News, Other Stuff

Curbside Splendor Publishing and The Chicago Writer's House are pleased to announce the 2nd installment in our seasonal series of POP UP BOOK FAIRS! Spend the afternoon of April 14th buying books. listening to live music, & networking with Chicago's Literati!

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40 of the finest independent publishers, presses, & booksellers from Chicago and elsewhere will be on hand from 1:30 pm until 6:30 pm at Chicago's finevenue for underground music The Empty Bottle hocking their goods. Quimby's Bookstore will also stock a table with a selection of books-n-zines penned by Chicagoans.

I have this fantasy that one day I’ll be on the train and across from me will be a person reading a book and the book will be my book. The person will seem to love it, will be all into it: smiling or crying or getting angry (whatever appropriate reaction that section of my book calls for). I will get up and we will briefly make eye contact. I'll smile and as I get off of the train, the person's head will snap back to the book and scan the back of it only to see my author photo. The doors will close as the person's mouth gapes, knowing that I am the author of the book they are falling in love with and then I will be gone in a blur.

What? I can have dreams, can’t I?

For me being a writer means I work alone. I write the first draft alone, revision 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all done alone. I don’t want to be looked at which is why I put my voice on the page, but then there’s that part of me that whispers, hey, check me out, yes?

Regardless of whether I ever get a book published, I will write. That’s a given, but there’s also part of me that wants to share my writing. Not because I think it’s the best thing ever written, but because I want to share my stories with others.

Putting myself on the page is my way of being raw and naked for all to see. No one likes to be judged and I know there are people that don’t like my work and I’m okay with that because judgment comes with the territory of being a writer. The flip side of course is that there will be people who love what I do.

I may be thirty-five, but that doesn’t mean I’m over wanting to be accepted by others. Mind you, it’s not the please-I’ll-change-who-I-am-I’ll-kiss-your-ass kind of acceptance. It’s the hey-I’m-a-writer-read-my-stories-hope-you-like-them-and-if-you-don’t-that’s-cool-too kind of acceptance.

I want my book to be published and for people to buy it, to read it, to enjoy it, and to recommend it. Rinse and repeat. Isn’t that why we writers work so hard? Revision after revision, submission after submission, rejection after rejection, we keep working because we want someone to like our stories enough to publish them and then share them with others.

So, yeah, I can admit it, I have literary fantasies of my book in many hands, of many eyes scanning my pages, hands and eyes that can’t get enough of my book, whether they are reading it on the train, or on the bus, or in their bed.

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What happens when a psychic who can’t control her powers gets institutionalized?

Bryce Dekker is a young woman that has suddenly been given extraordinary power, a psychic link to her surroundings. In her desire to help others, she becomes entangled in a murder case where her knowledge of specifics has made her the #1 suspect.

Now mandated to undergo observation at Werthem Glen Sanitarium, Bryce is at the mercy of her fellow patients. Surrounded by madness and unable to control her power, she is having a hard time separating her thoughts from the insanity around her.

Bryce has found only one way to keep track of reality, and that’s by keeping a record of the visions and voices in her head. She has become the vessel for those around her, telling the stories of their illness. She is the biographer of their insanity. Their stories have become hers, and Bryce’s only hope is that by embracing the madness, she finds her sanity.

Asylum Doors is a serial comic we'll run every Wednesday.  See the previous installment here.  Stay tuned for next week's installment.

Chris Prunckle is a graphic designer, illustrator and comic book artist banished to the suburbs of Chicago. Though an advertising industry minion by day, he slaves his nights away creating a mad little world.  He’s previously worked on the comics Fisted, Bonesetter, and The Scarab.  Follow him at @midjipress.

Given it's the 10 year anniversary of the start of the second Iraq war, we felt it appropriate to re-share a video we made about a year ago of Doc the Fifth, a short story by Iraq war vet and now Michigan-based writer Brandon Jennings.  Doc the Fifth first appeared in Curbside Splendor Issue 1.  It's an amazing short story.  Video made by CS friend and New York based artist Garett Holden.

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I don’t have anything against people that like romance novels but I can’t stand them. Besides being all mushy and lovey-dovey and shit, the sex scenes in them suck, and not in a good way.

If sex is in a story it needs to add something, to drive the story forward, not just be in there for show or shock value. I’ve written sex scenes before and even provided one as part of my grad application submission, and one faculty member told me that he was pretty sure the rest of the faculty took my work home with them. I guess that was a good thing.

My writing was explicit. The story called for it to be.