Alan Squire Publishing

A Small Press With Big Ideas

An Interview with "Roughnecks" Author, James J. Patterson "You can change the dimensional make-up in someone’s mind with a single chord of musical phrase, or excite their imagination, invoke any of the mindful emotions. You can do the same thing with images in words, of course. But music can find a direct path to a person’s core that he or she may have thought was well defended." In this interview from Branka Cubrilo, James J. Patterson talks "Roughnecks," The Pheromones, and artistic inspiration. Recently, James J. Patterson sat down with fellow author, Branka Cubrilo, for … [Read more...]

James J. Patterson's National Poetry Month Picks (week 2) In honor of National Poetry Month, We asked author and essayist extraordinaire, James J. Patterson, to select three poems he'd like to see celebrated. Along with Walt Whitman's "On the Beach at Night Alone" (featured above), he chose Wordsworth's "The World is too much with Us", And Last but not least, the famed American Poet Robert Bly performing the poem "On Being a Man" by the famed Spanish poet, Antonio Machado. James J. Patterson was born in Washington, DC, five days before Nixon’s infamous “Checkers Speech.” He’s been … [Read more...]

Hear James J Patterson read "The Lovesick Lake"   "Lovers of the personal essay should be rejoicing in the streets at word of this collection. For readers and acquaintances of Jimmy Patterson, it is long overdue, but the author was born in Washington, D.C., where the machinery of progress is congenitally slow. So this book, in many important ways - is what all satisfying collections of autobiographical essays should be - a mirror of place." Rick Walter Armistice Day, known in the US as Veteran's Day, is now a work week past, but for James J Patterson it is a memory and idea that … [Read more...]

The World of Yesterday (Armistice Day, 2018) An Essay by James J Patterson  From the forthcoming collection Junk Shop Window   My father always said that his first memory was of standing on the couch in his parent’s living room, small hands on the back cushion, peering out a picture widow at a neighborhood street in Bend, Oregon. There is a slow-moving line of cars and horse-drawn carriages inching its way down the lane. The line of cars is there every day, and every day he stands there and watches. His street is a long one and at the end of it is the cemetery. He … [Read more...]

James J. Patterson reads "Jesse's Wife" Roughnecks maps a rugged geography of the human condition, as seen through the eyes of the hard-bitten Zachary Harper. With both wit and style, Patterson paints an unforgettable picture of characters wrestling with their own gruff but complicated souls. James Mathews Of course James J. Patterson would be the first ASP author to require a content warning beside their featured audio. We thought for a long while about whether or not this scene would be appropriate to publish to the site; Roughnecks, after all, is a massive book of incredible scope--there … [Read more...]

James J. Patterson reads "The Nearest Thing to Perfection" "One of the welcome treats from the emergence of James J. Patterson’s fiction is his penchant for setting his stories in the real America, the part of our country that gets too little notice by either the factual or the fictional media stars. He’s a welcome addition to the stories of our times." James Grady James J. Patterson can give you a breakdown of every pitch, every play, every score, every formation, and infuse it with color no matter how slow the windup or mundane the foul ball. This is his job, as a writer: caring so much it … [Read more...]

James J. Patterson reads "Jesse Lancaster Remembers" from Roughnecks "[Reading James J Patterson] is like sitting down with a very intelligent friend and having the kind of conversation you’d always wanted to have." Myra Sklarew In his readings, James J. Patterson gives every character a voice of their own. Consummate thespian and raconteur, not only is he a great modulator of voice, but sonorous and entrancing even in those moments most quietly intimate: internal dialogue. Listen to how James, filling the rough-hewn Jesse Lancaster, is master of every breath, articulation, and expression, … [Read more...]

The 'Mones "Yuppie Drone" Dissected Bryan Thomas's feature in NightFlight Magazine is a dissection of The Pheromones' 1982 smash hit "Yuppie Drone." For the folks who don't know, The 'Mones were an art-folk duo comprised of Alvis and Jimmy Pheromone, that is, Alan Johnson and ASP's own James J. Patterson. Bryan goes into quite some detail on the lyrical content and force behind "Yuppie Drone" in an attempt to contextualize it in the climate of 1982 when it was released (and the subsequent album in 1986 of the same name), and, to therefore, contextualize that cog-in-the-system verve, … [Read more...]

Henry Miller and NEXUS, the American Author Reconsidered By James J. Patterson Henry Miller is the missing link to a holistic understanding of the American literary tradition, argues Dr. James M. Decker, author of Henry Miller: New Perspectives and mastermind behind Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal.  “Once you have given up the ghost, everything falls into place with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos,” opens Henry Miller’s third book, The Tropic of Capricorn (1939). Anyone who has ever really hit bottom, and survived, knows the truth and wisdom packed … [Read more...]

We believe that there is no reason a small press can't publish books that compete on the shelf with the best that the big houses have to offer. Welcome to Good Books, Well Made James J. Patterson, Co-Founder, ASP. I suppose the last straw for me was when Eric Foner’s masterpiece, Tom Paine, and Revolutionary America, fell apart in my hands mid-way through reading it. I say last straw because — and every voracious reader has suffered this — books have been falling apart on me for decades. I’ll confess, I’m a bit rough on my books. I break the spines, I scribble in the margins, I … [Read more...]