Danny Shot Releases New Collection, Night Bird Flying, Today

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Danny Shot Releases New Collection, Night Bird Flying, Today

February 12, 2025 — Esteemed poet and writer Danny Shot unveils his latest work, Night Bird Flying, a compelling collection of autobiographical stories that traverse the landscapes of New Jersey and New York. Published by Roadside Press, this release offers readers an intimate glimpse into Shot’s experiences and reflections.

Night Bird Flying comprises ten autobiographical vignettes, capturing Shot’s journey from his high school years to the present. The collection delves into themes of identity, belonging, and resilience, painting a vivid picture of life straddling the Hudson River. In the opening essay, “Ich bin ein New Yorker,” Shot grapples with his dual identity, asserting, “As much as I might wish to the contrary, there’s no denying I’m a Jersey guy. But there’s also no denying I’m a New Yorker too. I’ve paid my dues.”

Early reviews have lauded the collection’s depth and authenticity. Ryan Mathews in Beatdom remarked, “There are parts of Night Bird Flying that made me laugh out loud, parts that made me tear up, and a lot of parts that caused me to nod and smile.”

Similarly, Richard Modiano in Sensitive Skin Magazine described the work as “a fierce and poignant collection that captures the grit and tenderness of life on the fringes.”

Danny Shot, co-founder of Long Shot literary magazine and former NYC public high school teacher, brings decades of literary and educational experience to this collection. His previous works have been featured in notable anthologies, including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry.

Night Bird Flying is now available for purchase through Roadside Press and other major book retailers.

About Danny Shot

Danny Shot is a poet, writer, and editor based in Hoboken, NJ. He co-founded Long Shot literary magazine and has taught in various NYC public high schools. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, reflecting his deep connection to the New Jersey/New York metropolitan area.

About Roadside Press

Roadside Press is dedicated to publishing authentic voices that capture the diverse experiences of contemporary life. Committed to literary excellence, the press showcases works that resonate with readers seeking depth and insight.

For media inquiries, please contact:

Michele McDannold
Publisher
roadsidepress01@gmail.com

Michael T. Fournier reviews Dave Newman’s SHE THROWS HERSELF FORWARD TO STOP THE FALL

She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall By Dave Newman, 192 pgs.

Sep 19, 2024

I’ve been following Dave Newman’s work for years. His depictions of America’s working class are stark in their honesty without ever pandering or slipping into schmaltz. The characters that inhabit his world are always a bad break away from losing everything, whether that break is cosmic or (often) self-inflicted. In She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall, school is the commonality as Newman’s cast, mostly women, tries to cobble together better lives for themselves. One ekes out a meager living teaching adjunct college sections, another works food service while taking night classes, yet another continues to hope her boyfriend has turned his life around and that this will be the last time she has to pick him up at a crack house in the middle of the night.

Newman’s juxtaposition of tragedy and humor incorporates so many small details and big swings that each short story is a self-contained world, gripping and convincing. I keep reviewing his stuff here because he’s such a great writer, one I think Razorcake readers would dig. You know what? Fuck that—one that readers would dig, period. This one’s a banger, a heartbreaker laced with the odd beam of pure sunlight. –Michael T. Fournier

this review first appeared in Razorcake at https://razorcake.org/she-throws-herself-forward-to-stop-the-fall-by-dave-newman-192-pgs/

Cover Reveal & Pre-order: CLOUD WATCHING IN THE INFERNO by Westley Heine

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Cover Reveal & Pre-Order Announcement: Cloud Watching in the Inferno by Westley Heine

Roadside Press is thrilled to unveil the cover for Cloud Watching in the Inferno, the latest work by acclaimed author Westley Heine. Featuring striking cover art by Daniel Stine, this highly anticipated collection is set for release on April 20, 2025. Readers can now pre-order signed copies at Magical Jeep and reserve their place for this compelling new book.

About the Book:
Cloud Watching in the Inferno brings together Heine’s best works from 2022 to 2024, blending poetry and short fiction with surreal imagery and dark humor. This collection captures the existential angst of modern life through narratives that span the past and future, featuring unforgettable characters and themes of heartbreak, AI, sex, death, America, insecurity, poverty, religion, ecological collapse, disease, alcoholism, madness, and space travel.

About the Author:
Westley Heine is the author of Busking Blues: Recollections of a Chicago Street Musician and Squatter (Roadside Press, 2022), the short story collection 12 Chicago Cabbies (2021), and the poetry collection The Trail of Quetzalcoatl (2016). His latest poetry collection, Street Corner Spirits, is now available, with audio excerpts streaming on most platforms under the same title.

Heine has performed twice at the Green Mill Poetry Slam in Uptown Chicago and is now the host of the poetry open mic at The Gallery Cabaret in Bucktown, held every 4th Saturday. With a background as diverse as his writing—ranging from taxi dispatcher to filmmaker—Heine brings a raw, unfiltered perspective to his work.

Praise for Cloud Watching in the Inferno:

“Searing counterculture literature in this age of extinction. Heine chronicles tragic and comedic dysfunction, capturing the raw beauty of contemporary life with hard-boiled observations.”—Mike Zone, author of Skull My Daisy and The Earth was Shaking for Days

“A love-making session gone off the bed into the unknown. Heine’s poetry cracks the illusion of the soul with sharp visions of colorful reality.”—Cathleen Schandelmeier, author of Tattoo Screams of Love and Chicago Phoenix

“Raw and unfiltered, Heine’s collection captures the aching beauty of longing, the absurdity of modern existence, and the fleeting connections that define us.”—Richard Modiano, Director Emeritus, Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center Los Angeles

“Westley Heine reminds me of Sherwood Anderson, viewing the loneliness and rage of current-day America. He respects humanity’s endurance while exposing the rottenness of the world.”—Zak Mucha, LCSW, author of Swimming to the Horizon: Crack, Psychosis, and Street-Corner Social Work

“A wild ride of style and diction. Buckle up.”—Donna Vorreyer, author of Unrivered and Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story

“A compelling quest to understand the self—Heine’s words move, enlighten, provoke, and delight.”—Sarah Rae, author of Someplace Else

“Brilliant storytelling infused with blues-inflected poetry—this collection stays with you.”—David Alec Knight, author of LEPER MOSH and The Heart is a Hollow Organ

Reserve Your Signed Copy Today!
Pre-order now at Magical Jeep and be among the first to experience Cloud Watching in the Inferno upon its release on April 20, 2025.

For media inquiries, review copies, or interview requests, please contact Roadside Press.

Follow Westley Heine on Instagram: @westleyheine

Alan Catlin reviews Dave Newman’s She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall

first published in http://misfitmagazine.net/

Dave Newman, She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall, Roadside Press, Magical Jeep Distribution, available on Amazon, 200 pages, 2024

Poet and prose master Newman scores big in this collection of seven tight stories. While these people don’t know each other, they probably would make instant connections. Most of them are at an age, pushing 30, unmarried, working loser jobs, half-heartedly finishing college degrees in something  with a vague dream of bettering their lives at some, unidentifiable point. They are invariably women, though not always, neither really good looking or unattractive, casual drug users, alcohol abusing, one-night standers or in nowhere relationships.  They are increasingly aware this life is going to offer them nothing if they don’t get their asses in gear and yet… And yet they lack motivation, the will to do so.  These people are not hopeless or particularly exceptional, they are just, well, people, people I have known, hell, I might even  have been one of those. Once a book I wrote based on real-life experiences was rejected with a scathing rebuke among the many, often right, alas, observations was the main character has no plans. ( I cut that part out and it became the book I wanted it to be so it wasn’t a complete loss) He has children, degrees, a crappy job but he has no real plans, well, sweetheart if you were draft eligible during the early 70s with a family or not, you’d be lucky to have a crappy job, because no one would hire you and only the government could provide the much-needed assistance to see you through to the next crappy paycheck… Newman’s people could be my children. They are not, but they could be. Read Newman, he knows of what he speaks.

—Alan Catlin, Editor misfitmagazine.net

She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall by Dave Newman is available at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/throws/168

Alan Catlin reviews Karl Koweski’s Abandoned by All Things

first published in http://misfitmagazine.net/

Karl Koweski, Abandoned by All Things, Roadside Press
Distributed by Magical Jeep Distribution, available on Amazon, 2024, 136 pages $15-

Koweski’s journey in life travels from the Midwest to the deep South. He observes Alabama’s barely sentient senator Tommy Tuberville as “the mostly evil, largely senseless/senator of Alabama” whose modest credentials for elective office,  (to us Northerners, who could give a rat’s ass about college football,) was as a relatively successful coach at Auburn.  Koweski’s musings about life are from the point of view of a guy who never completely “straightened out and flew right” as a football coach would demand. In fact, he was what you would call a fuck-up, but one who became an unpretentious, regular guy. He’s a stand-up dad and husband who remains a devoted Chicago Cubs fan, which once was, until recently, the ultimate exercise in futility. One could argue lifelong Cubs fans know loyalty beyond the boundaries of common sense (a sentiment Red Sox fans can appreciate) but ultimately paid off. The Cubs are and continue to be, an extension of the family, one could argue, which makes the poem for the late Ron Santo, a symbol of hardnosed, unflinching toughness as a player that transferred to his life and a fatal battle with a disease that claimed parts of his body piece by piece, until he died.  Fittingly, a fantasy poem describes how the poet is faced with a choice by the deity who governs the afterlife, “Cubbies winning the World Series/or Trump losing the presidential election…”(of 2016) Of course, the poet chooses the Cubbies winning  the World Series.  Somewhere Ernie Banks is smiling…As Koweski mused, “how batshit crazy could Trump/truly be?” Alas, we are finding out now…The bottom line was, remains, it was an impossible choice and you had to choose something. The lady or the tiger? Koweski is a poet for the reader who grooves on the stuff of everyday life.

Abandoned by All Things by Karl Koweski is available at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/abandon/164

Other Books by Karl Koweski:
Under Normal Conditions (poetry)
Thrift Store Jackets (stories)

Cover Reveal and Pre-Order—ALL SKATE: True Stories from Middle Life by Lori Jakiela

ALL SKATE: True Stories from Middle Life will resonate with anyone who has ever wondered what comes next and how to face it with humor, love, and strength. Don’t miss this masterful new release from Lori Jakiela, available March 14, 2025.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Cover Reveal and Pre-Order Announcement: ALL SKATE: True Stories from Middle Life by Lori Jakiela

Cover Art by Lou Ickes

Pre-Order Now: https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/all-skate/186

Release Date: March 14, 2025
Publisher: Roadside Press

ALL SKATE: True Stories from Middle Life is a series of musings from one mid-life woman, wife, and mother on what it means to grow old in a country obsessed with TikTok, Instagram influencers, and that creepy Elon Musk and his Mars-bound robots. “What will you do / with your one wild and precious life?” the poet Mary Oliver asked, and the answer here is “everything.” From grade-school crushes to pandemic roller-skating disasters, from the dread of bathing suit season to the embrace of flawed and beautifully fragile bodies, from the uncomfortable joy of Swedish death-cleaning to the easy joy of holding on to the tiniest moments that matter, All Skate is one woman’s testimony to the eternal powers of humor, love, and kindness.

In this poignant and laugh-out-loud series of reflections, Jakiela invites readers into her world: from the heartbreak and hilarity of grade-school crushes to the pandemic roller-skating fiascos; from the dreaded anticipation of bathing suit season to the joyful embrace of flawed and fragile bodies. She takes on the challenges of Swedish death-cleaning with wit and delves into the smallest, most profound moments of human connection—testifying to the eternal power of humor, love, and kindness.

About the Author
Lori Jakiela is the author of seven books, most recently a memoir, They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice: On Cancer, Love, and Living Even So (Atticus Books). Another memoir, Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe (Autumn House Press), received the Saroyan Prize for International Literature from Stanford University. Lori’s essay collection, Portrait of the Artist as a Bingo Worker: On Work and the Writing Life (Bottom Dog Press), has been adopted as a common text at Westmoreland Community College for the past two years. Many of the essays in All Skate: True Stories from Mid-Life have been published in places like Pittsburgh Magazine, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Washington Post, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Journal of the Plague Years, Pulse, and more. Lori’s other work has appeared in The New York Times/Modern Love column, The Chicago Tribune, Brevity/Creative Nonfiction, Full Grown People, The Rumpus, and more. Her author website is http://lorijakiela.net.

Pre-Order Your Copy Today
Be among the first to own this heartfelt and hilarious tribute to the power of aging with grace, grit, and gratitude. Pre-order ALL SKATE: True Stories from Middle Life now at: https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/all-skate/186.

Media Contact:
Michele McDannold
Publisher
roadsidepress01@gmail.com

Two Roadside Press titles are reviewed in Rain Taxi Review of Books

Gregory Corso: Ten Times a Poet, edited by Leon Horton and Michele McDannold is reviewed by Patrick James Dunagan

The pressure of fame mixed with a hidden yet inherent shyness drove poet Gregory Corso to adopt a bad-boy persona, fueled by a heroin habit he never could kick and only resisted with the steady aid of alcohol. Unsure of his ability to meet the high expectations held by his audience, Corso remained until the end the louche raconteur of the Beats. Yet contributors to Gregory Corso: Ten Times a Poet make it clear that despite Corso’s personal faults and endless antics, his undeniably impish charm and sharp intellect readily won them over.”

Zack Kopp gives us the lowdown on She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall by Dave Newman

“Dave Newman’s writing was once described as a “deranged cross between Charles Bukowski and William Wordsworth”—derivative of neither while equally evocative of both, and drawing “strength from both traditions” (Tears in the Fence, March 2014). Newman’s work has also been compared to Denis Johnson’s famed 1992 collection Jesus’ Son. His latest collection, She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall, shows Newman holding steady among the rank of American authors who represent contemporary fiction’s latest upheavals of convention.”

Read the full reviews and more … Print edition available for purchase at https://raintaxi.com/rain-taxi-review/print-edition/

Beatdom publishes review by Ryan Mathews on NIGHT BIRD FLYING by Danny Shot


“Legend has it that it took Jimi Hendrix 32 takes to master his “Night Bird Flying” and that was before multiple overdubs were added. The tune was first presented at the opening party of Jimi’s Electric Lady studio on August 26, 1970.

Danny Shot nailed his version in one.”

—Ryan Mathews, author

 

Read the full review here https://www.beatdom.com/night-bird-review/

Review of NIGHT BIRD FLYING published at Sensitive Skin Magazine


“Danny Shot’s Night Bird Flying from Roadside Press is a fierce and poignant collection that captures the grit and tenderness of life on the fringes—where New Jersey meets New York and scars of the past meet the possibility of healing. Shot’s voice is steeped in the dualities of identity, blending humor with heartache and toughness with vulnerability.”—Richard Modiano

 

READ THE FULL REVIEW at Sensitive Skin Magazine here: https://www.sensitiveskinmagazine.com/night-bird-flying-by-danny-shot-review/

Shot of Life: A Review of Danny Shot’s Night Bird Flying by Westley Heine

Shot of Life: A Review of Danny Shot’s Night Bird Flying
By Westley Heine

first published at the Rusty Truck

Like its namesake the Hendrix song “Night Bird Flying,” this collection of stories builds and builds until you think it’s hit a plateau. Then it builds upon itself again. Largely autobiographical, this book is written in a tough New Jersey, New York, some new voice that is also very familiar. It’s good storytelling to allow the characters to unravel and reveal themselves. By the end of the second piece “72 Scars” I was completely engrossed, wanting to learn more, and my sympathies were completely with the narrator.

Danny Shot leaves a lot of blood on the page. He paints a vivid picture of growing up in Jersey in the late 60s early 70s from greaser gang fights in the park, rivals, crushes, his Bukowski level acne, sex and drugs, studying boxing, from a friend dying too young to his father dying when Danny was only 15. There’s also some privileged gossip like treating his acne with the same famous doctor who did the hair transplants for famous clients like hockey player Bobby Hull, Frank Sinatra, and then U.S. Senator Joe Biden.

During the early flashbacks he viscerally conjures the insecure thoughts and phrases of a teenager. Most people leave that young person inside them behind until they atrophy. A good writer stays in touch however torturous that can be to the psyche. His teenage angst reminded me of my own. He accurately captures tripping on acid in a high school classroom in only half a page. That’s good writing.

On to the excitement of college, becoming a poet, underground music, finding and losing love. We get to tag-a-long through the Lower East Side and day-drinking with Gregory Corso in San Francisco. However, these memories are not macho retelling of glory days. What makes the book so compelling is the humility. The author doesn’t glaze over when he’d acted badly. There’s a reflectiveness and honesty in this book rare in a world that is increasingly virtue signaling and sterilizing itself out of life.

Cutting between the time of writing (presumably now) and decades past at first feels like the fourth wall fell down, but the effect is another level of honesty and shows how much the author has changed as a person. He is a survivor. He has made the transition from student to teacher. He describes the alchemy of conjuring the past. There are things he doesn’t want to write about but does anyway. So no, the memoir sections are not self-indulgent but very generous. The freedom of the 70s and 80s artist scene implodes under its own weight. The passion first warms, but then burns all those involved like a lighter under a bubbling spoon. This is personified in his tumultuous relationship with Carla, which I won’t attempt to summarize here because it’s his story to tell, and he does so very well.

Night Bird Flying also includes pieces like “Big Dick,” which as it turns out is a work of fiction. As males, who among us hasn’t fantasized about an increase in our manhood? The story takes this dream come true to Kafkaesque proportions until the fantasy becomes a nightmare. This is the kind of satire that perfectly comments on masculinity, and all the complexities and ironies one has to face when being both a poet and barroom brawler. From memoir to creative writing all these separate pieces complement each other until we have the essence of a man’s life, his youth, and the world of Beat Poetry he’s been a part of since the 70s. The writing is so full of life that I was near the end until I realized that Night Bird Flying is largely a meditation on death. Death of a lover, death of friends and fellow poets Allen Ginsberg and Andy Clausen, as well as the death of the mother he loves.

What I like most about Danny Shot’s writing is that it hits the sweet spot where things can be both funny and sad at the same time. Life is just fucked-up, but good storytelling keeps us from feeling that way.


Night Bird Flying is available for pre-order at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/night/184

Westley Heine is the author of Busking Blues: Recollections of a Chicago Street Musician and Squatter through Roadside Press (2022), a short story collection 12 Chicago Cabbies (2021), and volume of poetry The Trail of Quetzalcoatl (2016). He has featured twice at the Green Mill Poetry Slam in Uptown Chicago, and is the new host of the poetry open mic at The Gallery Cabaret in Bucktown every 4th Saturday. Most recently Roadside Press has released his new poetry collection entitled Street Corner Spirits, audio excerpts of which are now available on most streaming services under the same title.

He’s been a taxi dispatcher, a roadie, a deliveryman, a squatter, a street musician, a grocery clerk, a chambermaid, a novelist, a painter, a metal head, a Boy Scout, an insurance investigator, a jailbird, a farmhand, sold tickets to the symphony, sold plasma, been unemployed, and been a filmmaker. Life is always creating new characters inside him, but always a writer. He’s rambled from Wisconsin, to Chicago, Europe, Texas, Mexico, California, and everywhere in between. Let in the light. Let out the fire. Instagram: @westleyheine

Busking Blues: Recollections of a Chicago Street Musician and Squatter by Westley Heine is available at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/busking/98

Street Corner Spirits by Westley Heine is available at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/spirits/136