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Frayed Edge Press publishes literary fiction and poetry, as well as non-fiction titles in history, political science, and other social sciences/humanities. Also publishes the Street Smart Series of Short Fiction and themed poetry anthologies.
Blessed Hands: Stories
Author: Frume Halpern
Translator: Yermiyahu Ahron Taub
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510492
Physical description: 6x9; 319 p. (pbk.)
Now Available!
A plain factory worker who hides herself from life finds new possibilities opening up when a co-worker invites her to a political lecture. A humble shoemaker gains confidence and pride in his work after a yeshiva student introduces him to the philosophy of Spinoza. An unhappy housewife has new emotions stirred in her by an intellectual boarder. An African American man works his entire life standing, only to find himself unable to walk in retirement. A Jewish family waits in sorrow and anger as their loved ones' fates are played out on the national news. Frume Halpern brings these "slice of life" stories to life in this collection of short stories featuring protagonists on the fringes of American society: immigrants, Jews, African Americans, and the disabled, the sick, and the poor.
Blessed Hands is the frst ever complete English-language translation of Gebenshte hent: dertseylungen, along with the original foreword by Isaac Elchanan Ronch and an afterword by the translator. This collection contains short stories that were published over several decades in the left-wing daily news-paper Morgn frayhayt [Morning Freedom] and other Yiddish-language outlets in mid-20th century New York.
These psychologically insightful stories present the lives of protagonists who are working-class poor, social outcasts, and those experiencing illness, disability, and racism. Halpern worked as a massage therapist in a hospital and many of these stories are about those who work with their hands: workshop/factory workers, piece workers, a shoemaker, a butcher, and a hairdresser.
The author, Frume Halpern (neé Tarloff, among other forms), was born ca. 1881-1888(?) presumably in (or near) Bialystok (then the Russian Empire, now Poland). It is likely that she immigrated to the United States in 1904, and became a naturalized citizen in 1914. She worked as a massage therapist in the Bronx Hospital, and wrote stories which appeared in Yiddish-language publications such as Morgn frayhayt (Morning Freedom) and the Zamlungen (Collections).
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Loose in the Bright Fantastic
Author: E.B. Moore
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510478
Physical description: 5.5x8.5; 221 p. (pbk.)
Publication date: May 16, 2023
Now available!
Gray-haired Maggie flees the hospital wearing her late husband’s ill-fitting wingtips and an ancient mink over her hospital johnny. She escapes into the familiar comfort of the Boston Public Garden and, as dusk settles, her past and present meld together. She eludes the police and family for days, while revisiting old haunts, from tea at the Ritz to shopping at Goodwill. In Boston’s South End, a homeless man shelters her in his squat, while she searches for her lawyer’s office somewhere overlooking the park.
Maggie’s adult children, Clair and Roger, search frantically for her while also dealing with the final sale of Maggie’s house and the disposal of her belongings—along with their own challenges. Clair is separated from her husband and contending with being a single mother to three active children and managing a house under renovation, full of pet mice and a slobbering dog. Roger, meanwhile, is immersing himself in his charity work with the homeless, avoiding the affections of his long-time best friend Jeremy. Clair’s youngest, five-year-old Hank (aka Major Amazing Man), complicates matters further by setting out on his own to track down his beloved Nana.
Told from the varying points of view of Maggie, Clair, and Hank, each with their own version of events, this is a story of family ties that get stretched under duress but never quite break. Told with compassion and humor, this heartfelt story of generational challenges will appeal to any reader who has ever been part of a family.
E. B. Moore is a metal sculptor turned poet and novelist. She grew up in a Pennsylvania fieldstone farmhouse, moved to the Boston area, and finally found a sense of home in a South End townhouse and later a loft in Cambridge. In the middle of raising her family, her mother moved in following unsuccessful brain surgery. The family coped by finding the lighter side of outlandish happenings over the eight years they lived together; these experiences partly served as the basis for writing Loose in the Bright Fantastic. E. B. Moore is also the author of the poetry chapbook New Eden, A Legacy (Finishing Line Press, 2009) and the novels An Unseemly Wife (NAL/Penguin 2014) and Stones in the Road (NAL/Penguin/Random House, 2015). She is the mother of three, the grandmother of five, and currently lives with her partner in Scarborough, Maine.
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Songs for the Gusle
Author: Prosper Mérimée
Translator: Laura Nagle
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510454
Physical description: 5.5x8.5; 141 p. (pbk.)
Now available! A treasure-trove of "fakelore"!
This is the first complete English-language translation of La Guzla, ou Choix de poésies illyriques recueillies dans la Dalmatie, la Bosnie, la Croatie et l’Herzégowine, which presents a collection of folk literature from the former Illyrian Provinces. Or does it? It contains short pieces drawing from various genres—ersatz scholarly essays, ballad lyrics presented in the form of prose poems, folk tales, a fragment of a stage play—all generously peppered with footnotes explaining the historical and sociological context of these “discoveries.”
First published in 1827, La Guzla purported to be a collection of folktales, ballad lyrics, and travel narratives compiled and translated into French by an anonymous traveler returning from the Balkans. Before long, though, it was revealed that both the stories and their “translator” were the fictional creations of a young civil servant, Prosper Mérimée, who would later become one of the most accomplished French writers of his generation. In these dramatic tales of love, war, and encounters with the supernatural, Mérimée has given us both a treasure trove of “fakelore” and a satirical portrait of a self-appointed expert blissfully unaware of how little he understands the cultures he claims to represent.
About the Author
Prosper Mérimée (1803–1870), a French writer and translator from Russian, was a major figure in the Romantic movement. He is remembered as a pioneer of the novella, with Carmen (1845) and Colomba (1840) figuring among his best-known works. A noted archaeologist and advocate for historic preservation, Mérimée served for two decades as France’s inspector-general of historic monuments.
About the Translator
Laura Nagle is a translator and writer based in Indianapolis. Her translations of prose and poetry from French and Spanish have appeared in journals including AGNI, The Southern Review, ANMLY, and The Los Angeles Review. She received a Travel Fellowship from the American Literary Translators Association in 2020.
Street Smart x 7: A Street Smart Series Omnibus
Editor: Alison M. Lewis
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510430
Physical description: 6x9; 210 p. (pbk.)
Now together under the same cover for the first time: all seven numbers of Frayed Edge Press’ Street Smart Series of Short Fiction—novelette-length works featuring contemporary urban settings, well-drawn characters, and engaging plots.
#1 Full Fare by Jean-Bernard Pouy. Paris authorities make a plan to prevent deaths of the homeless: house them in disused train cars. Although the plan initially works, the police and authorities eventually clash with the homeless train dwellers and the anarchists who’ve come to support them.
#2 Down and Out in Paris, with Cat by R.A. Bolo. An American anarchist living and working in Paris finds that all is not well for him in the beautiful “city of lights”—his French girlfriend has left him, he’s fallen off the wagon after decades of sobriety, and a homeless cat is now tugging at his heartstrings.
#3 The Accidental Anarchist by A.R. Melnik. A turn down a New York City alley unexpectedly plunges middle-aged English professor Caroline Wilson into a world she never could have imagined, where young anarchists are battling against human traffickers—and they need Caroline’s help.
#4 Stealing MacGuffin by Matthew Kastel. A failed screenwriter turned private detective has his life turned upside-down when he’s talked into stealing MacGuffin, an unusual Tinseltown memento, from the home of one of Hollywood’s most infamous directors.
#5 Pele’s Domain by Albert Tucher. Rookie police Officer Jenny Freitas races against time—and lava—to solve a series of almost perfect murders in this police procedural taking place on the Big Island of Hawaii.
#6 “Make the Bear Be Nice” by Stephen St. Francis Decky. A homeless teen who works cleaning movie theaters at night gets his life back on track with the help a couple of unlikely friendships--and a chaotic uprising during a screening of an annoyingly ubiquitous summer blockbuster kids’ movie.
#7 The Day is Gone by Shelonda Montgomery. A Chicago family’s lives are disrupted when two young brothers and their friend discover the body of a local store owner in a ditch, setting in motion their mother’s plan to move the family to a safer neighborhood.
This volume also includes a representative illustration from each story.
DIG
Author: Robert Paul Moreira
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510416 (pbk.)
Physical description: 6x9, 187 p.
This cross-genre collection of short stories, microfiction, and drama provides a kaleidoscope of modern human experience—from navigating fraught romantic relationships and definitions of masculinity, to dealing with the pull of family ties and the struggle to make one's way in the world. Inspired by authors as diverse as Robert Graves, Leslie Marmon Silko, and playwright Luis Valdez, DIG is a bruised bricolage in four acts—UTERO, VIVO, SITU, and VITRO—that interrogates the imprisoned body, braves its way through southern cartographies, and ultimately urges readers to venture beyond the confines of history, trauma, language, place, and genre.
Featuring Latinx characters who are often caught between cultures, DIG explores themes of physical and emotional violence, human relationships, and the weight of politics, history, and culture on individuality and identity. Pathos and humor mix with frustration, revulsion, and dread to create an emotional rollercoaster that ultimately lands on a celebration of human resilience and perseverance.
Robert Paul Moreira earned his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Texas Pan American, and his Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas at San Antonio. He is the editor of ¡Arriba Baseball!: A Collection of Latina/o Baseball Fiction (2013) and author of the story collection Scores, winner of the 2016 NACCS Tejas FOCO Fiction Award. His work has appeared in Southwest American Literature, Aethlon, Azahares, Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, Cobalt Review, and the anthologies SOL: English Writing from Mexico, Along the River 2, and New Border Writing. Robert is a lecturer in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, where he has taught courses in fiction, creative nonfiction, playwriting, and Mexican American studies.
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In Madison's Cave : A Novel
Author: Douglas Anderson
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510317 (pbk.)
Physical description: 5.5x8.5, 175 p.
“We two ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to one another.”
John Adams wrote those words to Thomas Jefferson early in the long series of letters they exchanged near the end of their lives. In Madison’s Cave is Jefferson’s imaginary explanation, organized around four drawings that he hopes will map the route to a complete emancipation of human nature. The souls of men are demons, Jefferson begins, but he is convinced that he has built a verbal machine to exorcise them, a mechanism hidden in the pages of his notorious Notes on the State of Virginia.
The key to the machine is the outline of a limestone cave in the Shenandoah Valley that Jefferson made not long after the death of his wife and that captures, for him, the essence of the human underworld, its monsters and its redemptive lessons. In a series of chapters that mimic those of his infamous book, he ushers Adams into that underworld. This experimental epistolary novel considers early American history, government & politics, education, race relations, and other themes that still resonate in modern American life.
Douglas Anderson grew up in southern Ohio, attended Oberlin College, and did graduate work in American literature at the University of Virginia. He spent nearly forty years in college teaching, most of them at the University of Georgia. He has written a number of critical studies including Pictures of Ascent in the Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe (Palgrave, 2009), The Unfinished Life of Benjamin Franklin (Johns Hopkins, 2012), and The Introspective Art of Mark Twain (Bloomsbury, 2017). He and his wife currently reside in Portland, Oregon.
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The Ghettobirds
Author: Bryant O'Hara
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510355 (pbk.)
Physical description: 6x9; 85 p.
Nominated for the 2022 Elgin Award, Full-Length Book Category, from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association
The Ghettobirds presents thirty works of speculative poetry that celebrate the ability of humanity to adapt to, surpass, and possibly transcend its environment and its origins. Sprinkled throughout this Afrofuturist collection are a series of recurring characters called the Ghettobirds, cybernetic beings created out of a technological singularity event that occurs in a slum. These beings exist to help humanity change itself so that, in time, it will have the capacity to leave its home world. O’Hara works with a love of both the natural and the artificial world, and uses rhythm and cadence to compress thought into images of just how strange our experiences can become as we learn to shape—and be shaped by—both worlds.
Bryant O'Hara was born in Long Beach, California, the son of a Marine Corps technician from Heflin, Alabama and a data entry clerk from Decatur, Georgia, both of whom instilled a love of music, art, technology, and the pursuit of knowledge. He received dual degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Humanities from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1993. His poetry has been published in Pandemic Atlanta 2020, Star*Line Magazine, and Eyedrum Periodically, as well as recognized in the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Poetry Contest, long form division. Bryant is a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity and the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and is an ordained minister in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. He lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia, with his wife Alice, two out of seven children, and one out of five grandchildren.
Yearning for the Sea
Author: Esther Seligson
Translator: Selma Maarks
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
Edition: First English Language Edition
ISBN: 9781642510331 (pbk.)
Physical description: 5x7; 56 p.
Seligson’s feminist retelling of Homer’s Odyssey centers Penelope and her feelings of loss and desire. Yearning for the Sea picks up the story at the point of Ulysses' return to his wife Penelope, twenty years after the destruction of Troy. He has faced a long struggle to overcome the obstacles interposed by the gods against his return, while she has worked to hold off her obligation to remarry and provide Ithaca with a new ruler.
What did this twenty-year separation mean to this man and this woman who, after having loved each other in the flower of their youth, are now re-encountering one another as strangers marked by the separation itself? That is the portal through which Esther Seligson enters into a confessional world of the senses, of sexual desire, of love and its absence, of loneliness, and of nostalgia for lost time and lost youth.
Esther Seligson (1941-2010) was a Mexican writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator, and academic. She was born in Mexico City in 1941, to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. She graduated from the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where she studied Spanish and French Literature. Deeply interested in philosophy, mythology, and religions, she left Mexico to study at the Sorbonne and the University of Bordeaux, and later at the University Center of Jewish Studies in Paris and the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. Moved by those same interests—"passions" as she called them—she also stayed for extended periods of time in Southern India, Lisbon, Toledo, and Prague. She translated several French philosophers and writers who deeply influenced her life-long work, including Emil M. Cioran and Edmond Jabes. Her novel Otros son los sueños (Different Dreams) won the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 1973. Luz de dos (The Light Inside Us), a collection of short stories, earned the Magda Donato Prize in 1979. Among her other works are La morada en el tiempo (Dwelling in Time), 1981; two poetry books Simiente (Seed), 2004, and Negro es su Rostro (Thou Who Are Dark of Hue), posthumously published in 2010; and Todo aquí es polvo (Everything is Dust Here), also released posthumously in 2010.
Selma Marks, translator, was born and raised in Mexico City. She lives in New York City where she has worked as an interpreter for over fifteen years. She has translated plays and fiction, mostly by Mexican authors. One of those translations, Nobody Saw Them Leave, by Eduardo Antonio Parra, was published in Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, Issue 96, Vol. 51, Number 1, June 2018.
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Ere the Cock Crows
Author: Jens Bjørneboe
Translator: Esther Greenleaf Mürer
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
Edition: First English Language Edition
ISBN: 9781642510294 (pbk.)
Physical description: 6x9; 275 p.
“…the material is relevant for an America that has recently passed through a traumatizing period—one that has provided a warning of how the strategies of fascist and racist regimes of the past can be introduced like a contagion into a democratic culture. Ere the Cock Crows is an artistic rendering of a worst-case scenario, of the institutionalization of cruelty under the auspices of the state. It’s a danger alive in the present.”—from the Foreword by Joe Martin, Johns Hopkins University
Norwegian author Jens Bjørneboe's chilling novel follows the ethical quandaries--or not--of Germans involved in Nazi concentration camps and human medical experiments in World War II. Dr. Reynhardt rejects Nazi ideology, while compartmentalizing his life as a loving family man and his work on horrific medical experiments performed on prisoners of war. Head of camp Heidenbrand is more self-aware of his Nazi complicity and his reasons for doing so--his own drive for power and wealth. The situation is complicated by the arrival at the camp of Samuel, a Jewish prisoner and childhood friend of both Reynhardt and Heidenbrand. Themes of man's inhumanity to man, the ethics of modern science, and the responsibilities inherent in free will are explored, presaging concerns that continue throughout Bjørneboe's body of work.
Originally written as a play but eventually published as a novel, this first English-language edition includes a re-creation of the original play by the translator.
Jens Bjørneboe (1920-1976) was a Norwegian poet, playwright, essayist, and novelist who was arguably one of the most important writers of the mid-twentieth century. He was also a visual artist, a Waldorf School teacher, and a renowned social critic. Although little known in the English-speaking world, his work has been translated into a number of European and world languages and remains highly regarded in Scandinavia. His last major work was The Sharks (Haiene, 1974) and his most critically acclaimed were the three volumes making up the The History of Bestiality trilogy; all have been translated into English by Esther Greenleaf Mürer.
Esther Greenleaf Mürer is a poet and translator who resides in Philadelphia. She has previously translated Bjørneboe’s novels The Sharks (Norvik, 1992), Moment of Freedom (Norvik/Dufour, 1999), Powerhouse (Norvik/Dufour, 2000), and The Silence (Norvik/Dufour, 2000) as well as a number of his essays and poems. She was responsible for the “Jens Bjørneboe in English” website, which was the premiere source of information about Jens Bjørneboe written in English and included translations of his poetry, essays, and excerpts of other works.
Winter in Bellapalma
Author: Jens Bjørneboe
Translator: Esther Greenleaf Mürer
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
Edition: First English Language Edition
ISBN: 9781642510270 (pbk.)
Physical description: 5.5x8.5; 149 p.
“…a tongue-in-cheek tribute to Hemingway…prefigures [Bjørneboe’s] later writings in important ways.”—from the Introduction by Esther Greenleaf Mürer
This comic novel by renowned Norwegian writer Jens Bjørneboe follows the exploits of a community of expatriates living off-season in a small Italian fishing village: their lives, loves, and interactions with the locals, including involvement in a dispute between the fishermen and the town fathers who wish to promote the tourist industry.
A shorter, lighter read than most of Bjørneboe's work, it nonetheless invokes social commentary with concise portraits of various personality types and the inevitable collision of values in modern life between greed/progress and traditional ways of life.
Jens Bjørneboe (1920-1976) was a Norwegian poet, playwright, essayist, and novelist who was arguably one of the most important writers of the mid-twentieth century. He was also a visual artist, a Waldorf School teacher, and a renowned social critic. Although little known in the English-speaking world, his work has been translated into a number of European and world languages and remains highly regarded in Scandinavia. His last major work was The Sharks (Haiene, 1974) and his most critically acclaimed were the three volumes making up the The History of Bestiality trilogy; all have been translated into English by Esther Greenleaf Mürer.
Esther Greenleaf Mürer is a poet and translator who resides in Philadelphia. She has previously translated Bjørneboe’s novels The Sharks (Norvik, 1992), Moment of Freedom (Norvik/Dufour, 1999), Powerhouse (Norvik/Dufour, 2000), and The Silence (Norvik/Dufour, 2000) as well as a number of his essays and poems. She was responsible for the “Jens Bjørneboe in English” website, which was the premiere source of information about Jens Bjørneboe written in English and included translations of his poetry, essays, and excerpts of other works.
Right Guy, Wrong Time: A #MeToo Love Story
Author: Louise MacGregor
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510256 (pbk.)
Physical description: 5.5x8.5; 205 p.
"...skillfully portrays the reality of assault from a woman’s perspective. [S]ome readers...may find solace in seeing this topic addressed in a romance novel."-- Library Journal
"...the best portrayal of the aftermath of a rape that I have ever read in a novel."--Steff Pasciuti, Reader Fox Blog
Edie has what seems like an almost-perfect life: awesome friends, a comfortable apartment she shares with the world’s greatest cat, and a dream job as a record label talent scout. But all is not what it seems. Conflicts are heating up in her life and at work, and things take a serious turn for the worse when she is raped while on a date. Navigating pleasure, work, friends, and her forever-changed mental state after her assault is hard enough. But when the perfect guy turns up at the worst possible time, Edie has to figure out what romance and sex mean to her in the aftermath of rape. This offbeat feminist romance moves beyond “girl meets guy,” dealing empathetically with sexual dysfunction, the ubiquity of rape culture, and what recovery can look like in the #MeToo era.
Although it tackles a difficult subject, Right Guy, Wrong Time does so in a way that empowers the reader. The protagonist of this New Adult novel is a relatable character who in many ways provides a good role model for others.
Categories: New Adult, Chick Lit, Women's Fiction, Romance
Ambushing the Void
Author: James McAdams
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510232 (pbk.)
Physical description: 5.5x8.5; 150 p.
"James McAdam’s debut collection rivets and unravels, moving beyond 'genre' and into the liminal zones between language and consciousness: the taut here/there friction of becoming. In these stories, performance deconstructs—each mediated piece of everyday life held up for readers to reconfigure. It’s not enough to say Ambushing the Void is a page-turner, more than the expectation of nominal (and normative) progression, McAdam’s prose will make you stop: abrupt, arresting, relentless."
Chris Campanioni, author of A and B and Also Nothing and the Internet is for real
Ambushing the Void explores the margins of 21st century America, presenting characters seeking meaning in a world overrun by surveillance technologies, environmental decay, and drug epidemics. In “Red Tide,” a sober home uses predictive analytics to quantify recovery. In “Multiverses,” ghosts haunt the living via social media. “Such Strange Suns" presents a blind girl who misconstrues Amazon Alexa for God, while “Theory of Mind” reveals the world of professional Sock Puppets writing fake product reviews. These unforgettable, insightful stories are sympathetic and idiosyncratic reflections on contemporary life—virtual, real, and imagined.
James McAdams grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and currently resides in St. Peters-burg, FL, where he teaches English at the University of South Florida, Ringling College of Art+Design, and Keep St. Pete Lit. He holds a Ph.D. in English from Lehigh University. His stories, poems, and essays have appeared in over fifty venues, including Amazon/Day One, Bending Genres, Superstition Review, and B.O.A.T.T. Press. He is Flash Fiction editor of Barren Magazine and is working on a novel-in-flash about the opioid epidemic.
¿Cómo Hacer Preguntas? or How To Make Questions: 69 Instructional Poems in English
Author: Daniel Hales
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510218 (pbk.)
Physical description: 6X9; 118 p.
"Throughout this collection, Hales demonstrates an irrepressible wit, a musician’s ear, and a command of language that propels us past expectations to the very threshold of wonder."
William Waltz, editor of Conduit & author of Zoo Music
"...if you know any of Hales' previous work--and if you don't, I'm telling you now--nothing will be ordinary here. Torches will be lit, envelopes pushed, locks picked, tickets for the guided tour procured, and you'll find yourself, at the end of the poem, someplace you didn't expect to be. Hales is smart and agile with words, and funny in ways both outright and sly."
Trish Crapo, The Montague Reporter
¿Cómo Hacer Preguntas? or How To Make Questions: 69 Instructional Poems in English explores the spaces from which questions arise—the memories, musings, and metaphysics we use to seek out meaning. Riffing on the literal translation of the Spanish phrase "hacer pregunatas," these sixty-nine (or are there?) poems focus on the making of questions, rather than the answering of them. They interrogate everything from the mundane ("How To Pass The Time" "How To Write A Cover Letter"), to the sublime ("How To Transform Base Matter Into Gold" "How To Find God"), to the surreal ("How To Enter The Fifth Dimension" "How To Keep A Secret You Don’t Know"). This collection is sure to disappoint anyone wanting answers or guidance. But for anyone willing to be involved in the creation, the making, of life's important questions, this is the book for you.
Daniel Hales is the author of the hybrid novel, Run Story (Shape&Nature Press), and three poetry chapbooks: Shake My Ashes (Beard of Bees), Blind Drive (White Knuckle), and Tempo Maps (Ixnay), which comes with the companion CD Miner Street Symphony. His poetry, flash fiction, and hybrid writing have appeared in Verse Daily, Conduit, Booth, Quarter After Eight, and many other journals. He rocks out with The Frost Heaves and Hales, The Ambiguities, and Umbral. Umbral’s second album, F#requency 14, is forthcoming from Spork Press. He lives on a minor street in western Massachusetts, but is happiest in his kayak.
Jeremiah Hacker: Journalist, Anarchist, Abolitionist
Author: Rebecca M. Pritchard
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510065 (pbk.)
Physical description: 6X9; 126 p.
"We had much rather be all alone in the right than with the whole world in the wrong.”
So wrote Jeremiah Hacker in 1862. He was the main writer and editor of The Pleasure Boat, which may have the distinction of being Portland, Maine’s most controversial newspaper. Inspired by his Quaker background, Hacker worked to end slavery, poverty, and inequality of women through his writing. He spoke out against prisons, advocating instead for reform and education. He broke with all forms of organized religion and urged people to leave their churches and find moral direction from within. He promoted no political party, believing people would be better off without government. He was in favor of land for all. The most controversial of Hacker’s radical ideas, however—and the one that lost him the most readers—was his advocacy for peace as the country headed toward Civil War.
Hacker’s life spanned the nineteenth century (1801-1895). His work was widely read and he himself was well-known in his lifetime. But both he and his ideas have largely been forgotten—until now. This book explores the life and writings of Jeremiah Hacker, returning him to his rightful place in history, and showing how his words were an important part of what helped to forge that history.
Stealing: A Novel in Dreams
Author: Shelly Brivic
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510034 (pbk.)
Physical description: 6X9; 260 p.
Two Jewish brothers growing up in the 1950s Bronx navigate a toxic home environment headed by an emotionally abusive father and an unhappy mother. One brother eventually finds escape through academic achievement and a new life on the west coast, while the other brother remains entangled in the darkness of his existence, his life and mind slowly unraveling. By presenting the conscious and unconscious connections between family members, this experimental novel explores the concept of individuality, the psychological influences of family, and the very nature of reality.
Shelly Brivic is an internationally recognized James Joyce scholar and a retired university professor. He has written extensively on Joyce and other modernists from the perspective of Lacanian psychology. His most recent scholarly book is Revolutionary Damnation: Badiou and Irish Fiction from Joyce to Enright, from Syracuse University Press. Stealing: A Novel in Dreams is his first work of fiction.
The Splooge Factory
Author: Christina Springer
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510041 (pbk.)
Physical description: 5.5x8.5; 75 p.
This collection of poetry arose from the author's experiences as the fill-in receptionist at an "adult services" massage parlor in Pittsburgh. Informed by theories of feminized eroticism and a feminist inquiry of power dynamics, these poems reflect the real stories of the real women who worked there.
Christina Springer is an Alt.Black artist who uses text, performance, video, and other visual expressions to communicate what the space between molecules in the air wish for you to know. Her work has been published widely in a variety of poetry journals, including Obsidian, Eyedrum Periodically, The Drunken Boat, and Callaloo. She was the longest-reigning Pittsburgh Poetry Slam champion.
A Nurse's Story: Medical Missionary in Korea and Siberia, 1915-1920
Author: Delia Battles Lewis
Editors: Alison M. Lewis, with John C. Parrish
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510003 (pbk)
Physical description: 6X9; 185 p.; 41 b&w photos.
Delia Battles left her small town in Ohio to train as a nurse in New York City and then went on an adventure of a lifetime. She found fulfillment in her work as a medical missionary in Korea, training native nurses at the mission hospital in another small town, Haeju. Her life of service there was interrupted by WWI, when she was called to be part of a Red Cross unit on the Eastern Front. She traveled on the Trans-Siberian railroad, encountered fleeing refugees in Harbin, and then worked in a typhus hospital and helped establish a Red Cross hospital in Omsk. At the end of the war, she returned to Korea to work in a hospital in Seoul, just in time to witness the first stirrings of the Korean Independence movement.
Delia Battles Lewis (1888-1959) was an Ohio native who earned her nursing degree at the Presbyterian Hospital's School of Nursing in New York (now the Columbia University School of Nursing). Following her medical mission service in Korea and her Red Cross work during World War I, she returned to Ohio and married William A. Lewis of Ashtabula; they had two children. She later returned to private nursing and remained a staunch advocate for the nursing profession throughout her life.
Full Fare
Author: Jean-Bernard Pouy
Translators: Carolyn Gates, Jean-Philippe Gury, and Robert Helms
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
Edition: English language edition, 2019
ISBN: 9781642510096
Physical description: 5x7; 62 p., 7 b&w illustrations
Series: Street Smart Series, No. 1
As the temperature drops, Paris authorities make a plan to prevent deaths of the homeless: house them in disused train cars on the outskirts of the city. This unintentionally creates a social and political experiment that leads to a new form of society—and causes the police and authorities to clash with the homeless train dwellers and the anarchists who’ve come to support them.
Jean-Bernard Pouy is a popular French author, best known for the Le Poulpe (“the octopus,” also a play on words evoking pulp fiction) series of detective stories, featuring the distinctively anarchistic sleuth, Gabriel Lecouvreur. Full Fare is the first English translation of anything Pouy has written. It is hoped that this will be a first taste for English-language readers of what Francophone readers have been enjoying for years.
Down and Out in Paris, with Cat
Author: R.A. Bolo
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510133 (pbk.)
Physical description: 5x7; 50 p., 3 b&w illustrations
Series: Street Smart Series, No. 2
The trials and tribulations of an American anarchist abroad: an American ex-patriot leads a life that many would envy, living and working in Paris. But all is not well for him in the beautiful “city of lights”—his French girlfriend has left him, he’s fallen off the wagon after decades of sobriety, and a homeless cat is now tugging at his heartstrings.
R. A. Bolo is a pseudonym of two people who live in West Philadelphia, one of whom identifies as an anarchist, and both of whom love their cats.
The Accidental Anarchist
Author: A.R. Melnik
Press: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510157 (pbk.)
Physical description: 5x7; 58 p., 3 b&w illustrations
Series: Street Smart Series, No. 3
Middle-aged English professor Caroline Wilson has a good job and a good husband in Philadelphia, but a restless need for a change of scene and a little excitement has her impulsively boarding a commuter bus to New York one morning. A turn down a New York City alley unexpectedly plunges her into a world she never could have imagined, where young anarchists are battling against human traffickers—and they need Caroline’s help.
A.R. Melnik is a long-time West Philadelphia resident. All of her trips to New York have been planned in advance.
Stealing MacGuffin
Author: Matthew Kastel
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510171
Physical description: 70 p., 3 b&w illustrations
Series: Street Smart Series, No. 4
A failed screenwriter turned private detective has his life turned upside-down when he’s talked into stealing MacGuffin, an unusual Tinseltown memento, from the home of one of Hollywood’s most infamous directors. This odd piece of memorabilia has had a storied and deadly chain of custody since the silent era and is prized among some of Hollywood’s elite. Along the way there is murder, a beautiful woman, and a colorful cast of characters all playing their roles in the theft. Set in present-day Baltimore, Stealing MacGuffin pays homage to the likes of Dashiell Hammett and the hard-boiled detective story, while at the same time spoofing Hollywood both past and presen
Matthew Kastel lives in an undisclosed location in suburban Maryland with his beloved black lab, Hershey...and the rest of his family.
Pele's Domain
Author: Albert Tucher
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510195
Physical description: 50 p., 3 b&w illustrations
Series: Street Smart Series, No. 5
The eruption of Kilauea on the Big Island of Hawaii tests Officer Jenny Freitas like nothing else in her young police career. It’s not enough that she finds a murder victim in a doomed house just seconds before the lava overwhelms it. A second victim draws Jenny back to the danger zone again and again. Maybe the goddess Pele isn’t satisfied with owning the islands. Maybe she, and the killer, want Jenny too.
"Tucher made a good choice in setting the story in the midst of Kilauea’s eruption. It is not only an unusual adversary, akin to a hurricane or an avalanche, it adds an overlay of dread to the story – things are out of control. . . . Pele’s Domain is a quick fun read!" -- Vicki Weisfeld in Crime Fiction Lover
Albert Tucher is the author of the Errol Coutinho/Big Island of Hawaii series of novels, which includes The Place of Refuge, The Hollow Vessel, and The Honorary Jersey Girl. He also writes about prostitute Diana Andrews, who has appeared in almost 100 hardboiled stories and the novella The Same Mistake Twice. Albert Tucher recently retired from forty years of public librarianship, and he spends every possible moment in Hawaii.
"Make the Bear Be Nice"
Author: Stephen St. Francis Decky
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510379
Physical description: 45 p., 3 b&w illustrations
Series: Street Smart Series, No. 6
Summer Special! While Supplies Last!
FREE Sticker set with every purchase!
Sticker set measures 4x6 inches and contains four main stickers and several smaller, snacky ones! Perfect for decorating your computer, phone, or book cover. Commemorates the "story within the story" of the summer kiddie blockbuster -- Make the Bear Be Nice!
About the novella: A homeless teen working nights cleaning movie theaters at a South Jersey cineplex forms an unlikely friendship with a former high-school classmate and his sister. Their relationship—as well as his relationship with his estranged father—culminates with a chaotic uprising during a screening of an annoyingly ubiquitous summer blockbuster kids’ movie.
Stephen St. Francis Decky is a multimedia artist and writer whose work has appeared in festivals, collections, and museums internationally. As a technical collaborator, he has worked on video installations in Boston, New York, and Montana, and has taught animation and digital media courses at several schools, including Tufts University and Lycoming College. He currently lives and works in upstate New York.
Now Available
The Day is Gone
Author: Shelonda Montgomery
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510393
Physical description: 63 p., 3 b&w illustrations
Series: Street Smart Series, No. 7
A Chicago family’s lives are disrupted when two young brothers and their friend discover the body of a local store owner in a ditch. The children are so used to seeing violence in their neighborhood that they don’t bother telling anyone. When their mother finds out, it sets in motion a plan to move the family to a safer neighborhood. Complications arise when their father loses his job and abandons them, leaving their mother to ensure the safety of the family on her own.
Shelonda Montgomery holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with a Creative Writing Concentration from Roosevelt University and a Masters of Arts in English with a Creative Writing Concentration from Southern New Hampshire University. Her works are in the journals Sinister Wisdom, Akikiro, Prevention at the Intersections, The African-American Review, and the poetry anthology Urban Voices. She writes for MyUmbrella.co and resides in Chicago with her son James and Grandmother Emma.
Now Available!