David Downie on PLACES I REMEMBER podcast: Stories of the Italian Riviera The novelist and travel writer talks the Ligurian Coast, Italian travel ideas, and his new thriller set on the Italian Riviera, Red Riviera Order Red Riviera from Bookshop Order Red Riviera from Amazon … [Read more...]

Excerpt From Upcoming Dave Housley Novel Hits The Rumpus "It just all feels impossible. Pappas, who steals tape from the supply room, entire rolls of toilet paper from the bathroom closet, pens and microwave popcorn and Microsoft Word, standing here in his Dockers and Gap sweater, a millionaire? Cowens, who Robertson had to personally tell to stop saving porn to their cloud-based file storage? Mowery, with his weird Central Pennsylvania accent and his eBay store where he sells the motherboards they are supposed to be recycling, is worth eight point eight million dollars?" Order The … [Read more...]

Katherine E. Young Reviews Merwin's THE VIXEN for 25 Year Anniversary 25 years after it was originally published, Katherine E. Young looks back on one of Merwin's most underappreciated masterworks Visual by Adroit Journal Katherine E. Young's retrospective on W.S. Merwin's The Vixen appears in The Adroit Journal. Her newest collection of poetry is Woman Drinking Absinthe available from Alan Squire Publishing. An excerpt from her essay follows. Read the full review HERE. Is there such a thing as too much good poetry? My uncle, who made a lifelong habit of sending … [Read more...]

WOMAN DRINKING ABSINTHE Analyzed by Billy Mills Former Guardian Literary Journalist, Billy Mills, analyzes the conception of love in Katherine E. Young's new collection. "Young's core subject is love, but there's nothing redemptive or particularly healing about its manifestations," writes Billy Mills in his analysis of Young's Woman Drinking Absinthe. Elsewhere he compares the different manifestations of this theme to coeval poets Christopher Jane Corkery and James Roome. Mills analysis is fitting for Young's work which comes from a deeply literary place and is steeped in … [Read more...]

Rose Solari to Debut New Poetry at LitBalm Reading At September 4th's LitBalm reading series, Rose Solari will debut new poetry. She is joined by Linda Pastan and Jean Nordhaus. Solari is no stranger to writing poetry about music. Her most recent full-length collection, The Last Girl, includes a poem after Charles Mingus, "Myself when I was There." You can read this poem at the Redux Lit Journal HERE. Lit Balm is a biweekly interactive livestream reading series which includes readings, Q&As, open mics, and more. For this reading, Solari will be joined by poetry heavyweights … [Read more...]

GARGOYLE and beyond, GAS interviews Richard Peabody Richard Peabody with poet, Rita Dove GAS: Poetry, Arts, and Music interviews DC legend, Richard Peabody about his long-running underground literary magazine, Gargoyle. Read the full interview HERE. You can find more from Richard Peabody in Alan Squire Publishing's first book in its legacy Series, The Richard Peabody Reader. The Richard Peabody Reader is a wide-ranging selection of this great writer's poetry and prose, filling an important gap in the literary world. As a publisher, Peabody's steadfast dedication to … [Read more...]

Trigger Warning The incredible author of YA standout Billy Christmas, an all around wholesome time, happens to also be a talented filmmaker working in diverse genres. As this is a trailer for a horror film, frightening images abound.  New Trailer Drops for Mark Pritchard's Horror Short Film The Billy Christmas author's new short will appear in the upcoming horror anthology, "SINPHONY." The Sinphony anthology is slated to include ten films including Pritchard's "Limited Edition." In the press release for the film, the plot of "Limited Edition" is described as, "Intent on … [Read more...]

David Downie Interviewed by Author, Leslie Pietrzyk David Downie discusses his new novel Red Riviera on Leslie Pietrzyk's "Work-in-Progress" Renowned travel writer, David Downie, tackles the trials and tribulations of the crime novel with astounding acuity. Critics and peers agree, Red Riviera is "unforgettable" and "marvelous," and Downie's intrepid heroine, Daria Vinci, is a force to be reckoned with. In this new interview conducted by Leslie Pietrzyk, David Downie details the creation of Red Riviera and Daria Vinci, offers up some writing advice, and gives a … [Read more...]

Announcing Two New Titles from ASP WE ARE HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE the publication of two new titles coming your way in Spring 2022!    Dave Housley's brilliant, darkly comic novel The Other Ones will be released January 18, 2022. Saida Agostini's first full-length poetry collection, the stunning let the dead in, launches on March 26, 2022. Both are available for preorder now wherever books are sold.  About the books:  What would you do if a group of your fellow office workers won the lottery? The Other Ones tracks the actions and reactions of multiple characters in … [Read more...]

David Downie Discusses "Red Riviera" with Don George A discussion about Italy, globetrotting, and crime from two of travel writing's greatest minds. Its jaws open wide, a firefighting seaplane skims the glittering Gulf of Portofino on Italy's jagged Ligurian coast, scooping up seawater, unlucky anchovies and a lone swimmer named Joe Gary. The superrich, retired Italian-American spook has mob connections and a dirty political past. Has he been snatched by accident or murdered? Red Riviera is Commissioner Daria Vinci's first investigation, a wild roller-coaster ride from the tangled … [Read more...]

"Do not miss Red Riviera" New Review Praises David Downie's Latest The Part-Time Parisian's new review of Red Riviera praises the tactfully drawn history and landscape of Italy's coast in Downie's new thriller. David Downie made his career as a travel writer, penning famous and popular guides to European cities like Paris and Amsterdam. Not only is he obsessed with traveling, but like any writer he is as much a researcher as a chronicler. For this reason, the Italian Riviera (his current home), feels unique and alive in Red Riviera. In their review of the new thriller, The … [Read more...]

TV Segment on Grace Cavalieri Takes Home Two Silver Tellys Hartford Cable Network strikes Telly silver with their featured segment on Maryland's favorite poet laureate. Grace Cavalieri's segment on Harford County TV is officially a smash hit, taking home two silver tellys at the annual Telly Awards- the competition's top prize. The short was awarded highest honors in two categories: Videography/Cinematography and Television:Documentary. Grace and her poetry appear alongside other award winners and nominees from TV networks like Aljazeera, ESPN, and PBS. This sort of media recognition is … [Read more...]

Keeping up with Reuben Jackson: Bon Appetit, COMP, Friday Night Jazz and more! Three New Poems by Reuben Jackson Appear in COMP Journal Friday Night Jazz Archived by the AAPB Reuben Jackson's long-running and wildly popular Friday Night Jazz! has been collected and archived by the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (a collaboration between the Library of Congress and WGBH Educational Foundation). You can listen here to all 17 3-hour long shows which first appeared on Vermont Public Radio. The remaining 128 shows can be found at the archives. From AAPB: … [Read more...]

"Persuasive" Woman Drinking Absinthe explores "Illicit Love" in New Review from Compulsive Reader Charles Rammelkamp delivers a witty and erudite review of Katherine E. Young's opus. In his new review of Katherine E. Young's Woman Drinking Absinthe, Charles Rammelkamp delivers a write-up worthy of its subject. With careful erudition, and no lack of wit, he mines Katherine's beautiful and heartbreaking poesy about "illicit love" for words of affirmation. "Love, indeed, is the overarching theme of this remarkable collection," writes Charles. And he shows how this recurring theme speaks … [Read more...]

7 Upbeat Poems to Celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day (with printable PDFs) Check out these seven upbeat and whimsical poems from ASP authors; print one out for Poem in Your Pocket Day! What is Poem in Your Pocket Day? Poem in Your Pocket Day was created by the Office of the Mayor of New York City in 2002 in partnership with the New York Department of Cultural Affairs and Education. Its goal is to reintroduce poetry, a traditionally performative art, into social situations and normal everyday life. As such, PIYPD marks the end of National Poetry Month, bringing the lessons of the month … [Read more...]

"Our Favorite Things": Katherine E. Young and Natalya Sukhonos Discuss New Poetry Collections Russophone-connected writers Young and Sukhonos present alternating interviews in this fascinating piece from literary blog, Punctured Lines. Watch or read this alternating interview between poet and translator Katherine E. Young and Natalya Sukhonos both of which release new collections of original poetry this year. The interview is published by literary blog Punctured Lines. Young's Woman Drinking Absinthe was launched last Saturday and has since been garnering rave reviews across the web. WDA … [Read more...]

Reuben Jackson Joins WPFW's "The Sound of Surprise" Jazz expert, Reuben Jackson, takes his expertise to the beloved DC jazz standby. Beginning May 1st, Reuben will begin as host of DC radio channel WPFW's "The Sound of Surprise." The show runs from 4 to 6pm and Reuben will be alternating every other Sunday with the program's creator, Larry Appelbaum. WPFW (89.3) has been serving the DC metropolitan area since 1977 as a standout talk and jazz station. Entirely listener supported, WPFW does not play commercials. Reuben Jackson is a poet, raconteur, and former archivist of the … [Read more...]

A Book and Its Cover: Rose Solari Reviews Two New Collections of Poetry for WIRoB Terri Ellen Cross Davis and Dan Beachy-Quick's new collections get the Rose Solari treatment in a new review which ties subject matter to cover design. Rose Solari's latest review column for Washington Independent Review of Books tackles two stellar new collections by established small-press poets, Terry Ellen Cross Davis and Dan Beachy-Quick. As with all her reviews, Rose uses a common theme to link the subject matter of the books she is reviewing. This month, she explores how the cover design is … [Read more...]

New Review of Girls Like Us: The Collection "Bulges with Debilitating Last Lines" "The surprise-suplex-onto-concrete, knock-the-air-out-of-you kind of debilitating. Hazen is even dastardly enough to look the reader in the eye, then hook them with the very first last line: 'We've been called so many things that we are not, we startle at the sound of our own names.'" In Lannie Stabile's new review of Elizabeth Hazen's second collection Girls Like Us, she raves about the effect of Hazen's "last lines." Girls Like Us, she says, is "bulging with debilitating last lines." Like this one in … [Read more...]

New Poem by Elizabeth Hazen "Panic Attack" Lands in Failbetter A new poem by Maryland standout Elizabeth Hazen has been published in the 62nd volume of Failbetter literary journal. The poem, titled "Panic Attack," is dark and violent featuring images of fire, anxiety, and this evocative extended metaphor which crawls under the author's skin, "a banshee with curled fingernails; a gorgon, green and merciless; a girl with a loaded gun trapped inside a woman with her tongue cut out." Elizabeth Hazen's latest collection of poems, Girls Like Us, was released in March 2020 just … [Read more...]