was chosen as the winner of the 2016 Fiction Southeast Editor's Prize. Paul was nominated for the 2019 Best Small fiction series and had a story accepted for the 2022 Best of Microfictions. He's widely published with over 750 stories. Paul hosts the monthly Zoom FBomb global flash fiction reading series.

"Finally a Mirsky book! I’ve loved Mirksy since he first appeared in Paul Beckman's work, and in this collection Mirsky gets to rightfully shine, coming of age with paper routes, Devil dogs, pinball, bullies, absent fathers, Jewish mothers, Kosher Soap, and the inevitable disappointments and salvations of any survived childhood, especially one set in the big city projects of America. In Becoming Mirsky, we traverse the full range of Beckman's talents—the ironic, the asinine, and the wonderfully ridiculous, yes, but also the difficult, the poignant, and the downright tragic. I'm not sure if I love Beckman or Mirsky more, but I'm thrilled to indulge both here."
—Nancy Stohlman, author of After the Rapture and Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction

"Every so often a memoir is penned that transcends a literary filigree of recollections and gives us an authentic, deeply felt, and brilliantly written "accounting." Paul Beckman's Becoming Mirsky is such a book. In it are the quixotic and thrashing winds of culture, of youth — of "“becoming" itself. Here, Ethos and Pathos bespeak a life in a common tongue we all can understand. Here, buoyed by Beckman's wry wit, recollection is not a ghost, but rather a flawed, but earnest assortment of characters on the page we wish to know about. Care to know about. What a fine and accomplished work this is."
—Robert Scotellaro, author of What Are the Chances? and Ways to Read the World

"No one does it like Beckman — raw, raucous, poignant, vulnerable— headlong into the underbelly of Jewish family mishugas; a confabulation of stories too embarrassing to own or identify with. Beckman's razor—sharp insight splays out before us, leaving the reader with nowhere to hide and forever changed. Mirsky oozes originality, warmth, humour, and pathos. Brilliant!"
—Karen Schauber, editor/author of "The Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired By Historic Canadian Paintings" (Published by Heritage House, 2019)

"From the brilliant and prolific pen of Paul Beckman comes the compelling, funny, heartbreaking novella-in-flash, Becoming Mirsky. This collection of short stories follows the life of Reuven Mirsky from his Jewish boyhood in the projects of the Bridgeport. CT, to his service in the Air Force, and on to a new life in New Haven Connecticut suburbs. This is a layered story of place and family, of tradition and loss and survival. The child of a broken home, Mirsky is perennially misunderstood and emotionally neglected. Yet he faces the world with resilience, rebelliousness, and a sarcastic tongue that gets him into no end of trouble. The writing all through is deft and beautifully distilled. In these pages, Beckman has given us an unforgettable story of disarming courage and wit and sensitivity."
—Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works

In Paul Beckman's unmistakable voice, a comfortable cup of coffee with a stiff shot of scotch, we meet (or better, examine) his recurring character, Reuven Mirsky, with all of the kid-of-the-fifties memories, so vividly drawn – lemon ices and paper routes - and the characters that inhabit Mirsky's world, a Bar-Mitzvah ruining Rabbi, Mirsky's kosher soap mother, and the father who only made guest appearances from time to time. A poignant, heart-tugging, witty, and ultimately triumphant story. A wonderful and memorable read.
—Francine Witte, author of Just Outside the Tunnel of Love

When master flash fiction writer Paul Beckman put pen to paper for Becoming Mirsky, he demonstrated why he's been selected for a Norton Anthology, a winner for Best Small Fictions, and a winner of Fiction Southeast's prize. Becoming Mirsky is as good as it gets, following the life of Mirsly, a Jewish boy growing up in poverty in the projects of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and experiencing a rough, yet incredibly realistic, life, even among his closest family members. Becoming Mirsky illustrates how we rise above, move on, and become more.
—Niles Reddick, author of Drifting too far from the Shore, Reading the Coffee Grounds, & Road Kill and Other Oddities

Beckman hits it out of the park, again. In Becoming Mirsky, a sidesplitting flash fiction bildungsroman that traces the trials of a young man growing up in Marina Village, a public housing project, Beckman sketches with his signature hilarity and warmth, the fraught path to adulthood for Mirsky. Sometimes innocently, and sometimes not-so-naively, Mirsky navigates his way among hardscrabble family, neighbors, and schoolmates. In adventures that range from delivering groceries past a dead man's body in a funeral parlor, to relishing the thought of one day becoming a successful shoe salesman so that he can smell the tantalizing scent of new shoe leather, Mirsky gradually learns the ways of the world. And as he recounts his hilarious adventures, readers learn that Mirsky’s world, while uniquely colorful, if at times hardboiled, is not so terribly different from their own.
—Brad Rose, author of Lucky Animals and No. Wait. I Can Explain.

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-78-9 | 74 Pages

New Release: Secret Behind the Gate by Zvi A. Sesling (Fiction)

Secret Behind the Gate by Zvi A. Sesling Červená Barva Press, 2023

Zvi A. Sesling, Poet Laureate Emeritus of Brookline, MA (2017-2020) has published flash fiction and poetry in numerous magazines both in print and online in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, France, Cyprus, New Zealand, Australia, India, Canada and Israel. He was awarded First Prize in the Reuben Rose International Poetry Competition. He was selected to read his poetry at New England/Pen "Discovery" by the late Boston Poet Laureate Sam Cornish. His poetry was selected for the Spring Rain Poetry Festival on Cyprus and his Hay (na) ku poetry is part of a display at the San Francisco Library. In addition, he has a Hay (na) ku, two poems and four flash fiction stories in Stanford University's Life in Quarantine project. Sesling was twice a featured reader in the Jewish Poetry Festival in Brookline, MA and is a regular reviewer for the Boston Small Press and Poetry Scene. Sesling is Editor of 10By10 Flash Fiction Stories and Muddy River Poetry Review. He has been a featured reader in various venues in the Boston area, San Diego, the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and the Boston National Poetry Festival. He has also read on local radio and cable television programs. He is author of four books of poetry, War Zones, The Lynching of Leo Frank, Fire Tongue and King of the Jungle and and three chapbooks, Simple Game, Baseball Poetry; Love Poems from Hell and Across Stones of Bad Dreams. He is the author of the recently published flash fiction chapbook Wheels. Sesling taught at Suffolk University, Emerson College and Boston University. He lives in Brookline, MA with his wife Susan J. Dechter.

Read Zvi Sesling's musings in Secret Behind the Gate and you’ll be instantly transported into zany, oftentimes ironic, journeys traversing the narrow alleyways, backroads, and main streets of Zvi's vivid imagination. His delightful nuggets are easily digestible but, oh so hard to put down!
-Phil Temples, author of The Allston Variant and Uncontacted Frontier

It takes an exceptionally rich imagination to conceive over two hundred truly distinctive pieces of short fiction. While microscopic in length, Zvi Sesling's tales are macroscopic in their ability to entertain and provoke. You laugh, you cry, and you think... really think--no small achievement in such attenuated works. I had several favorites in Secret Behind the Gate, foremost among them, "Nowhere Man," "The Bride Wears Black," and "What We Can Hope For." Indeed, these made me chuckle, tear up, and ultimately ponder the meaning of their message. They all had something of value to convey--maybe none more so than the book’s namesake. It's no secret that Zvi is an original raconteur of the highest order, a storyteller par excellence, possessing enormous wit and empathy.
-Michael C. Keith, author Insomnia 11 and Stories in the Key of Me

When reading Zvi Sesling's Secret Behind the Gate, which I highly recommend, don't just cram a bunch of its tasty morsels into your mouth at once. They must be individually chewed, savored, and digested to be completely appreciated. They range from short fiction to flash fiction to micro fiction to something dangerously close to poetry, from profoundly funny to ironic to wistful to deeply sad, so you'll never know what's coming next.
-Rob Dinsmoor, author of Toxic Cookout

$19.95 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-68-0 | 223 Pages

New Release: A STEP INSIDE by Denis Emorine
Translated from the French by Phillip John Usher

A STEP INSIDE by Denis Emorine (Fiction) Translated from the French by Phillip John Usher Červená Barva Press, 2023

Denis Emorine is a French writer. He was born in 1956 in Paris. He has an emotional attachment to English because his mother was an English teacher. He is of Russian ancestry on his father's side. Writing, for Emorine, is a way of harnessing time in its incessant flight. Themes that re-occur throughout his writing include the Doppelganger, lost or shattered identity, and mythical Venice (a place that truly fascinates him). He also has a great interest for Eastern Europe. His theatrical output has been staged in France, Canada (Quebec) and Russia. Many of his books (short stories, plays, poetry) have been published in Greece, Hungary, Romania, South Africa, and the United States. His first novel La mort en berne, 5 Sens éditions, was published in Switzerland, in 2017. An English translation Death at Half-Mast is available in the USA https://www.experimentalfiction.com/ In 2015, Denis Emorine was awarded the Naji Naaman Literary Prize Lebanon (honor prize for complete work) For more information, visit his website at: http://denis.emorine.free.fr/ul/english/accueil.htm

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Phillip John Usher is Assistant Professor of French and Comparative Literature. His book Errance et cohérence: essai sur la littérature transfrontalière à la Renaissance (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2010) deals with the topic of Renaissance border-crossing and globalization. As a translator, he is the author of the first English-language version of Ronsard's epic La Franciade (1572) (New York: AMS Press, 2010) and of Denis Emorine's No through world (Edmonds, WA: Ravenna Press, 2004). He has also translated various academic and non-academic articles and works. His articles have appeared or are forthcoming in the Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, La Revue des Amis de Ronsard, L'Esprit Créateur, French Forum, and elsewhere. Educated at the University of London (UK) and Harvard University (Cambridge, MA), he regularly lectures in the United States and Europe and has held a visiting position at Boston University (fall 2009). He regularly organizes lectures in the "Translation Across the Disciplines" series and is the webmaster for the Barnard Center of Translation Studies.

Denis Emorine's short-stories reflect the misunderstanding that separates human beings, the gap between the words and their meaning. For the author, the language, far from facilitating the exchanges among us, makes all communication almost impossible. Man is trapped by his feelings whatever these feelings may be. In this way an individual is thus doomed to deceive others and to deceive oneself and manages to do it all in good faith. Denis Emorine's characters are often overwhelmed by a situation they are unable to control or they are victims of fatality as it happens in a Greek tragedy. According to the Russian literary critic Dimitri Zadkine, it is "the romantics condemned to failure who make of their existence a tragedy, the artists lost in a dreamlike dimension, where their hypersensitivity prevents them from taking flight. They are always on the borders of madness and death. »

Cover Art: "Autoportrait" by Tatiana Samoïlova

$16.00 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-03-1 | 53 Pages

New Release: The Thing About Men: Stories by Gregory J. Wolos (Fiction)

The Thing About Men: Stories by Gregory J. Wolos Červená Barva Press, 2023

Having raised two children and spent more than three decades as an educator in upstate New York, Gregory Wolos currently resides with his wife of forty-two years in a small town not far from Boston, Massachusetts. Gregory's daily regimen includes writing, running, and tending grandchildren. He holds a doctorate from the University at Albany.
Over one hundred of Gregory's short stories and reviews have been published in journals and anthologies like Glimmer Train, Georgia Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, descant, Florida Review, The Pinch, Post Road, Baltimore Review, Los Angeles Review, PANK, Superstition Review, Tahoma Literary Review, Southern Humanities Review, and many others.
Gregory’s work has won awards sponsored by Solstice, descant, Gulf Stream, New South, the Rubery Book Awards, Emrys Journal, Gambling the Aisle, and the White Eagle Coffee Store Press.
Gregory has published three other story collections: Women of Consequence (Regal House Publishing, 2019), Dear Everyone, (Duck Lake Books, 2020), and The Thing About Men, (Cervena Barva Press, 2023). For full lists of Gregory’s publications and commendations, visit www.gregorywolos.com.
More often than not Gregory's stories reflect Kafka's assertion that a literary work "should be an ice axe to break up the frozen sea inside us."

The thing about men is that there is no single "thing." The men featured in this story collection are fathers, sons, grandfathers, husbands, lovers, and loners. They are (or have been) teachers, models, gigolos, hypnotherapists, school superintendents, tattoo artists, lawyers, crematory workers, and casino employees. Some are victims; others are victimizers. All struggle to find stability or, at the very least, comfort in a world that challenges their assumptions about manhood as they search for footing in the rubble of a crumbling patriarchy. There are kindnesses and cruelties in these stories; there are successes and failures. But pull back the curtain on the central characters in The Thing About Men, and you will find that they are all men you know.

These unique stories include humans and other animals—from dogs to pandas to animal tattoos—that serve as characters to reveal the mongrel, spotted, sometimes loving relationships between men and women. Many of these stories have won awards, some are premise pieces, all are interlaced with dry humor. Here is a gifted collection that probes into our animal nature and, once read, it will not be forgotten.
—Lee Hope, Founding Editor-in-Chief, Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices and author of Horsefever, a SPD best-selling novel

"Injuries and afflictions abound in The Thing About Men. Gregory Wolos keeps his compelling collection attuned to complications of recovery, while illuminating, with care and craft, the wounds most in need of wary monitoring: those that persist beneath 'the usual top layer of things.' In story after fine story, Wolos urges all of us to delve deeper."
—Matthew Pitt, author of These Are Our Demands, Midwest Book Award winner, and Attention Please Now, Winner of the Autumn House Prize

$19.95 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-58-1 | 224 Pages

New Release: Quiet Geography by Michael C. Keith

Quiet Geography by Michael C. Keith Červená Barva Press, 2022

Michael C. Keith is the author or coauthor of more than two dozen groundbreaking books on electronic media, including one chosen by President Clinton for his official summer reading list. Beyond that, he is the author of an acclaimed memoir (The Next Better Place, Algonquin Books), a young adult novel, and 19 story collections- his latest Insomnia 11 from MadHat Press and Pieces of Bones and Rags from Cabal Books. He has received accolades for his academic and fiction writing.

In the tradition of the classic micro-fiction of renowned writer Lydia Davis, this singular collection explores the full range of human endeavor and behavior in all their varied and discrete (and not so discrete) manifestations. Keith's mini-stories, perhaps more appropriately called prose/poetry because of their lyrical nature, take the reader to places only a truly vivid and original imagination could. Often disquieting in theme and plot, the pieces within these covers invariably contain meaningful truths and lessons while managing to accomplish this in a witty and affecting manner.

In Quiet Geography, Michael C. Keith fashions a multitude of miniature worlds, and in each one he finds the perfect narrative distance and tone of voice to infuse the comic with the dark and the dark with the comic. Unique, yet intentionally ambiguous, these micro-stories are shapeshifters. Chameleon-like, Keith's creations change color and reveal different patterns so the reader may respond differently each time he or she re-reads them. These wry, richly detailed flash fictions repay each reading by offering gem-like, myriad angles of reflection.
-Allen Wier, author of Tehano and Late Night, Early Morning

Quiet Geography's cleverly dark humor stays lively throughout. It normalizes the strange and estranges the normal. There are cynical vibes, but they're not overwhelming; besides, as someone (Seneca?) said, cynics are really idealists at heart. It’s good to know Michael C. Keith is out there demonstrating the delights of idealistic cynicism. This is one of the best reads I've had this year.
-Betsy Delmonico, editor-in-chief Golden Antelope Press

$18.95 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-74-1 | 194 Pages

New Release: Nothing Resplendent Lives Here Stories by Renuka Raghavan

Nothing Resplendent Lives Here Stories by Renuka Raghavan Červená Barva Press, 2022

A Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions nominee, Renuka Raghavan, is an Indian-American author who writes short-form prose and poetry. She is the author of Out of the Blue (Big Table Publishing, 2017) and The Face I Desire (Nixes Mate, 2019). Her work has been featured in The American Journal of Poetry, Boston Literary Magazine, Bending Genres, and the South Florida Poetry Journal, among others. For a complete list of all her previous publications visit her at www.renukaraghavan.com. She writes and lives with her family and two Chihuahuas in Massachusetts.

"With the precision of a scalpel in the hands of a skilled surgeon, Raghavan cuts to the heart of the human experience, revealing characters at their most vulnerable. Raw and edgy, these stories bleed with emotional resonance. A powerful collection."
-Jayne Martin, author of Tender Cuts and The Daddy Chronicles-Memoir of a Fatherless Daughter

"In this literary braid of tragedy, irony, and humor, Renuka Raghavan delivers masterfully crafted stories that make you smile or break your heart. All of life’s messiest, saddest, weirdest, and most chaotic scenarios are here: from a soul deadening one night stand with a disc jockey and a calm stegosaurus skeleton who's not bothered by much, to the devastating consequences of a mother's criticism, no emotion is left unturned. Nothing Resplendent Lives Here is our choice for best short story collection of the year."
-Robin Stratton, editor Boston Literary Magazine

"Nothing Resplendent Lives Here is a beautiful swirl of tight, inventive stories that introduce us to invisible mothers who show up at a poetry reading, lovers who have died but continue to live in every corner of the house, and so many others. A mix of returning library books, fishing toys out of claw machines, and giant flowers that smell of decay, acts of ordinary life turned upside down. The stories are set in varying locales from Las Vegas to New Orleans to Delhi and, of course, the happiest place on earth. Skillfully crafted with charged language, poignancy, and unforgettable characterization, these stories will delight you and weave themselves into your heart."
-Francine Witte, author of Dressed All Wrong for This and The Cake, The Smoke, The Moon

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-71-0 | 60 Pages

New release: Temporary Shelter by Olena Jennings (Fiction)

Temporary Shelter by Olena Jennings (Fiction) Červená Barva Press, 2021

Olena Jennings is the author of the poetry collection Songs from an Apartment and the chapbook Memory Project. Her translation with Oksana Lutsyshyna of Artem Chekh's Absolute Zero was released in 2020 by Glagoslav. She and Iryna Shuvalova translated Pray to the Empty Wells by Iryna Shuvalova published by Lost Horse Press in 2019. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and an MA from the University of Alberta. She is the founder and curator of the Poets of Queens reading series.

"A scintillating and poetic novel, brimming with imagination, historical details, and profound emotional truths."
-Jennifer Croft, author of Homesick

"A thoroughly timely novel about the past. Jennings envisions Anna Akhmatova struggling against gender expectations and heteronormativity-even among fellow bohemians in 1910s St. Petersburg. Through many challenges, Akhmatova in Temporary Shelter remains committed to her individual identity and purpose. The novel is gorgeously written; Jennings's background as a poet and translator shines with imagery that is at once surprising and precise, sparse and sensuous."
-Olga Livshin, author of A Life Replaced, poems with translations from Anna Akhmatova and Vladimir Gandelsman

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-45-1 | 164 Pages

New Fiction Release: Escape from Crimea A Collection of Short Stories by Svet DiNahum

Escape from Crimea A Collection of Short Stories by Svet DiNahum Červená Barva Press, 2020

Svet DiNahum was born in 1970 in Sofia, Bulgaria, and is of Jewish ancestry. He is a graduate of the Department of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University and currently lives in New York City, Sofia, Vienna, and Frankfurt. He has published short stories in numerous literary magazines in Bulgaria and throughout Europe; his work has been translated into English, German, Russian, Serbian, Turkish, Spanish, and French. His fiction has appeared in US literary magazines such as Drunken Boat, Gloom Cupboard, Danse Macabre, and Audience. DiNahum is the author of The Wolf's Howl (Short Novel, 1994); The Unicorn in Captivity (Collection of Short Stories, 2007), RAPTUS (Novel, 2009) Nicola Against Nicola (Short Novel & Screenplay, 2012), The Doctrinaire (Novel, 2015), and The Hangman and the Clown (Stage Play, 2017). RAPTUS was a nominee for the Elias Canetti National Literary Award and was subsequently published in the United States by Hammer & Anvil Books (Las Vegas, 2013). DiNahum serves as Press Secretary for PEN Center Bulgaria, defending human rights and freedom of expression.

Winner of Essay Competition for World Noble Peace Prize Laureates 2013 in Warsaw (and Lech Walesa Foundation) with his essay Solidarity Restarted. Author of screenplays: The Second Life of Michael Jackson (2011), The Unicorn In Captivity (2012), Rays (2013) In 2012 wins BTV competition for sitcom episode (TV comedy series Home Arrest). Author's website: www.svetdinahum.com Contact: sdnahum@gmail.com

To the readers in USA:
Dear American friends,
For writing the truth about the Russian occupation of Crimea, I've been persecuted and harassed in Bulgaria by organizations that are defending the interests of Putin's regime in the Kremlin. I've been targeted by a campaign aimed at discrediting me. I've also been threatened - indirectly - with so-called 'friendly advice' - a Bulgarian Union of Writers member told me personally after the book launch: "You be careful. You are making a provocation. They are organizing things so you'll be defeated." Then, referring to the nerve agent used against a former Russian military intelligence officer who defected to Britain, that same "friend" warned me: "You might eat Novichok just like Sergei Skripal."

But I am walking on the path of truth and I have passed the line of fear. I'm not going to give in.
-Svetoslav Nahum, Author, Escape from Crimea

"Escape from Crimea reveals the terrible events that we experienced in Ukraine - the criminal occupation of Crimea. Events are described with talent. The written words will not leave anyone indifferent. I am grateful to Svetoslav Nahum for his skill. This is a serious and significant book."
-H.E. Vitaliy Moskalenko, Ukraine's Ambassador to Bulgaria

"Escape From Crimea is getting much more attention this way with a much larger audience in USA. Nahum's work is an accurate depiction of events in Russia-occupied Crimea. I hope this book will also draw attention in the West to the suffering that so many Ukrainians have been through because of the Russian occupation and because of Russia's military aggression in eastern Ukraine."
-Ron Synovitz, Radio Free Europe, Prague

Photographs: Natalia Zhurminskaya

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-41-3 | 123 Pages

New Fiction Release: The Adventures of Camel Jeremy Eros by Corey Mesler

The Adventures of Camel Jeremy Eros by Corey Mesler Červená Barva Press, 2020

Corey Mesler has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Gargoyle, Five Points, Good Poems American Places, and New Stories from the South. He has published 9 novels, 4 short story collections, and 5 full-length poetry collections, and a dozen chapbooks. His novel, Memphis Movie, attracted kind words from Ann Beattie, Peter Coyote, and William Hjorstberg, among others. He's been nominated for the Pushcart many times, and 3 of his poems were chosen for Garrison Keillor's Writer’s Almanac. He also wrote the screenplay for We Go On, which won The Memphis Film Prize in 2017. With his wife he runs a 145 year-old bookstore in Memphis. He can be found at https://coreymesler.wordpress.com.

Camel Jeremy Eros, 60s Memphis poet, bon vivant and scenester, appeared in two earlier Corey Mesler novels. Now he gets his own biography. Beginning with his birth in Frayser, a gray carbuncle on the side of Memphis, Tennessee, and following him through his academic success and then his political/poetical awakening at the University of California, Berkeley, the novel touches on numerous multi-hued, phantasmagoric, hippiefied cultural landmarks, including the small press, bookstore scene in San Francisco, protests in the streets, and free love. Eventually Camel finds his way back to Memphis where he meets the darling of his life, the willowy sculptress, Allen. The novel’s latter half takes place mostly in Memphis as the lovers struggle with earning money, making art, setting up house, and eventual health issues that threaten to burst their rainbow bubble.

"The Adventures of Camel Jeremy Eros has an exuberant voice that pulls you in and a swaggering, larger-than-life character to keep you happily entertained. And then - just when you least expect it - this vivacious, colorful tale of a man's pursuit of literature and love also manages to break your heart."
-Tova Mirvis, author of The Ladies Auxiliary and The Book of Separation: A Memoir

"Corey Mesler's new novel The Adventures of Camel Jeremy Eros is a wonderfully Gumpian Memphis and San Franciscan Roman à clef, infused with aching lyricism, sharp wit, and ramped-up-to-eleven literary cleverness, its crackling prose delivered with a soft West Tennessee twang. The story of a Memphis poet and teacher named Camel Eros, his sculptor wife Allen and their love affair both with each other and with life itself is told through a redolent halcyonic haze, evoking memory of a time in America-the middle decades of the last century-that were a swirling paradox of protest, rebellion, free love and unfettered spiritual and artistic expression. Mesler's characters offer warmth and depth to this poignant tale, which is funny, wickedly sexy, and terrifically engaging."
-Mark Dunn, author of Ella Minnow Pea and We Five

"Rascally on the page, subversive in spirit and style, Corey Mesler just may be Memphis' answer to Ken Kesey. Here is a rip-snorting, picaresque tale of the Bluff City from the fifties and sixties that will make most Memphians smile-and will make non-Memphians wonder what the hell they've been missing."
-Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Hellhound On His Trail

$18.95 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-08-6 | 318 Pages

New Release: DOWN CEMETERY ROAD by Ned Randle (fiction)

DOWN CEMETERY ROAD by Ned Randle Červená Barva Press, 2020

Ned Randle resides in southern Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Mo., a region that informs his writing. His debut novel Baxter's Friends was released in 2013 by Coffeetown Press to good reviews. His third novel St. Michael Poker & Drinking Club is schedule for release March, 2020 by Regal House Publishing. His short stories have appeared in The Examined Life Journal, Soundings Review, Earth Review, and Prism Review. He's also published numerous poems in literary journals and reviews. Coffeetown Press published his full-length Running at Night: Collected Poems in 2013. His author website is: www.nedrandle.com

"The much-anticipated release of this prequel to the unforgettable Baxter's Friends was well worth the wait. Randle raises the curtain on the formative years of Billy Bright's life, revealing a formula for his adult years that is at once both intoxicating and utterly sobering. Down Cemetery Road delves into the disillusionment of adolescence sadly often shot down by mid-life."
—K.K. Snyder, Editor, Southwest Georgia Living magazine

During the 60s, the most divisive period of American history since the Civil War, coming of age was abrupt and ambiguous for able bodied boys fated by the shadow of conscription. This insightful novel explores death of boyhood replete with a bathtub baptism comically celebrating the slap dead end of innocence and the abrupt birth into the adult world, where high school graduates must decide to fight, fly or go to jail for resisting an immoral and unjust war. This novel is provocative and carefully written—a good read.
—O. Victor Miller, Author of short story collections One Man's Junk and The Tenderest Touch

$18.95 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-19-2 | 266 Pages

New release

Balkan Grit by Milan Djurasovic (fiction) Červená Barva Press, 2019

Milan Djurasovic is a Bosnian American writer, artist and journalist. He currently lives and works in Sacramento, California. His educational background is in psychology and Russian literature. Milan has published dozens of articles and short stories in various international magazines. His most recent publication includes a book of fiction No More Happy Endings (published in 2016).

Balkan Grit is a collection of short stories that explores the psychology of characters who are trying to shield their sanity and hope while coping with loss and bleakness in a post-war society. Neglected and abused, without a prospect for a normal life, they are rendered bitter and cynical. Some try to make sense of their daily troubles and newly imposed external values by holding onto a familiar way of life and a deeply rooted moral code. Others become subdued and frozen in time in a world full of abrupt change and cruelty.

Cover Design: Aleksandra Djurasovic

$17.00 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-21-5 | 80 Pages

New Release

White Zion by Gila Green (fiction) Červená Barva Press, 2019

Canadian Gila Green is a writer, editor, and EFL teacher. As the daughter of a Yemenite-Israeli father and an Ashkenazi-Canadian mother, she often writes about the immigrant experience, including dislocation, alienation, and racism. She spent time in South Africa before settling in Israel where she lives with her husband and five children.

She is the author of White Zion, two adult novels: Passport Control and King of the Class and her short works have appeared in dozens of literary magazines and anthologies. Her new young adult novel No Entry is forthcoming in 2019 and is the first in an environmental series. Please visit Gila www.gilagreenwrites.com

Gritty Yet Shimmering Stories! I'm not exaggerating here one bit.
It's titled 'White Zion' but Gila Green paints from all the colors/hues of the Jewish palette. These gritty yet shimmering stories get into you. I read them all in two swoops, then stayed up for an hour or two, maybe four, waiting for my heart to return to normal.
-Ruchama King Feuerman, author of In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist and Seven Blessings

In a journey of generations from Aden to Palestine to Ottawa, one Yemenite family encounters new and difficult realities: racism and war, rejection and divorce, resourceful survival and tragic death. With smells of delicious breads wafting up from the page, embroidering detail upon detail in fine literary stitch, Gila Green draws us fully into her narrative, as she generously shares with us the hidden core of family life and the stories she is not afraid to tell.
-Yael Unterman, author of The Hidden of Things: Twelve Stories of Love & Longing

Imagine a group of friends and relatives coming together throughout the afternoon over food and drink, staying late into the evening to share stories that engender laughter, tears, empathy and admiration. The profoundly satisfying stories in White Zion are rich in intimate detail, peopled with a cast of heart wrenching characters at once familiar and unique, a gathering of personalities that leaves me reluctant to leave their company and eager to revisit them.
-Pearl Luke, author of Madame Zee and Burning Ground

Review by Susan Weintrob:
Susan Weintrob is a retired university English instructor and Jewish day school administrator.
https://www.expandthetable.net/gila-green-s-white-zion

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-12-3 | 145 Pages

The Sun Eaters a novel by Alex M. Pruteanu Červená Barva Press, 2018

Alex M. Pruteanu is author of novella Short Lean Cuts, and Gears: A Collection (Independent Talent Group, Inc.), both available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Powell's Books. He has published fiction in Guernica, [PANK], Specter Literary Magazine, The Prague Revue, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and many others.

The Sun Eaters unravels the story of two brothers in a small village of an Eastern European country just post World War II. The two boys and a handful of their colorful mates struggle to survive famine, desolation and destruction, as well as repressive political ideology that has been forced upon their country. In the boys' battle against what seems like all elements of life-turned-hostile, we discover the beauty of the enduring human spirit and the coping powers of a child's imagination during difficult times.

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9984253-5-1 | 156 Pages

SLOW TRANSIT Stories by Michael C. Keith Červená Barva Press, 2017

Michael C. Keith is the author/coauthor of 30 book volumes and dozens of articles on the subject of radio and broadcast studies. In addition to his non-fiction titles, Keith has published over a dozen creative works, including an acclaimed memoir: The Next Better Place-a young adult novel: Life is Falling Sideways-and 12 short story collections: most recently Perspective Drifts Like a Log on a River. His fiction has been nominated for several awards, among them the Pen/O. Henry Award, the Pushcart Prize, the National Indie Excellence Award, and the International Book Award.

"Michael Keith is doing his part to keep the short story alive in this world of novel, novel, novel... Let us hope he keeps those original stories coming."
-Brad Watson, author Miss Jane

"The characters in Slow Transit transport you to a universe of unfulfilled desires, doubts, and dreams made all the more terrifying by the author's keen sense of the dramas that make life worth living. Highly recommended."
-Ed Hamilton, author The Chintz Age

"Keith's output and beautiful prose continue to rise."
-Adam Johnson, author Fortune Smiles

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9984253-6-8 | 226 Pages

Hamburgers and Berliners and other courses in between by Matt Potter Červená Barva Press, 2015

Australian-born Matt Potter lives in Adelaide but keeps part of his psyche in Berlin. He is the founding editor of Pure Slush, Pure Slush Books, Truth Serum Press and Lit Bulb international writing festival. By day he has been a social worker, an English as a Second Language teacher, and oh, many other things. Find more of his work at http://mattcpotter.webs.com/

Matt Potter's Hamburgers and Berliners took me to Germany—with brief forays to Austria, Portugal and other European countries—without me having to shift an inch from my sofa. Potter's prose is, as always, absorbing, amusing, enlightening and engaging. If you are thinking of a trip to Europe (or Australia, where Potter originates) make sure you read Hamburgers and Berliners before you go. This intimate portrait of an Australian abroad should be nestled in your hand luggage beside your spare undies and bottled water—it's just as essential. Potter examines the differences between cultures big and small—between countries, continents or, at the other end of the scale, the microcultures that exist within a block or a street. He constantly questions the what and the why of things, observing idiosyncrasies and habits and ingrained patterns of thought in a way that makes you see your own surroundings and behaviours afresh. Never uncomfortably disrespectful (though often funny), Potter had me smirking with some of his descriptions and going “Aha!” at others.
Hamburgers and Berliners is that rare thing, a guide to humanity, forgiving in its delivery but covering every niggly aspect of living as a foreigner abroad in delicious detail, warts and all. If you want to give your brain a holiday, get it, read it, and have a ball.
—Gill Hoffs, author of The Sinking of RMS Tayleur: The Lost Story of the Victorian Titanic and Wild: a collection

Matt Potter unflinchingly allows us inside his mind and heart, sharing fears and insecurities that most of us would never dare to reveal. His book is both poignant and funny, and through Potter's eyes we get a vivid picture of Germany—its landscapes, people, customs and quirks—while also witnessing one man's struggle to make sense of his own life as well as life at large.
—Len Kuntz, author of The Dark Sunshine

Matt Potter's Hamburgers and Berliners brings back the adventures, the frustrations and the newness of moving to Germany. These honest missives made me want to do it all over again.
—Christopher Allen, author of Conversations with S. Teri O'Type

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9966894-0-3 | 273 Pages | In Stock

THE CHINTZ AGE tales of love and loss for a new new york by Ed Hamilton Červená Barva Press, 2015

Ed Hamilton is the author of Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with the Artists and Outlaws of New York's Rebel Mecca (Da Capo, 2007). His fiction has appeared in dozens of small journals, including Limestone, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, SoMa Literary Review, Exquisite Corpse, Bohemia, Omphalos, and in translation in the Czech Republic's Host. His non-fiction has appeared in The Villager, Chelsea Now, The Huffington Post, and Living With Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog. Ed lives in New York City. Visit his website at www.edhamilton.nyc

Just as Soylent Green is people, so The Chintz Age is now. Everything is cheaper and chintzier than in the past, from consumer products to culture itself. Our great cities, and, in particular, New York, are being transformed as we speak, as rising rents squeeze out the artists and bohemians who honed and burnished the city's glittering cutting edge. So should we look backward in teary-eyed nostalgia for the glorious past, or grit our teeth and move forward, accepting the inevitability of change in order to carve out a place for ourselves in this Brave New New York? This book of gritty urban fairy tales represents a heartfelt prayer for the future of the arts in New York, as well as a blueprint for a moral and spiritual resistance to the forces of cultural philistinism.

In seven stories and a novella, Ed Hamilton takes on this clash of cultures between the old and the new, as his characters are forced to confront their own obsolescence in the face of this rapidly surging capitalist juggernaut. Ranging over the whole panorama of New York neighborhoods—from the East Village to Hell's Kitchen, and from the Bowery to Washington Heights—Hamilton weaves a spellbinding web of urban mythology. Punks, hippies, beatniks, squatters, junkies, derelicts, and anarchists—the entire pantheon of urban demigods—gambol through a grungy subterranean Elysium of dive bars, cheap diners, flophouses, and shooting galleries, searching for meaning and a place to make their stand.

PRAISE FOR THE LEGENDS OF THE CHELSEA HOTEL

"There's something remarkable about the way the author manages to celebrate the Chelsea's singular atmosphere — the exuberant aspiring artists, the divorced movie stars, the disheveled blonde who may have Tourette's and who lingers in the lobby hissing like a snake — without ever forgetting how toxic the air is for many of the people who come desperate to breathe it."
—Jeff Giles, The New York Times Book Review

Reviews:

Boston Magazine: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2015/10/02/gentriwatch-gentrification-book-somerville/

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9861111-9-8 | 284 Pages | In Stock

My Life With Blondie by Jiří Klobouk Červená Barva Press, September, 2013

Jiří Klobouk writes fiction, radio plays, poetry and essays. He discovered jazz when he was twelve and later began to visualize the world around him through a camera lens - he worked for 20 years in television. These experiences are reflected in his writing. He created a body of work in which as one critique noted: "We could feel the rhythm and see things from unexpected angles." Many short stories have appeared in literary periodicals: Partisan Review, Chicago Review, Stories and Artful Dodge. For Winter Wolves, a story published in Mid-American Review, he was named outstanding writer in the 1985-86 The Pushcart Prize edition. His list of books includes: My Life with Blondie, Winfield, Radio Plays I, Radio Plays II, Music After Midnight, The Stair Climber, Anti-Communist Manifesto (1975), The Homecoming, JAZZ II: Parents and Third Wife. The author lives in New York City.

Translated from the Czech by Helena and John Baker

A fifty-year-old man, named Harley Davidson, has suffered from a vivid fantasy, a condition not as rare as it might seem: alongside reality, which he perceives accurately, he has created for himself a second, parallel world of dreams. When he was seventeen, he fell in love with Blondie he saw on a magazine cover. For the next thirty-three years all he wants is to tell her that he loves her. As time goes by it seems it will never happen, but then one day...

...thirty three years later Harley learns that Blondie (inevitably an aging starlet) is arriving in town to perform at a local bar. She has reserved a room in the rundown hotel where Harley works as a receptionist. Finally, he is convinced his dream will come true.

In this novel, we become acquainted with Harley’s entire life - from childhood, through the demise of two marriages. We follow him on his journey to Austria, Portugal, Germany and Vietnam. It is a story of a human being who, inspired by the power of love, keeps his spirit intact against all odds and circumstances.

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9883713-6-1 | 284 Pages | In Stock

Sweet Snow A novel of the Ukrainian famine of 1933 by Alexander J. Motyl Červená Barva Press, 2013

Cover Photograph: Mark Hewko

Alexander Motyl is a writer, painter, and professor. He is the author of four novels, Whiskey Priest, Who Killed Andrei Warhol, The Jew Who Was Ukrainian, and Sweet Snow, and two novellas, Flippancy and My Orchidia; his poems have appeared in Mayday, Counterexample Poetics, Istanbul Literary Review, Orion Headless, The Battered Suitcase, Red River Review, Green Door, and New York Quarterly. He has done performances of his fiction and poetry at the Cornelia Street Café and the Bowery Poetry Club in New York. Motyl’s artwork is represented on the Internet gallery, www.artsicle.com, and has been exhibited in solo and group shows in New York, Philadelphia, Westport, and Toronto. He teaches at Rutgers University-Newark and lives in New York.

Sweet Snow is set in the winter of 1933 in Ukraine. A terrible famine is raging in the countryside, while the Soviet secret police is arresting suspected spies in the cities. A German nobleman from Berlin, a Jewish communist from New York, a Polish diplomat from Lwów, and a Ukrainian nationalist from Vienna come to share a cell in some unknown prison. One day, as they are being transported to another prison, their van overturns, their guards are killed, and they are freed — to wander amidst the devastated villages, desolate landscapes, snowbound villages, and frozen corpses. As they struggle to survive, they come to grips with the horror of the famine as well as with their own delusions, weaknesses, and mortality.

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9883713-7-8 | 154 Pages | In Stock

The Jew Who Was Ukrainian or How One Man’s Rip-Roaring Romp through an Existential Wasteland Ended in a Bungled Attempt to Bump off the Exceptionally Great Leader of Mother Russia by Alexander J. Motyl Červená Barva Press, 2011

Alexander J. Motyl (b. 1953, New York) is a writer, painter, and professor. He is the author of four novels, Whiskey Priest, Who Killed Andrei Warhol, Flippancy, and The Jew Who Was Ukrainian; his poems have appeared in Counterexample Poetics, Istanbul Literary Review, Orion Headless, The Battered Suitcase, Red River Review, and New York Quarterly. Motyl’s artwork has been exhibited in solo and group shows in New York, Philadelphia, and Toronto. He teaches at Rutgers University-Newark and lives in New York.

The Jew Who Was Ukrainian is a devilishly witty intellectual farce in which historical meditation faces off with madcap lampoons of past and present political rogues and assassins. Motyl’s wildly imaginative riff on a century of East European history is a must read. The Moral of the Popcorn reigns!
—Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy
Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Russian Literature, Barnard College

Only Alexander Motyl could conjure up this delightful mixture of ghoulish, existential madcappery with insightful, satirical brilliance. This is a fantasy for the adventuresome, geopolitical reader who’s eager to have his mind bent and tickled.
—Jed Feuer
Composer, New York City

This hilarious and poignant anti-historical novel is a vertiginous journey through the Russian Revolution, Stalin’s purges, Nazi concentration camps, underground anarchist gatherings, and the KGB network. A great master of tragicomedy, Alexander Motyl shows with eminent irony that twentieth-century history was funnier than Joyce imagined and much more horrible than Orwell prefigured. His main character, the laughable Volodymyr Frauenzimmer, works through his excruciating guilt, split hence irreconcilable identity, and obfuscating desire to settle accounts with history. Pondering the question of whether to kill or not to kill the next Russian dictator, Volodymyr transcends the border of the real and enters a realm where infamous political terrorists and their famous victims come together to discuss the self-destructive power of hatred. This book is a cold shower for anybody who still thinks you can change history and passionate encouragement for all those confident that you can do nothing about it.
—Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern
Associate Professor in Jewish History, Northwestern University

Candide meets The Terminator—in the funhouse of history, ethnic prejudice, ethics… and the dysfunctional family. An intellectual thriller (camps and assassins included).
—George G. Grabowicz
Professor of Ukrainian Literature, Harvard University

Alexander Motyl is a master of seduction by the preposterous.
—Myrna Kostash
Writer, Edmonton, Canada

Reviews

July 18, 2011:
Review by Michael Johnson in The American Spectator
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/07/18/a-romp-through-history/

June 2, 2011:
The new Pathway Ukrainian Weekly
http://www.infoukes.com/newpathway/22-2011-Page-7-1.html

May 24, 2011, Ukrainaian Candian TV
Interview with Alexander J. Motyl in Ukrainain:
http://www.youtube.com/kontaktukrainianTV/#p/u/15/UrKYpUe1WPs

April 27, 2011
Review in the Kyiv Post:

The Jew Who Was Ukrainian is a blackly comedic, anti-historical, and absurdist novel about a tortured Jewish-Ukrainian man who struggles vainly to find meaning at the intersection of Hitler’s Holocaust and Stalin’s Gulag. The hero of this preposterous story is Volodymyr Frauenzimmer, a man with a preposterous name and a preposterous past. His Ukrainian mother was a Nazi concentration camp guard and hates Jews. His Jewish father was a Stalinist butcher and hates Ukrainians. Poor Volodymyr doesn’t know how to cope with his dreadful past until he discovers the redeeming power of hatred and resolves to kill the Exceptionally Great Leader of Mother Russia—the fish-eyed Pitoon, a half-Russian, half-German dictator whose name happens to...
Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/102945/

Temporarily Out of Stock

$16.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9831041-1-7 | 181 Pages | In Stock

Ateet Tuli

Posture by Ateet Tuli Červená Barva Press, 2012

Winner of the 2011 Červená Barva Press Fiction Contest
Judge: Catherine Sasanov

Ateet Tuli lives and works in New York City.
Cover art by Ateet Tuli.

Fortune Teller

Perfume bomb whose silk surface protects a silver subcutaneous and is surrounded by parchment, you draw me close with evocations of mother preparing Dal for the week. The remembered architecture of you below cinnamon, against cardamom, below lime draws me so close I overlook your anger, which makes me cry.

You are capable of destruction, of warping a weft of garlic and chilies. I could cool you, put you in the fridge till you cannot overwhelm me. I could heat you, sweat you till natural sugar caramelizes and you can tell me nothing. I could hurt you also, dear onion. A mutual respect actualized as we grasp each other.

Pulled from a womb of dirt, you also have roots in ancient Asia. In eating you, I eat my relatives; their ashes fed your ancestry where they were spread. The dance of eating and burning you within my own burning body fertilizes the future, when in turn I will feed your children.

I dissect you, your rings akin to those of a tree, until I reach and consume your center. Its delicate youth lingers on my breath and is a flashlight for my tongue.

$7.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9883713-3-0 | 22 Pages | In Stock

Bob Hartley

Following Tommy a novel by Bob Hartley Červená Barva Press, 2012

Bob Hartley was raised on the West Side of Chicago. He holds an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Pittsburgh. He has been, among other things, a writer, actor, singer, teacher, bartender, mail room clerk, and soap mold washer. He currently makes his living as a respiratory therapist and lives in Pittsburgh with his wife and two children. Following Tommy is his first novel.

Following Tommy tells the story of the O'Days, two young brothers living in an Irish American, working class neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side in the 1960’s. As thieves they are the bane of the neighborhood until the arrival of the first African American family.

“Following Tommy,” is a powerful, mesmerizing debut novel by Bob Hartley. Sharp-edged and honed to perfection, this novel takes us back to the Irish ghetto of the West Side of Chicago in the early ‘60’s. These characters pack-a-punch to the gut: tough, perceptive and shrewd. An unforgettable read.
—Meg Tuite, author of Domestic Apparition

In Hartley’s novel, set in the heartland of America, we dive deeply into disturbing pathos of intriguing and relatable characters. His keen narrative balances so the lively dialogue, and we feel we know, or at the very least, can relate to so much of his book. I urge you to read this remarkable debut, “Following Tommy.”
—Robert Vaughan, editor of Flash Fiction Fridays

Bob Hartley's Website: https://sites.google.com/site/bobhartleyfollowingtommy/

Reviews:

The Small Press Book Review:
http://thesmallpressbookreview.blogspot.com/2013/10/review-of-bob-hartleys-following-tommy.html

Gapers Block:
http://gapersblock.com/bookclub/2013/08/27/at_first_glance_theres_something/

Alt Hist; Historical Fiction and Alternate History:
http://althistfiction.com/2013/05/21/book-review-following-tommy-by-bob-hartley/

Books in Brief Review:
http://booksinbrief.net/2013/02/11/following-tommy-by-bob-hartley/

The Historical Novels Review:
http://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/following-tommy/

RALPH Review:
http://www.ralphmag.org/HH/tommy.html

Evergreen Review:
http://www.evergreenreview.com/b/following-tommy-by-bob-hartley-reviewed-by-kevin-riordan/

Ofi Press has archived its Following Tommy review:
Here is the new link. http://theofipress.webs.com/hartleybob.htm

Pittsburgh City Paper review:
http://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/novel-explores-racism-in-chicago/Content?oid=1580219

Boston University Radio Interview:
http://wtbunews.wordpress.com:80/2012/09/07/author-bob-hartley-discusses-new-book-following-tommy-racial-tensions-in-chicagos-west-side/

Review by The Irish Champion, New Zealand:
http://www.irishchampion.co.nz/following-tommy-full-of-hart/

Pittsburgh Post Gazette Review:
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/ae/book-reviews/bob-hartleys-following-tommy-sharp-as-chicago-651535/

Review by Irene Koronas: http://dougholder.blogspot.com/

August 23, 2012
"A Little Gem" by Noel Ignatiev, PM Press: http://www.pmpress.org/content/article.php?story=20120822160414534

Out of Stock, Please Order it from SPD Books:
http://www.spdbooks.org/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=Following+Tommy

$17.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9831041-8-6 | 104 Pages | In Stock

Michael J. Atwood

Baptism by Michael J. Atwood Červená Barva Press, 2011

Michael J. Atwood is the author of the short story collection, HiStory of Santa Monica (Aqueous Books 2010) and a columnist and editor for the website, FastertThanForty.com. His work has appeared in a number of literary magazines and online journals. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing program, where he focused on fiction and screenwriting. As an undergraduate, Atwood studied at Boston College, majoring in English and interning for The Boston Globe. He now resides in North Attleborough with his wife, Melanie, and children, William, Megan, and Kelsey and is an English teacher in the Boston area. He is currently working on his first novel. For more information see www.mjatwood.com and www.historyofsantamonica.com.

Forward
"Baptism" was a story written out of hunger. I had been working on a collection of short stories for around seven years and no one wanted to publish it. It was lacking that final story, the single that every band needs to make their album a success. In fact, the only success I had realized as a writer was a story published by Gloria Mindock on her online journal called Istanbul Literary Review. The story was entitled "Ancient Hibernians." It the story of a young comedian's return from Santa Monica, California back to Boston to attend his favorite Irish uncle's funeral. With the recent capture of Whitey Bulger in that very same seaside city where I drafted "Ancient Hibernians," a Boston-Irish mob tale, "The Shebeen," and "Baptism," the fact that I wrote it and other tales about crime, addiction, and death seems quite eerie. As we all found out recently, Whitey Bulger lived anonymously just eight blocks away from me during the years 2002-2005 (we both had highly sought after "rent-control" apartments). For all I know, the leader of the Winter Hill Gang smiled walked past me as I pushed my son, William in his carriage on the 3rd Street Promenade.

"Baptism" is a story of an addict healing, being born again, and returning to his roots, his family. It is about a sacred Catholic ritual that few choose to take part in. Gabriel Bradley is a hesitant godfather in this story but he's also the baptized as he meets a new love and is anointed by the cold New England rain as he stares out to the Charles River thinking about his failure in sunny California. In the end, Gabriel has found himself again and realigns his values that have been corrupted by Hollywood and his semi-success there.
—Michael J. Atwood
June 2011

$7.00 | 31 Pages | In Stock

Joan Gelfand

Here and Abroad by Joan Gelfand Červená Barva Press, 2010

Winner of the 2010 Červená Barva Press Fiction Contest, Judged by Dorothy Freudenthal

Joan's poetry, fiction, reviews and essays have appeared in national and international magazines, anthologies and literary journals including Rattle, Kalliope, The Toronto Quarterly, The Huffington Post and The MacGuffin. Past President of the Women's National Book Association, Joan is the Fiction Editor for Zeek Magazine and teaches in the California Poets in the Schools program. "A Dreamer's Guide to Cities and Streams" was published by SF Bay Press in 2009 and "Seeking Center," by Two Bridges Press in 2006. You can listen to her CD, "Transported," on reverbnation.com http://joangelfand.com

"Joan Gelfand is at her best in her new collection of short stories. They're quirky, original, and highly entertaining with surprising dark moments that will take your breath away."
—Mary Mackey Author of The Widow's War

"EAT WRITE LOVE. Joan Gelfand whisks us, briefly, to Paris, where the present meets the past in both its ugliness and its grace, to Florence, where art meets its cruelest friend, "art criticism," to a more anonymous if earthier place in our own land where families and lovers pass and balance, for a moment, on the pinnacle of Thanksgiving. Her stories, like her poetry, celebrate life and love, family, friendship, art - a scrumptious meal, and an intoxicating bottle of wine! (Warning: Do NOT read these stories on an empty stomach.)"
—Christopher Bernard, author of A Spy in the Ruins, cofounder of Caveat Lector

$7.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9831041-0-0 | 52 Pages | In Stock

Susan Tepper and Gary Percesepe

What May Have Been: Letters of Jackson Pollock & Dori G by Susan Tepper and Gary Percesepe Červená Barva Press, 2010

What May Have Been is a novel in letters exchanged between the artist Jackson Pollock and his fictional lover, a young woman called Dori G.

Susan Tepper and Gary Percesepe have created a sexy and luminous love story that takes place sometime during the late 1940's, in that sandy wonderland at the eastern tip of Long Island known as The Hamptons.

Advance Praise for What May Have Been

"In this extraordinary novel, Pollock tells his lover that things like paint and wives are very small in the scheme of things. Gary Percesepe and Susan Tepper show how the great scheme of things is, in fact, in literary art, captured in paint and wives and a Montauk surf and a silky scarf and narrow hips and a cold water flat and a used Ford. Brilliantly conceived, brilliantly executed, this is a stunning book about art and about life."
—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

"The fictional letters between Pollock and an imaginary Dori G come out in a hailstorm of paint flecks, lockets, long looks, kisses, blowing sand. Dori sees Jackson in his distance and his nearing, and his return to her like the visit of one of the Greek gods to his mortal lover, as piercing and as fatal."
—Mary Grimm, author of Left to Themselves and Stealing Time

"How to convey the irresistible pleasures of this novel in letters? The language mimics the slashing, dramatic immediate heroic gestures of abstract expressionism, is an extraordinary act of poetic invention, and tells a sexy and doomed love story."
—James Robison, author of The Illustrator and Rumors

"These two fervent voices exude the splendor and gloom of adulterous love."
—Mark Wisniewski, author of Confessions of a Polish Used Car Salesman

Reviews, Articles, and Interviews

April 18, 2011: Connotation Press
Book Review & Interview with Susan Tepper and Gary Percesepe
http://connotationpress.com/fiction/845-book-review-a-interview-with-susan-tepper-and-gary-percesepe

April 11, 2011: WJFF Radio Interview with Susan Tepper

Issue #50 - March 18, 2011 Dan's Papers
By The Book
by Joan Baum

March Minis
What May Have Been: Letters of Jackson Pollock & Dori G (Červená Barva Press), a slim paperback collaboration that grew out of e-mails between two writers who met on the social media site Fictionaut, describes an imaginary love affair carried on mostly by letters (sometimes only a line to a page) between the famous artist and a highly neurotic, self-centered young girl, 17. "Your legs are like white asparagus stalks," Pollock writes when he first sees her in a supermarket amid fruit. Though she says he's "old, old, old,"…
Gary Percesepe writes Dori's letters, Susan Tepper, Jackson's.

Desert News And Telegraph: http://desertnewsandtelegraph.blogspot.com/

January 26, 2011: Listen to Susan Tepper's interview on the Trevor Joe Lennon Radio Show

January 19, 2011: Susan Tepper Radio Spot on Trevor Joe Lennon Show
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=491899158820&comments

January 15, 2011: Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene
http://dougholder.blogspot.com/

What May Have Been: An Interview with Susan Tepper and Gary Percesepe by Steve Almond September 25, 2010: http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/

"An Appreciation of What May Have Been" by James Robison:
http://www.fictionaut.com/stories/james-robison/an-appreciation-of-what-may-have-been

Fictionaut Blog. September 3, 2010:
http://blog.fictionaut.com/2010/09/03/checking-in-with-what-may-have-been/

Daily s-Press. September 6, 2010: http://dailyspress.blogspot.com/

goodreads: goodreads

$15.00 | ISBN 978-0-9844732-8-1 | 104 Pages

James Penha

Snakes and Angels Adaptations of Indonesian Folk Tales by James Penha Červená Barva Press, 2010

Winner of the 2009 Cervena Barva Press Fiction Contest

A native New Yorker, James Penha has lived for the past eighteen years in Indonesia. He teaches at STB-ACS (International) School in Jakarta. No Bones to Carry, the latest volume of Penha's poetry, is available from New Sins Press at www.newsinspress.com. His award-winning 1992 chapbook On the Back of the Dragon is downloadable from Frugal Fiction at www.frugalfiction.com.
Among the most recent of his many other published works are articles in NCTE's Classroom Notes Plus; fiction at East of the Web, Big Pulp, and Ignavia; and poems in THEMA, Storie, Naugatuck River Review, Waterways, and in Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami (Bayeux Press), and the two Silver Boomers anthologies. Penha edits The New Verse News, a website for current-events poetry at www.newversenews.com.

Excerpt from DUST AND STONE

After a rival's magic transformed a young Wizard into a common cur, the latter lit out from his village to the jungle where he attempted to revoke his canine form through self-metamorphosis. This sorcery failed, as would all conjurations requiring the twitch of a thumb or the pointing of an index finger.

The Wizard did retain enough vocal control to shape his barks into words. Abetted by the spin of a tail or the point of a snout, he tried casting some simpler spells. His abracadabra halted a sparrow in mid-air. His astaga turned dew into lace. An orchid whistled to his magic lyrics. But the Wizard failed miserably to articulate the enchanted tongue-twister meant to gild a great teak. He howled like an adolescent hound. The tree shook wildly before it fell, destroying a nest of siamang monkeys hidden in its branches and clobbering a man making his way through the jungle.

The Wizard had always railed against harmful magic; indeed, this was the argument that had so enraged his evil rival. Guilt-ridden now, the Wizard ran to help the monkeys. He found them weepy but unhurt. The dog apologized for his carelessness and promised the aid of his talents, such as they were, forever. No pledges, however, could revive the human. The Wizard-dog followed the man's scent so that he might make amends to the family whose head he had killed.

$7.00 | 34 Pages | In Stock