Sep 18

Nathan Graziano examines ‘A Better Loser’ in new story collection

New Hampshire’s Nathan Graziano returns with another cast of unforgettable characters in a new linked story collection 23 years after his debut, ‘Frostbite’.

After more than two decades, Manchester writer Nathan Graziano has finally followed up on his debut short story collection, Frostbite (Green Bean Press, 2002). On Oct. 21, Roadside Press, an independent press in Illinois, will publish Graziano’s new book A Better Loser.

In A Better Loser, Nathan Graziano’s new collection of linked short stories, his characters are losing their battles to preserve their dignity and self-respect, which continues to disappear in front of them. Whether facing romantic troubles, addiction, or struggling to keep their passions in check, these characters will not allow their failures to define them—they are learning to become “better losers.” Set in Southern New Hampshire, Graziano introduces readers to a cast that includes amateur magicians, struggling musicians, hirsute giants, runaway teenagers, and restless local journalists. Now, Graziano returns with a new round of working-class tales that combine wry humor and a hard—and sometimes dark—look at the relationships that define us.

Exeter’s Todd Hearon—the author of Do Geese See God and Crows in Eden and a musician whose recent album Yolelady has received critical acclaim—has praised Graziano’s new book.

“Reading Nathan Graziano’s latest collection of interlocking stories is a little like waking in a morning-after fog, with the sinking realization that the stranger crashed beside you in the bed happens to be you,” Hearon writes. “It’s that dire—and it’s funny as hell.  Graziano’s eye is at once relentless and sympathetic, and his style is an accelerometer, attuned to the subtlest of emotional vibrations; he wears his fuckups, wayward kids and dysfunctional adults, like a second skin.  The biggest win (to my mind) of A Better Loser is the author’s skill at registering, often simultaneously, the heart-wrenching and hilarious, holding out to the bitter end the sliver of redemption—hard-won and entirely unexpected—that shines like a strand of gold amid the mass of human wreckage.  Once the haze of pot smoke, booze and painkillers clears, this cast of losers will stay with you for a long, long time.”

A Better Loser is Graziano’s eleventh full-length book, and in many ways, his most ambitious. He is the author of four other works of fiction, his most recent being the novella Fly Like The Seagull (Luchador Press, 2021) as well as six collections of poetry.

A high school English teacher at Pembroke Academy and an adjunct professor at Southern New Hampshire University, Graziano’s other works include Not So Profound (GBP, 2003) Teaching Metaphors (Sunnyoutside Press, 2007), After the Honeymoon (Sunnyoutside Press, 2009) Hangover Breakfasts (Bottle  of Smoke Press, 2012), Some Sort of Ugly (Marginalia Publishing, 2013), My Next Bad Decision (Artistically Declined Press, 2014), Almost Christmas (Redneck Press, 2017) and Born on Good Friday (Roadside Press, 2023).

A graduate of the MFA writing program at The University of New Hampshire, Graziano is also an award-winning columnist for Manchester Ink Link and has contributed nonfiction work in publications such New Hampshire Magazine, The Good Man Project, The Huffington Post and BostonMan Magazine.

The book release is scheduled for Nov. 8 at Pembroke City Limits in Suncook Village.

Nathan Graziano lives in Manchester with his wife, Liz, and a pug named Buster. He is available for readings, signings, speaking engagements or interviews at the contact information below.

For more information on Graziano:
Website: www.nathangraziano.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nathangrazianowriter

Jul 21

Excerpt from PERSEVERANCE: THE MAKING OF A MUSICIAN by Steven Grey

Please Die & Everything – Part 4: Fuckin’ Lenny

On the off days from my main two jobs, I still did the sales job whenever I could. We all hung out outside of work to various degrees as well. Something must have happened to Lenny’s car at some point because I remember giving him rides occasionally. He did the same for me when I didn’t have a car, so he’d earned it.

This dude begged me—literally begged me—to take him all the way across town so he could see his girlfriend for like twenty minutes. It was only because of this prolonged, pitiful begging that I finally relented and took him. As we began the drive, I must provide the context that it did not appear that Lenny had anything on his person.

We were driving.

“Thank you, thank you,” he said.

“Yeah it’s cool, I guess. Just try not to take forever because I have to work tomorrow, you know.”

“Yeah man, I get it.”

I let the silence ride. Dusk began to fade into night. The last bit of light was leaving the sky. We were on a long stretch of a lonely two-lane road. There weren’t too many cars out that night. The only investment I’d made into my new-to-me car was a fifteen-dollar tape adapter, but I got it from my new job at the electronic store, so it was like five bucks after my discount. I had music playing—I always did. If I had a friend in the car, I’d keep it low enough not to inhibit conversation.

“I love this song,” Lenny said.

It was a song he had introduced me to. It was maybe the only musical thing we had in common.

“Yeah, I know. Me too,” I replied.

It was a damn good song.

Silence again, except for the music. As we cruised through that serene little slice of Kentucky—stars starting to shine in the night sky, as the trees became clouds of black that whizzed by on the ground—the peaceful silence was broken by an unmistakable sound.

Krrchhhk!

That was the sound of a can being opened. I looked over at Lenny, who I could’ve earlier sworn didn’t look like he had an entire unopened aluminum can just in his fucking pocket, and this mother fucker is hunched over with puckered lips about to take a sip of a PBR, which, hailing from Chicago, I was sure was responsible for 70% of all beer sales.

“Dude, what the absolute fuck do you think you are doing!?” I yelled, breaking the silence.

“Dude, what? It’s just a beer!”

“You can’t have an open container in a car!”

“I’m not even driving!”

“It doesn’t matter, that’s still illegal! Did you seriously not know that!?”

“No, dude. Sorry. Here, I’ll chug it.”

“No, don’t chug it, get rid of it!”

“Well, I’m not going to waste it!” he said, immediately before shotgunning the beer in about nine seconds.

“Fine, whatever, just throw it out the window.”

He did so.

“…Thank you!” I said, clearly frustrated.

I sighed—let the stress out—got back to driving. Hopefully, it would just be a chill drive again. I thought about how maybe it could be theoretically possible that this dude could’ve been sheltered enough—in just the right way—that he might have missed that it’s illegal to have an open beer in a moving car. He was still fairly young. I believe he was nineteen—maybe twenty—which reminds me that I’m not sure how he readily had access to beer at that age. But either way, that was done. At least he knew now. Nothing bad happened. I’ll let it go, I guess. The silence breathed again. I was back to focusing on the road and the peaceful Kentucky night sky.

Krrchhhk!

I look over, and this motherfucker has another beer in hand.

“Are you absolutely godamn serious right now?!”

“You said to get rid of the beer! I’m getting rid of the beer!”

He began to chug.

Steven Grey is a musician, writer, and artist hailing primarily from Chicago, where he lives with his very good dog, Koda. He graduated as a film major and has worked with noteworthy writers and directors throughout the industry. Steven is the lead singer, primary creative force, and sole lyricist behind the band Shards of Grey, which led to his becoming a producer for several other musical acts. Blending these two art forms, his first album with Shards of Grey and his first book are tandem concepts that tell the same story through the lens of different mediums.

Perseverance: The Making of a Musician (a novel) by Steven Grey is now available for pre-order at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/perseverance/200

Additionally, check out some of the audio from the Perseverance album! https://shardsofgrey.bandcamp.com/track/please-die-everything

Jun 24

NIGHT BIRD FLYING by Danny Shot reviewed by Alan Catlin

first published in misfit magazine, Editor Alan Catlin

Danny Shot, Night Bird Flying, Roadside Press, distributed by Magical Jeep also available on Amazon, 2025, 130 pages $17

I might as well get this out of the way up front, if I had to create a list of the top ten small press mags since I stared publishing in the 70s, Danny Shot’s Long Shot would be on it.  Wormwood will always be number one because the incomparable editor Marvin Malone. We should aspire to and try to be half the editor he was. After that, well there was some great ones and Long Shot had it all going especially around the time of 9-11 when everything was turning to shit in a major way. I guess this is a roundabout way of saying, they published me several times, so if that suggests I have a conflict of interest, well, so be it. I do my best to be subjective.

So, okay, I loved this book beginning with the whacko cover girl with the lightning bolt underarm hair, holding down the fort by a café table covered in empty Bud cans cigarette butts, an almost empty cheap bottle of Vodka; the usual detritus of a night of hard drinking. We later meet the cover girl as Cinful Cindy, gonzo pal of his lost love Carla, the subject of the longest story in the book, “What a Wonderful World.”

I confess I have a thing about Night Bird Flying, the title of the book, which conjures up memories of Allison Steele the night DJ on WNEW FM in the late 60s early 70s who is a minor background character in “What a Wonderful World”. I can still hear Allison’s tag line,

The flutter of wings, the shadow across the moon, the sounds of the night, as the Nightbird spreads her wings and soars, above the earth, into another level of comprehension, where we exist only to feel. Come, fly with me, Alison Steele, the Nightbird, at WNEW-FM, until dawn.

Those of us who came of age in those halcyon years, later recalled the sixties were largely overrated (especially if you were military draft eligible or about to be). The thing about the 60’s really was “the only truly great stuff that came out of that era were sports (especially New York sports) and the music.” And when you think of the music, you think of prog rock, smoking doobies, and Allison Steele. She was like the Maltese Falcon. She was the stuff dreams were made of.

Danny Shot gets this.

Early stories in his collection take place in Dumont, NJ where he grew up. I have a personal connection with Dumont as back I the late 60s my Summer job was working in a soft ice cream/ Italian Ice stand on Sunrise Highway on the Island in Lynbrook NY.  Kitty corner to the stand was a triangular point behind the Esso station that had, for one summer, a sculptor renting the property. It was my bright idea to commission a concrete ice cream cone for a Christmas Present for our beloved boss, Don “Bonehead” Wilson and to deliver it as a surprise staff gift to his home in Dumont NJ.  And we did, somehow managing to transport it across the Verrazano Narrows bridge along with three adults in a Nash Rambler. Do you know how much a four-foot high, custom-made concrete ice cream cone weighs? I don’t know precisely, but a lot covers it. So, if you ever drove by a house in Dumont in the late 60s that had a giant concrete cone on the porch, it was all my fault.

Growing up in Dumont was a lot like growing up on Long Island, as I did, around the same time as many of these stories. I am a few years older than Danny and the drugs weren’t quite as prevalent as they were in his day (though they would be soon). By mid-60s, if you knew a guy, who knew a guy, who knew someone else….and there were rumors of heroin around, but not that anyone actually saw any. Of course, in a couple of years, guys from the National Honor Society were getting busted in their dorm rooms. I can relate to all of the experiences the young narrator tells us to the point you wonder what is fiction and what is memoir. The opening story hooked me right in, “Ich bin ein New Yorker.” He then proceeds to outline all the ways he is not, geographically anyway, actually a New Yorker but, in fact, a Jersey boy and everyone from New York knows: People from Jersey suffer from New Yorker envy.

Personally, I grew up in the shadow of New York and the first thing I wanted to do, once I was old enough, was to get the hell out. But that’s just me. My dislike and disdain only grew after years of working Upstate, N.Y., working with the spawn of the City’s elite. They all seem to think because their dad works in finance and is a white-collar criminal, or he works for the mob and is an actual  criminal, they are beyond special. All the rest of the people in the world, are service workers who don’t count, because my dad can buy their dads and everything they thought of owning. Whatever. I used to love telling them your credit is no good here. But I digress.

There is no question the final piece, “Death of a Poet,” is fact or fiction. It is clearly a memoir piece and it burns a hole in your heart. This essay/memoir is an absolutely shattering piece about the last days of Neo Beat poet Andy Claussen and his partner Pamela Twinning. I read with both of those guys a couple of times. I saw Andy read elsewhere and that was an experience that is rarely duplicated as few poets could outshine Claussen on stage. I can’t say I knew Andy or Pamela well, but having read both the books Shot speaks of in this essay, their final publications, I feel close to them in spirit.

The essay tells the story backwards in twenty short sections beginning with Andy near the end of his steep decline, asking if he is dying. Clearly, he was, but the real genius of the piece is the traveling backwards in lives well-lived, to the beginning of his and Pamela’s decline. All stories end the same but it is the getting there, the telling of it, that makes the story special. Shot has created one of the most completing tribute essays to fellow writers I have ever read.

On the negative side, Shot includes a throwaway, a male fantasy piece, that I can only compare with Phillip Roth’s unfortunate Kafka the stand-up comedian pastiche, The Breast. Shot’s is called “The Big Dick.” Enough said. It is especially jarring as it comes directly after the Bob Dylanesque, “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” evoking long story about his lost love, “What a Wonderful World.” That story feels so real it has to be true even if it isn’t. Ever love madly, truly, deeply? This is the story for you, then, and while it is doomed from the outset, it doesn’t feel either sentimental or maudlin; a rare achievement. “The Big Dick.” Well, The Breast wasn’t funny either.

—Alan Catlin

Jun 20

APOCALYPSING by Jason Anderson reviewed by Alan Catlin

Jason Anderson, Apocalypsing, 2024, 306 pages, $20

This is a wild ride. I kept thinking it is sort of like well if Lincoln in Bardo got mixed up with a PK Dick novel, take your pick which one, say, Ubik or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and had a Naked Lunch while tripping on acid, something like this might emerge. Maybe. The cover photo of the author shows this ordinary man you could imagine teaching Algebra in high school or helping you fill out your Social Security form or maybe even running a small caps company but inside that guy is a world On Fire, well many worlds, multi-dimensions, and almost unlimited horizons; boundaries we don’t need no stinking boundaries!—Alan Catlin, editor Misfit Magazine

May 28

CURRENT DISASTERS by Jen McConnell reviewed

The Roadside Press release of CURRENT DISASTERS by Jen McConnell has recently been reviewed in a couple of publications. First, from Independent Book Review: https://independentbookreview.com/2025/05/26/book-review-current-disasters-2/

“This is the kind of book that roots deep in the mind and inspires consideration long after turning the final page.”

 

 

but also, at San Francisco Book Review:

Current Disasters

May 15

Roadside Press Announces November 2025 Release of William Taylor Jr.’s Raw and Profound New Poetry Collection, “The People Are Like Wolves to Me”

Roadside Press is pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of William Taylor Jr.’s compelling new poetry collection, The People Are Like Wolves to Me, scheduled for release in November 2025. This collection offers readers a powerful and honest exploration of the human experience in contemporary life, grappling with themes of fear, profound loneliness, existential challenges, and the persistent search for moments of beauty and meaning amidst difficult circumstances.

Drawing from vivid observations of city streets and quiet moments of reflection, particularly in San Francisco and the Tenderloin, Taylor Jr.’s poems reflect on the complexities of the 21st century. They depict a world where a pervasive sense of fear and decay is felt, where people as “like wolves… always hungry, the way they circle about with shining eyes in search of weakness”, adrift in a world that “no longer knows what to do with itself”.

Despite the moments of bleakness and difficulty, the collection finds and cherishes instances of light and resilience. It notes the absurd comfort found in Christmas trees left up long after the holiday, the potential for beauty even in unexpected places, or the simple presence of another person that can make suffering “worth suffering through”. These scattered glimpses of positivity are seen as small victories, found even in dark moments. The poems suggest ways to cope, from simple acts to finding temporary havens in places like bars or alleys. The collection is a plea for these moments of beauty, terror, and suffering to be acknowledged.

Through stark, human observations, Taylor Jr. crafts a distinct voice that feels honest and raw. The poems reflect a state of being caught between life and death, with “tiny mumblings against the void”. The People Are Like Wolves to Me serves as an unflinching record of navigating the world, petitioning for the beauty, terror, and suffering experienced to be noted.

About the Author:

William Taylor Jr. lives and writes in San Francisco. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, and a volume of fiction. His work has been published widely in journals across the globe, including Rattle, The New York Quarterly, and The Chiron Review. He was a recipient of the 2013 Kathy Acker Award, and edited Cocky Moon: Selected Poems of Jack Micheline (Zeitgeist Press, 2014). A Room Above a Convenience Store, (Roadside Press, 2023) is his most recent published collection.

About the Publisher:

Roadside Press is a leading publisher dedicated to preserving and celebrating the legacy of the literary underground. With a diverse catalog spanning poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, Roadside Press is committed to honoring the voices that shape our cultural landscape. Founded on 2/22/22 by Michele McDannold, Roadside Press has since published 40 titles and counting by some of the best the small press has to offer.

May 07

Coming June 20, 2025 — New Look, Same Legendary Spirit

Gregory Corso: Ten Times a Poet returns in a striking new second edition from Roadside Press. Edited by Leon Horton and Michele McDannold, this tribute to one of the founding fathers of the Beat Generation features an all-new cover showcasing the iconic photography of Christopher Felver.

While the interior remains virtually unchanged—retaining its rich collection of memoir, poetry, biography, interviews, and literary criticism—the new edition reaffirms Corso’s enduring legacy as “a misunderstood street bard and visual artist,” as Douglas Field writes. It’s a celebration of the poet who risked everything to live and breathe his art.

Featuring contributions from Anne Waldman, Gerald Nicosia, Ed Sanders, Rosemary Manno, Neeli Cherkovski, Ron Whitehead, Kaye McDonough, Ryan Mathews, and many others, Ten Times a Poet is a literary and visual feast—tracing Corso’s path from his chaotic New York childhood to Clinton Prison, from Greece to Rome, from cradle to crypt.

Pre-order now through Magical Jeep Distributing at magicaljeep.com
Release date: June 20, 2025

Mar 22

Review of ALL SKATE in Belt Mag

“Jakiela is a master of an essay form that is distinctly her own, a kind of integrated collage style that brings together her background as a journalist and the author of collections of poetry, weaving together quotes, facts, musings, digressions, and stories, pulling us in with opening lines like, “One mid-pandemic day, because I love my daughter and because I have what my mother said is the common sense of a doorknob, I found myself sprawled on a tennis court trying not to pass out.””

 

So grateful to author Nancy McCabe and BELT Magazine Editor Ed Simon for this sweet and thoughtful review of ALL SKATE. Read the full review here >> https://beltmag.com/skating-with-lori-jakiela/

 

Snag a copy direct from the fantabulous Roadside Press at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/all-skate/186

Mar 21

Excerpts from ALL SKATE: TRUE STORIES FROM MIDDLE LIFE by Lori Jakiela

“The Art of the Take-Off” and “The Art of the Carry On” from All Skate: True Stories from Middle Life by Lori Jakiela are published in Littsburgh here 

“Of the Wolf” from All Skate in Belt Mag here

snag your copy at magicaljeep.com

Feb 24

Kerry Trautman reviews Danny Shot’s Night Bird Flying

“It’s been said of my people, the Jews, that we are endlessly fascinated by all things concerning the Jews. It’s that way with me. I am forever fascinated by all things concerning me.” This, from the story “What a Wonderful World,” hints at a hubris that does not, in fact, ever rear its head in the stories in Night Bird Flying. Rather these stories are less about the author than they are about the people and places that have been important in the author’s life. Whether describing the death of a parent or friend, or recounting details of a drunken sexcapade, the speaker in these stories is straightforward and unflinchingly open. While the stories are primarily told in first-person, it is unclear which are memoir, which fiction, and which might be some mélange of the two.

From what one might already know about Danny Shot (full disclosure: I do know him personally,) and/or what can easily be found out online, much of this book is based on true events in the author’s life. So what do we do with the bits which are not, or which fall somewhere on a spectrum between memoir and fiction? It is unclear whether the author has purposefully backed away from sharing certain areas, or whether some essays were simply written/published at different times in the author’s career, and their perspective was not edited when compiling this full manuscript, which is primarily autobiographical.

The first piece in the book, “Ich bin ein New Yorker,” discusses the author’s conflicting identity as someone currently from New Jersey rather than New York—or someone who is formerly from New York, or as someone who is simultaneously from both New Jersey and New York (“dual citizenship” the author describes). We are where we live. We are all of the places we have lived. So who are we, if folks around us identify us differently than we see ourselves? “Even though I was born in the Bronx, and lived a number of years in the East Village, because I have committed the unpardonable sin of living much of my life in New Jersey, I will never be accepted as a New Yorker.”

The second piece, “72 Scars,” also autobiographical, describes in horrifying detail various physical and emotional injuries inflicted upon the author’s body during a particular pivotal timeframe in his adolescence. “There were at least five types of scars I accumulated during the 1972-73 year.” Scar II, was a serious case of acne which often became infected, needing various medical interventions, recounted with striking detail and humility. Scar II and III—a broken nose and heel surgery. Scar IV describes a spirit broken over the death of a friend, and well a thumb broken after punching a door in grief. Scar V was the result of witnessing his father’s death: “…all I heard was a rattling sound, sort of like snoring but coming from his throat. His eyes were open but unseeing and his skin was cold.” Shot tells us willingly, and somewhat matter-of-factly about these incidents—their proximity, piling onto one another in layers of physical and emotional pain—then ends the chapter with the simple statement, “It’s gonna be okay.” He may be talking to us here, or perhaps to himself.

Then comes the third story, “And We Drown…,” still written in the first-person, but with a more typical short-story structure, and a narrator whose voice feels distinct from the author of the prior stories. Though the narrator also hails from Dumont, NJ, like Shot, he is never called by name by any of the other characters in the story, so it is unclear whether the story is autobiographical. Somehow I held the story at arms-length, wondering who is telling me this story, and why? After the intimacy and immediacy of the first two stories, I found it difficult to connect with the shenanigans of unknown youngsters in this one.

Next in “What a Wonderful World,” we’re pulled back into a real-life story in which the author, “being uncharacteristically candid,” in direct conversation with the reader, describes a tumultuous relationship with a former lover who wrestled with addiction. “I’ll let you in on a personal secret,” he says. “I really don’t like to talk about this one. I guess I have to because I brought you along this far.” Not only is the author bearing his soul in this tragic tale, but he is acutely aware of the act of bearing it, and he makes sure we readers are, too—like someone staring deep into your eyes as they kiss you or punch you in the gut.

As we catch our breaths, the story “Big Dick” protrudes right from the middle of the book. Obviously, a piece of fiction, the story makes itself as conspicuous as an erection in 7th-grade phys-ed class—it’s even the only title in all-caps in the table of contents. Perhaps its intent was as comic relief after the heart-wrenching material before it, and the pathos after in “A South Bronx Tale.” Perhaps the author was providing a moment to recuperate—either for the reader or for himself. But somehow the untruth of this story feels unwelcome, as if a stranger pulled up a seat to my Thanksgiving dinner table.

The assumption is that “Ginsberg Lives,” “Mom,” “Maestro,” and “Death of a Poet” are autobiographical, rounding out the book with heartbreak, nostalgia, and personal reflection. “I understand that it’s not a tragedy when the parent of a middle-aged man dies. Yet, when it comes to my mom, I still feel like a little boy.” I became more engrossed in these stories than “And We Drown…” or “Big Dick,” knowing for sure that they are “real.” I’m not sure why the notion of “reality” mattered to me while reading this book, and whether it would matter in the same way if I did not know Danny Shot personally to a degree. Perhaps I am drawn to the open wound of confession, the humanity in the hurt.

But true or not, the narrators in all of the book’s stories are unconcerned with currying favor with the reader or knighting themselves within the kingdom of Literature—unlike many memoirs which cast their authors in only the most favorable light. Instead, they are satisfied to tell their stories for the record, to commemorate their time on their streets, in their homes, with friends and family, in their schools and neighborhoods. Like Brighton Beach Memoirs, Sex and the City, or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the landscapes of Night Bird Flying—mainly New Jersey and New York City—are inescapable backdrops that flavor the narratives and situate the characters in place and time. However, there are no rose-colored glasses to be found, no dousing the reader with condescending waves of Wisdom. There are just unpretentious portrayals of moments in a particular life, in a particular region of the US, at a particular time. The stories say: this is who I am, who I have been, where I have been, and these are the folks I’ve cared for along the way.

Ohio born and raised, Kerry Trautman is a founder of ToledoPoet.com and the “Toledo Poetry Museum” page on Facebook, which promote Northwest Ohio poetry. Her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies and journals, including Slippery Elm, Free State Review, Mock Turtle Zine, Paper & Ink, Disappointed Housewife, Limp Wrist, Midwestern Gothic, and Gasconade Review. Kerry’s books are Things That Come in Boxes (King Craft Press 2012,) To Have Hoped (Finishing Line Press 2015,) Artifacts (NightBallet Press 2017,) To be Nonchalantly Alive (Kelsay Books 2020,) and Marilyn: Self-Portrait, Oil on Canvas (Gutter Snob Books 2022.)

Purchase Night Bird Flying here https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/night/184