Skylight Books Podcast Series

Black Sheep Boy (Rare Bird Books)

Meet a wild-hearted boy from the bayou land of Louisiana. Misfit, outcast, loner. Call him anything but a victim. Sissy, fairy, Jenny Woman. Son of a mixed-race Holy Ghost mother and a Cajun French phantom father.

In a series of tender and tough stories, he encounters gender outlaws, drag queen renegades, and a rogues gallery of sex-starved priests, perverted teachers, and murderous bar owners. To escape his haunted history, the wild-hearted boy must shed his old skin and make a new self. As he does, his story rises from dark and murk, from moss and mud, to reach a new light and a new brand of fairy tale. Cajun legends, queer fantasies, and universal myths converge into a powerful work of counter-realism. Black Sheep Boy is a song of passion and a novel of defiance.

Praise for Black Sheep Boy

“Beautifully impressionistic, and also raw, open and vulnerable. Pousson’s bayou is such a frightening and vibrant place, generous and punishing, and the narrator’s perspective pulls us in, and brings the reader close.”—Aimee Bender, author of The Color Master and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

"Electrical, convulsive, hallucinatory, elemental... A book to give you fevers, chills, and visions."—Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day

Praise for No Place, Louisiana

finalist for the John Gardner Book Award in Fiction

“Setting out to capture the modern South, the first-time novelist confidently eschews the style of a Faulkner or the charm of a McCullers to evoke the prejudices and limitations of Cajun culture in its unique, enriching and destructive complexity.”—Publishers Weekly

“No Place, Louisiana is the Southern answer to The Ice Storm; from its sultry pages there emerges a chilling portrait of a family in the midst of a very deep freeze.”—The Los Angeles Times

“Powerful and empathetic...A beautiful ode to the lonely and unloved.”—New Orleans Times-Picayune 

“Pousson has written a strong, confident novel... many veteran authors have yet to write a novel of this depth.”—BookReporter.com

“A remarkably sure-footed and rich first novel, admirable not only for the clarity of its voice and the fluidity of its style but for the coherence of its vision; its dramatic family saga, gradually unfolding in a deftly integrated Cajun universe, reveals the narrator to be a complex and acrobatic survivor. Pousson brings remarkable insight and literary power to the landscape of the American novel.” —Lis Harris, author of Rules of Engagement

Praise for Sugar

finalist for the 2006 Lambda Literary Awards for Poetry

“With Sugar, Martin Pousson returns to the territory that activated his novel, No Place, Louisiana, recharging that fertile ground with a shift from prose to poetry. The result is a series of compressed observations, by turns satiric and heartbreaking, languorous, outraged, and tender.” —Dave King, author of The Ha-Ha

“Here is the poet Louisiana has always wanted. Gulf Coast heat turns into huge trees and lush flora, which then turn into sex and dramatic dialogue. Desire so metamorphic inevitably slides toward hallucination. To convey experience at the edge, Martin Pousson has invented a new poetics that takes from the earlier art only its intense imagery and verbal economy. The few dozen pages of Sugar bring a tragic and sensuous bayou mindscape unforgettably to life.” —Alfred Corn, author of Stake and Contradictions

“...his sugar ain’t sweet, it’s scorched.” —Jake Shears, Scissor Sisters

Martin Pousson was born and raised in the bayou land of Louisiana. His short stories won a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and have appeared in The Antioch Review, Epoch, Five Points, StoryQuarterly, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. He also was a finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award, the Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award, and the Lambda Literary Award. He now lives in Los Angeles.

Before the Fall (Grand Central Publishing)

From the Emmy, PEN, Peabody, Critics' Choice, and Golden Globe Award-winning creator of the TV show "Fargo" comes "the" thriller of the year.

On a foggy summer night, eleven people--ten privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter--depart Martha's Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are Scott Burroughs--the painter--and a four-year-old boy, who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul's family.

With chapters weaving between the aftermath of the crash and the backstories of the passengers and crew members--including a Wall Street titan and his wife, a Texan-born party boy just in from London, a young woman questioning her path in life, and a career pilot--the mystery surrounding the tragedy heightens. As the passengers' intrigues unravel, odd coincidences point to a conspiracy. Was it merely by dumb chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something far more sinister at work? Events soon threaten to spiral out of control in an escalating storm of media outrage and accusations. And while Scott struggles to cope with fame that borders on notoriety, the authorities scramble to salvage the truth from the wreckage.

Amid pulse-quickening suspense, the fragile relationship between Scott and the young boy glows at the heart of this stunning novel, raising questions of fate, human nature, and the inextricable ties that bind us together. 

Praise for Before the Fall:

"Before the Fall is an astonishing, character-driven tour-de-force. The story is a multi-layered, immersive examination of truth, relationships, and our unquenchable thirst for the media's immediate explanation of unfathomable tragedy."--Karin Slaughter, #1 internationally bestselling author

"This isn't just a good novel; it's a great one. I trusted no one in these pages, yet somehow cared about them all. Before the Fall brings a serrated edge to every character, every insight, and every wicked twist."--Brad Meltzer, bestselling author of The President's Shadow

"A masterly blend of mystery, suspense, tragedy, and shameful media hype...a gritty tale of a man overwhelmed by unwelcome notoriety, with a stunning, thoroughly satisfying conclusion."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Before the Fall is a ravishing and riveting beauty of a thriller. It's also a deep exploration of desire, betrayal, creation, family, fate, mortality, and rebirth. It's one part Dennis Lehane, one part Dostoevsky. I was spellbound from first page to last; I haven't fully recovered yet."--Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours

"I started and finished Before the Fall in one day. That begins to tell you what kind of smart, compellingly dramatic read it is. So read it."--James Patterson, #1 "New York Times" bestselling author of the Alex Cross and Michael Bennett series

"Like the successful screenwriter that he is, Hawley piles on enough intrigues and plot complications to keep you hooked."--Kirkus Reviews

"A pulse-pounding story, grounded in humanity."--Booklist (starred review)

Noah Hawley is an Emmy, Golden Globe, PEN, Critics’ Choice, and Peabody Award-winning author, screenwriter, and producer. He has published four novels and penned the script for the feature film Lies and Alibis. He created, executive produced, and served as show runner for ABC’s "My Generation" and "The Unusuals" and was a writer and producer on the hit series "Bones." Hawley is currently executive producer, writer, and show runner on FX’s award-winning series, "Fargo."

Bob Odenkirk has written for the TV shows "Saturday Night Live" (where he famously wrote "The Motivational Speaker" sketch), and "The Ben Stiller Show" (where he wrote the infamous "Manson Lassie" sketch), and then Bob went and created (and starred in) "Mr. Show with Bob and David," which has been called "the American Monty Python."  He's also had a creative hand in creating "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" and "The Birthday Boys" sketch show on IFC.  As an actor, Bob has had memorable roles as the agent Stevie Grant on "The Larry Sanders Show," the character of Saul Goodman on AMC's "Breaking Bad," and Director Alexander Payne’s Oscar-nominated film "Nebraska," as well as FX's award-winning series, "Fargo." Bob's comedy scripts and short essays have appeared in "The New Yorker," "Vice", and "Filter" magazine, among other publications.

Prostitute Laundry 

In the winter of 2014, writer and sex worker Charlotte Shane sent out her confessional letter to a small but devoted mailing list. In the months that followed, readership grew to over 5,000 subscribers who followed her candid, unstinting, sometimes heartbreaking meditations. Word spread quickly, garnering the project recognition from outlets such as The Washington Post and NPR.

This intimate investigation is one young woman’s best attempt at understanding her own rich, conflicted life, and the forces that act upon it. The collection is a thoughtful serial memoir about love, sex, money, and identity—how those forces can break us, and how they can make us whole again.

Praise for Prostitute Laundry 

"Every form of writing has an author whose work helped define it; for TinyLetter, that author is Charlotte Shane. I don’t think anyone understood what a TinyLetter really could be until Shane began her Prostitute Laundry series in February of 2014 . . . It felt like reading a novel in serial form, spiked with the knowledge that these experiences were drawn from someone’s daily reality. And then, there’s the prose, which is absolutely hypnotic—intimate, confessional, and even self-scouring in a way that’s unspeakably rare." — Brooklyn Magazine

"Her writing . . . is in turns incisive and tender, embracing human frailty with bracing honesty". — The Establishment

Charlotte Shane is an essayist and author best known for her lyric personal writing, which garnered national attention when distributed in the form of her letters-turned-book, Prostitute Laundry, which The Guardian likened to work by Charles Dickens, and Vice called "addictive [and] intimate." 

Ann Friedman is a freelance journalist who writes about gender, politics, technology, and culture. She is a columnist for New York magazine and theLos Angeles Times, and a contributing editor to The Gentlewoman.  She also co-hosts the podcast Call Your Girlfriend, makes hand-drawn pie charts, and sends a popular weekly email newsletter. Find her work at annfriedman.com.

The Stardom Affair (Five Star Publishing)

Newspaper columnist Neil Gulliver and his ex-wife, "Sex Queen of the Soaps" Stevie Marriner, are back.

It's decades ago, when the internet was in its infancy. Neil is summoned to the apartment of actor Roddy Donaldson, leader of the "Diapered Dozen" gang of teenage movie stars, by condo manager Sharon Glenn. Roddy is in bed clinging to life alongside two dead girls, no memory of who they are or how they got there. Evidence points to him as their killer.

At the urging of Roddy's mother, a prominent casting director, Neil chases after the truth, encountering a motley cast of suspects: among them nasty Nicky Edmunds, co-starring with pal Roddy in Tough Times Two, and glamorous Jayne Madrigal, a high-powered press agent with whom Neil is smitten when Stevie introduces them at a lavish Stardom Magazine gala. Also: rap superstar Maxie Trotter and his manager, Roscoe Del Ruth; Gene Coburn and Knox Lundigan, millionaire partners in Stardom House companies revolutionizing the internet; model-songstress Aleta Haworth, who knows more than she's telling; fading film star Brian Armstrong, who harbors dark truths; and Stevie's mother, Juliet, and her fiancé, Bernie Flame, a computer whiz who may be able to find answers for Neil in the secret underground world of the Web.

More bodies fall and Neil faces an ugly death before the killer of the two girls is revealed in this fast-paced mystery-thriller by an author who knows Hollywood's many sins and secrets from the inside out.

Praise for The Stardom Affair

“The author has delivered a fast-paced, surprisingly dark, not-surprisingly witty thriller that includes a scene of movieland sex and violence more nightmarish than anything devised by Nathanael West or David Lynch”—Dick Lochte, award-winning author of Sleeping Dog, a New York Times Book of the Year

 “When one of Hollywood's hottest young stars finds himself in a tangle with two dead bodies and almost dead of a drug overdose himself, Neil Gulliver's reporter's instincts are aroused, and he's plunged into an ever darker world of sex, drugs, and murder.  The patter is snappy, the writing is sharp, and the observations are pointed as a dagger in another winner from Levinson.”—Bill Crider, award-winning author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes mysteries

“From big box office powerbrokers to L.A.'s seething underworld of designer drugs and porn movies, you're in for the roller-coaster ride of your reading life.  But then, it's no surprise –Robert S. Levinson is a master of style and suspense.  Buy this book and enjoy!”  -- Gayle Lynds, New York Times best-selling author of The Assassins

“Robert S. Levinson handles the hardboiled style of storytelling with soft, sure hands. Neil Gulliver continues to be one of the most reliable main characters in the genre. And, along with his ex-wife, Stevie Marriner, they continue to channel Nick & Nora Charles. Reading The Stardom Affair is time well spent.”—Robert J. Randisi, best-selling author of the Rat Pack mysteries, founder of the Private Eye Writers of America and the annual Shamus Awards, co-founder of Mystery Scene Magazine

Robert S. Levinson, the best-selling author of fourteen crime thrillers, in The Stardom Affair brings back newspaper columnist Neil Gulliver and his ex-wife, “Sex Queen of  the Soaps” Stevie Marriner, who co-starred in his first four novels. Bob’s background includes stints as a newspaper reporter, founder of what became the world’s largest PR firm specializing in rock-and-roll, and a television writer-producer of myriad music, awards, and comedy specials. A Shamus Award nominee and a Derringer Award winner, he served four years on the Mystery Writers of American national board of directors, two as president of the Los Angeles chapter, two years on the Writers Guild of America-West board, and four terms as president of the Hollywood Press Club. 

Bob’s short stories appear regularly in the Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines and have carried for years in various mystery anthologies and “year’s best” collections. He was voted several times onto Queen’s annual Readers Poll of favorites. His non-fiction has appeared in Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Written By Magazine of the Writers Guild of America West, Westways, and Los Angeles Magazine. Bob wrote and produced two MWA annual “Edgar Awards” shows and two International Thriller Writers “Thriller Awards” shows. His plays Transcript and Murder Times Two had their world premieres at the annual International Mystery Writers Festival. 

Bob resides in Los Angeles with his wife, Sandra, and Rosie, their loveable, bossy Besenji Mix. 

The Alaskan Laundry (Mariner Books)

A fresh debut novel about a lost, fierce young woman who finds her way to Alaska and finds herself through the hard work of fishing, as far as the icy Bering Sea 

Tara Marconi has made her way to The Rock, a remote island in Alaska governed by the seasons and the demands of the world of commercial fishing. She hasn't felt at home in a long while. Her mother's death left her unmoored and created a seemingly insurmountable rift between her and her father. But in the majestic, mysterious, and tough boundary-lands of Alaska she begins to work her way up the fishing ladder from hatchery assistant all the way to King crabber. She learned discipline from years as a young boxer in Philly, but here she learns anew what it means to work, to connect, and in buying and fixing up an old tugboat how to make a home she knows is her own. A beautiful evocation of a place that can't help but change us and a testament to the unshakable lure of home, The Alaskan Laundry also offers an unforgettable story of one woman's journey from isolation back to the possibility of love.

Praise for The Alaskan Laundry

"This novel is a rarity -- a gripping, straight-forward, old-fashioned novel about coming of age (a woman, no less) in Alaska. It is reminiscent of the best of Wallace Stegner."--Richard Ford 

"This is a truly towering debut novel. Brendan Jones charts new novelistic territory and sends back moving dispatches from the frontiers of the human heart."--Adam Johnson, author of The Orphan Master's Son

"The Alaskan Laundry is a gorgeous and powerful novel that succeeds both as a page-turning adventure story and an evocative exploration of the meaning ofhome. With acute psychological precision and a naturalist's attention to detail, Brendan Jones has created a hauntingly beautiful novel that will stay with me for a long time."--Molly Antopol, author of The Unamericans 

"A taut, page-turning narrative, an indomitable heroine, and a rich cast of characters all steeped ina world where you can smell the tang of kelp at low tide, the creak of seiners at their moorings, hear the rustling of the Southeast Alaska rain forest. The Alaskan Laundry plunges the reader into the heart and soul of a unique commercial fishing culture and the story of Tara Marconi, as she struggles for respect, love, inner peace, and a place to call her own. A cinematic tour de force, it offers up an empowering message of hope and resilience."-- Nick Jans, author of A Wolf Called Romeo 

"There are the easy journeys, the ones that take us where we mean to travel, and there are those we shy from, the dark and uncertain treks of the soul. Without flinching, nineteen-year-old Tara ventures from South Philly to the male-dominated Rock, an island off the coast of Alaska. True to her boxer instincts, Tara comes out swinging, unsure what the island will make of her. As layers of her former life wash away, she proves as raw and tender as the landscape, as striking and unforgettable. A promising debut, true to the core a novel of grit and redemption."--Deb Vanasse, author of Cold Spell andOut of the Wilderness 

"The Alaskan Laundry is a novel of bracing air that gets deep into your lungs. As Tara Marconi reinvents herself in Alaska, we see all facets of the American dream of self-reliance and boundless possibility play out on the stage of the Last Frontier. A strong, singular person grows in these pages. Like a protagonist in a Daniel Woodrell novel, she is stubborn, heroic, and capable of anything."--Will Chancellor, author of A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall

"A fresh voice in contemporary realism arrives on the scene in this coming-of-age novel. Fierce and flawed, protagonist Tara Marconi leaves the Lower 48 behind to cut her teeth on the Alaskan wilderness, searching for salvation in the notion that 'people come to Alaska to wash themselves clean.' Jones's dynamic love of America's last frontier comes through in spare, gripping prose."--Suzanne Rindell, author of The Other Typist

After receiving a B.A. and M.A. from Oxford University, where he boxed for the Blues team, Brendan Jones made his living in Alaska in carpentry and commercial fishing. He has published work in the New York Times, Ploughshares, Narrative Magazine, Popular Woodworking, The Huffington Post, and recorded commentaries for NPR. A recipient of grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation and the MacDowell Colony, he is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University

Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (Harvard University Press)

All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer comes a searching exploration of the conflict Americans call the Vietnam War and Vietnamese call the American War—a conflict that lives on in the collective memory of both nations. 

From a kaleidoscope of cultural forms—novels, memoirs, cemeteries, monuments, films, photography, museum exhibits, video games, souvenirs, and more—Nothing Ever Dies brings a comprehensive vision of the war into sharp focus. At stake are ethical questions about how the war should be remembered by participants that include not only Americans and Vietnamese but also Laotians, Cambodians, South Koreans, and Southeast Asian Americans. Too often, memorials valorize the experience of one’s own people above all else, honoring their sacrifices while demonizing the “enemy” —or, most often, ignoring combatants and civilians on the other side altogether. Visiting sites across the United States, Southeast Asia, and Korea, Viet Thanh Nguyen offers penetrating interpretations of the way memories of the war help to enable future wars or struggle to prevent them.
 
Drawing from this war, Nguyen offers a lesson for all wars by calling on us to recognize not only our shared humanity but our ever-present inhumanity. This is the only path to reconciliation with our foes, and with ourselves. Without reconciliation, war’s truth will be impossible to remember, and war’s trauma impossible to forget.

Praise for Nothing Ever Dies:

"Beautifully written, powerfully argued, thoughtful, provocative".--Marilyn B. Young, author of The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990

"Nothing Ever Dies provides the fullest and best explanation of how the Vietnam War has become so deeply inscribed into national memory. Nguyen's elegant prose is at once deeply personal, sweepingly panoramic, and hauntingly evocative."--Ari Kelman, author of A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek"

"Is there hope for an ethics of memory, or for peace? Nothing Ever Dies reveals that, in our collective memories of conflict, we are still fighting the Forever War. Nguyen's distinctive voice blends ideas with family history in a way that is original, unique, exciting. A vitally important book."--Maxine Hong Kingston, author of To Be a Poet"

"Inspired by the author's personal odyssey, informed by his wide-ranging exploration of literature, film, and art, this is a provocative and moving meditation on the ethics of remembering and forgetting. Rooted in the Vietnam War and its aftermath, it speaks to all who have been displaced by war and revolution, and carry with them memories, whether their own or of others, private or collective, that are freighted with nostalgia, guilt, and trauma.--Hue-Tam Ho Tai, editor of The Country of Memory: Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam"

Viet Thanh Nguyen, the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Sympathizer, was born in Vietnam and raised in America. His stories have appeared in Best New American Voices, TriQuarterly, Narrative, and the Chicago Tribune and he is the author of the academic book Race and Resistance, and a new work of nonfiction, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (Harvard University Press, March 2016). He teaches English and American Studies at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles. He tweets at @viet_t_nguyen. 

Turning Japanese (2D Cloud)

In 1995, 22-year-old Mari has just exited a long-term relationship, moving from Mill Valley to San Jose, California. Soon enough she falls in love, then finds employment at an illegal hostess bar for Japanese expats, where she is determined to learn the Japanese language and culture. She hopes to finally connect with her Japanese relatives without her mother as a translator and filter. Turning Japanese is a story about otherness, culture clashes, generation gaps and youthful impetuosity.

Praise for Turning Japanese

“It is a tremendous blessing to read anything that comes from a skillful graphic memoirist like MariNaomi. In Turning Japanese, her unflinching honesty, open heart and hard-earned wisdom challenges us to embrace the unexpected detours that unfold in our own lives. The empty spaces in her minimalist artwork contain many wells of unspoken feelings that linger with you long after you finish reading her book.”  -- Yumi Sakugawa, author of Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One with the Universe

Praise for MariNaomi’s Past Work

“Refreshing and poignant...” -- Publishers Weekly 

“In Dragon’s Breath and Other True Stories, MariNaomi weaves a crazy-quilt of despair, hope, lost loves, new beginnings, horrible regrets, hilarious memories, and above all else, survival. Her beautiful, spare line is stripped of all but the most important details in order to impart the greatest emotional impact in a given story, creating a delicate storytelling rhythm built on restraint, subtlety and total vulnerability. Her short autobiographical anecdotes create a gestalt of a person who has lived and viewed life with a curious intellect and her heart on her sleeve.” -- Rob Clough, The Comics Journal

“...just how a girl does it in this day and age.” -- ELLE Magazine 

“Packed with wisdom and raw experience.” -- BUST Magazine 

MariNaomi is the author and illustrator of the SPACE Prize-winning graphic memoir Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22, the Eisner-nominated Dragon's Breath and Other True Stories, and her self-published Estrus Comics. Her work has appeared in over sixty print anthologies, and has been featured on such websites as The Rumpus, The Weeklings, LA Review of Books, Midnight Breakfast, Truth-out, XOJane, Buzzfeed, Bitch Media, and more. She is also the creator and curator of the Cartoonists of Color Database and the LGBTQ Cartoonists Database.

Yumi Sakugawa is a comic book artist and the author of I Think I Am in Friend-Love with You. She is a regular comic contributor to The Rumpus and Wonderhowto.com, and her short comic stories “Mundane Fortunes for the Next Ten Billion Years” and “Seed Bomb” were selected as Notable Comics of 2012 and 2013 respectively by the Best American Comics series editors (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Her comics have also appeared in Bitch, the Best American Non­Required Reading 2014, Folio, Fjords Review, and other publications. A graduate from the fine art program of University of California, Los Angeles, she lives in southern California. Visit her on the web at www.yumisakugawa.com.

Riot. Strike. Riot: The New Era of Uprisings (Verso)

Riots are coming, they are already here, more are on the way. They deserve an adequate theory.

Ferguson. Tottenham. Clichy-sous-Bois. Oakland. In recent decades we have returned to an “age of riots” as the prominent form of struggle against the abuses of capitalism. This theoretical and historical account by award-winning poet Joshua Clover explores how riots, the leading form of protest in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are supplanted by the strike in the early nineteenth century, and then re-emerged as the preeminent form in the early 1970s. 

From the early years of workers’ demands for increased wages through riots to recent social demands for economic equlity through occupations, Clover looks at historical moments like the economic crisis of 1968 and the decline of organized labor from the perspective of changes in protest tactics. As social unrest against government and corporate abuses continues to grow, this valuable history and theoretical framework will help guide future activists in their struggles for justice. 

Praise for Riot. Strike. Riot. 

“Riot, in this absolutely necessary book, is considered as differential procedure and rigorous improvisational method, as essential repertoire on the way from general malaise to general strike. But then this conception folds tightly yet disorderly into a new and open set of questions. It’s not that the raging, ragged entrance to the new golden age is the new golden age. It’s not that theory can’t bear a riot. It’s just that riot makes new ways of seeing what theory can and can’t do and imposes upon us a kind of knowledge of our own embarrassing and already given resources of enjoyment. Joshua Clover says riot deserves a proper theory but here—sly, stone cold—he gives us more than that. Now we have some guidelines for the new and ongoing impropriety that fleshes forth and fleshes out our optimal condition.”—Fred Moten, scholar, activist, poet and author of In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition, Hughson’s Tavern, B. Jenkins, The Feel Trio and co-author of The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study. 

“In its sweep, rigor, and elegance, Riot Strike Riot is pleasurable and provocative, worthy of the urgent debates it should inspire.”—Jeff Chang author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation and Who We Be: The Colorization of America.

“Riot. Strike. Riot. is the crystalline analysis of this fraught moment - between communism and anarchism, between street protest and economic strike. Clover’s text is clear without being simple, contemporary yet historical, and affectionate without being mawkish - much like a riot, in fact, it opens up the future while remembering that the past is comprised of little other than exploitation, exclusion and the kinds of violence that deliberately are attributed to the very people who suffer most from it.”—Nina Power is a senior lecturer in philosophy at Roehampton University and the author of One-Dimensional Woman.

Joshua Clover is a professor of Literature and Critical Theory at the University of California Davis. A widely published essayist, poet, and cultural theorist, his most recent books are Red Epic and 1989: Bob Dylan Didn’t Have This to Sing About.

The Walled Wife (Red Hen Press)

A woman is buried so a church will rise. Nicelle Davis’ The Walled Wife unearths from the long-standing text “The Ballad of the Walled-up Wife,” a host of issues that continue to plague women in the contemporary world: the woman’s body as sacrifice; the woman’s body as tender or currency; the woman’s body as disposable; the woman’s body as property; the woman’s body as aesthetic object; the woman’s body unsafe in the world she must inhabit, and in the hands of the people she loves. By unearthing “this fucked-up story,” found in a centuries-old folktale (The Ballad of the Walled-Up Wife) Nicelle Davis’ poems remind us that narratives, like the individuals and cultures that produce them, are imperfect structures. However, through her intelligent and effective use of craft and voice, and the heartbreaking vulnerability with which she engages the perspectives within and without the story, Davis avoids simple replication; she does not “rebuild a corrupt structure.” Rather, she exhibits in The Walled Wife the powerful and expansive possibilities of narrative. This collection makes space (in the narrative, and thus in the reader, and thus in the culture) for so much—for remorse from the builder, for sorrow from the husband, but mostly for this sacrificed woman to be angry, to feel betrayed, to be avenged, to tend to her inner life in the hours of her death, to speak her truth, and insist on her humanity. These poems allow the wife to mourn her stolen life, and as we mourn with her, they enrich our possibilities for empowerment and empathy in the narratives of our lives. 

A poetry reading for ugly bridesmaid dresses. Poetry readings, refreshments, photo ops, and an ugly bridesmaid contest competition. Moderated by Juicee Courture. 

Nicelle Davis is a California poet, collaborator, and performance artist who walks the desert with her son J.J. in search of owl pellets and rattlesnake skins. She is the author of four poetry collections including her most recent, The Walled Wife, from Red Hen Press. In the Circus of You is available from Rose Metal Press, Becoming Judas, is available from Red Hen Press and her first book, Circe, is available from Lowbrow Press. Her poetry film collaborations with Cheryl Gross have been shown across the world. She is currently working on the manuscript/play, On the Island of Caliban which was recently workshopped by The Industrial Players. She has taught poetry at Youth for Positive Change, an organization that promotes success for youth in secondary schools, MHA, Volunteers of America in their Homeless Youth Center, and with Red Hen’s WITS program. She currently teaches at Paraclete High School.

 photo by Sascha Vaughn, Dress by Pavlina Janssen

Jackie Bang’s work has appeared in ZYZZYVA and The Alaska Quarterly Review and most recently their piece, "Rent Easy" in The Los Angeles Poetry Circus Chapbook. They are currently at work on Dinner Bait, a book length end-of-love story set in a New Orleans of adjunct teaching and sex work ten years after Katrina. They are working also on a related psych, folk, blues erotica record with their partner in poetry performance Caspar Sonnet. Both works engages the possibility for species transformation in the human response to climate change through high stakes eroticism as metaphor. Jackie Bang lives and teaches in the IE.

Alexis Rhone Fancher’s poem, “when I turned fourteen, my mother’s sister took me to lunch and said:” was chosen by Edward Hirsch for inclusion in The Best American Poetry of 2016. She is the author of How I Lost My Virginity To Michael Cohen and other heart stab poems, (Sybaritic Press, 2014), and State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies, (KYSO Flash Press, 2015). Alexis is published in Rattle, The MacGuffin, Menacing Hedge, Blotterature, Slipstream, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles, Chiron Review, Hobart, and elsewhere. She is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. 

 Photo by Baz Here

Ashley Inguanta is a writer and photographer who is driven by landscape, place. She is the author of three collections:The Way Home (Dancing Girl Press), For The Woman Alone (Ampersand Books), and Bomb (forthcoming with Ampersand Books in 2016). Her work has appeared in PANK, The Rumpus, The Good Men Project, Bartleby Snopes, Adrienne: A Poetry Journal of Queer Women, OCHO, Corium Magazine, the Rough Magick anthology, and other literary spaces. Ashley is also the Art Director of SmokeLong Quarterly. Currently she is working with musician Sarah Morrison, creating a series of projects and performances that combine music, visual art, and language.

Jennifer Bradpiece was born and raised in the multifaceted muse, Los Angeles, where she still resides. She has her Bachelors in Creative Writing from Antioch University. When not rescuing Pit Bulls, she tries to remain active in the Los Angeles writing and art scene: she has interned at Beyond Baroque, and often collaborates with multi-media artists on projects. Her poetry has been published in various journals, anthologies, and online zines, including 491 Magazine, The Mas Tequila Review, and Redactions. She has poetry forthcoming in Rip Rap Journal and The Whiskey Fish Review among others. 

The Regional Office is Under Attack! (Riverhead Books)

In a world beset by amassing forces of darkness, one organization the Regional Office and its coterie of super-powered female assassins protects the globe from annihilation. At its helm, the mysterious Oyemi and her oracles seek out new recruits and root out evil plots. Then a prophecy suggests that someone from inside might bring about its downfall. And now, the Regional Office is under attack. 

Recruited by a defector from within, Rose is a young assassin leading the attack, eager to stretch into her powers and prove herself on her first mission. Defending the Regional Office is Sarah who may or may not have a mechanical arm fiercely devoted to the organization that took her in as a young woman in the wake of her mother's sudden disappearance. On the day that the Regional Office is attacked, Rose's and Sarah's stories will overlap, their lives will collide, and the world as they know it just might end. 

Weaving in a brilliantly conceived mythology, fantastical magical powers, teenage crushes, and kinetic fight scenes, The Regional Office Is Under Attack!"is a seismically entertaining debut novel about revenge and allegiance and love.

Praise for The Regional Office is Under Attack!

“[A] wry and propulsive work of inventive fiction by a terrific young writer! Read it!”—Jess Walter, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins

“Delightfully weird, weirdly delightful! Manuel Gonzales clearly has a labyrinth of a brain—all stuffed with monsters, trapdoors, and complicated heroes. Sign me up as a member of the fan club, please.”—Kelly Link, author of Get in Troubleand Magic for Beginners

“With exuberant prose and a corkscrew plot, Manuel Gonzales vanquishes artistic orthodoxies, tiresome genre boundaries and every humdrum narrative convention in sight, leaving in his wake a riveting story of secrets, betrayals, and vengeance!” —Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Battleborn and Gold Fame Citrus

“[A]n exciting new voice."—Aimee Bender, The New York Times Book Review

“It’s easy to compare Manuel Gonzales to George Saunders, but it would be just as easy to compare him to Borges or Márquez or Aimee Bender . . . He makes the extraordinary ordinary, and his playfulness is infectious.”—Benjamin Percy,Esquire

“Manuel Gonzales has an imagination that's as expansive and open as a Texas prairie.”—Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times

“A brand-new American literary voice.”—Ben Marcus, author of The Flame Alphabet

“The Regional Office is Under Attack! is wickedly subversive, suspenseful, and thoughtful, all at once—but most of all, it's just fun to read, from the first  sentence to the last. Put down your expectations and pick up this book.  It'll hit you like a lightning bolt.”—Jess Row, author of Your Face in Mine

“Wild, visionary, ablaze with heart and riot, The Regional Office is Under Attack! is unforgettable—an epic love story that confronts our future with a howl and fireworks.”—Paul Yoon, author of Snow Hunters

Manuel Gonzales is the author of the acclaimed story collection The Miniature Wife, winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. A graduate of the Columbia University Creative Writing Program, he teaches writing at the University of Kentucky and the Institute for American Indian Arts. He has published fiction and nonfiction in Open City, Fence, One Story, Esquire, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, andThe Believer. Gonzales lives in Kentucky with his wife and two children.

Jim Gavin’s fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Zoetrope, Esquire, Slice, The Mississippi Review, andZYZZYVA. He lives in Los Angeles.

True Homosexual Experiences: Boyd McDonald and Straight to Hell (We Heard You Like Books)

A World War II veteran from the Great Plains, Boyd McDonald (1925-1993) had the makings of a successful career in the 1950s—an education at Harvard, jobs at Time/Life and IBM—but things didn’t turn out as planned. After 20 years of resentful conformity and worsening alcoholism, McDonald dried out, pawned all of his suits, and went on welfare. It was then that his life truly began. From a tiny room in a New York SRO hotel, McDonald published Straight to Hell, a series of chapbooks collecting readers’ “true homosexual experiences.” Following the example of Alfred Kinsey, McDonald obsessively pursued the truth about sex between men just as gay liberation began to tame America’s sexual outlaws for the sake of legal recognition. Admired by such figures as Gore Vidal and William S. Burroughs, Straight to Hell combined a vigorous contempt for authority with a keen literary style, and was the precursor of queer ’zines decades later. Even after his death, Boyd McDonald continued to trouble the powers that be—he was the subject of a 2006 opinion by U. S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who ruled that one of his books was pornographic while acknowledging that this question is ultimately vague and subjective.

William E. Jones conducted in-depth interviews with many people from McDonald’s life, including friends, colleagues, and most unexpectedly, family members who revealed that he was a loving uncle who doted on his nieces and great-nieces. A complex portrait drawn from a wealth of previously unpublished material, True Homosexual Experiences: Boyd McDonald and Straight to Hell is the first biography devoted to a key figure of the American underground.

Praise for True Homosexual Experiences

“Move over Maxwell Perkins - here's another literary editor who deserves to be more famous than you. Boyd McDonald may have been an alcoholic, sex-obsessed lunatic who masturbated chronically while encouraging his perverted readers to send in endless descriptions of their gay sex lives with heterosexual men but he remained pure in spirit. His “Straight To Hell” chapbooks join Valerie Solanas’s “SCUM Manifesto” as the most radical (and hilarious) filth classics in modern literature.” -- John Waters

William E. Jones was born in Canton, Ohio. He received a B. A. from Yale University and an M. F. A. from California Institute of the Arts. He has made the films Massillon (1991) and Finished (1997), which won a Los Angeles Film Critics Association award, the documentary Is It Really So Strange? (2004), and many videos including The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography (1998). His work was included in the 1993 and 2008 Whitney Biennials, and he has had retrospectives at Tate Modern (2005), Anthology Film Archives (2010), and the Austrian Film Museum (2011). Jones has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant, two California Community Foundation Fellowships, and most recently, a Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. His books include "Killed": Rejected Images of the Farm Security Administration (2010), Halsted Plays Himself (2011), Between Artists: Thom Andersen and William E. Jones (2013), Imitation of Christ, named one of the best photo books of 2013 by Time magazine, and Flesh and the Cosmos (2014). He lives in Los Angeles.

The New Guy and Other Senior Year Distractions (Poppy Books)

Senior-class competitions and hunky heartthrobs meet in this hilarious high school story, narrated by a hilariously relatable girl, who exemplifies what it’s like to be a high schooler today.

Neurotic over-achiever Jules McCallister Morgan has her senior year all planned out: get into Brown, keep up her community service hours and become the editor of her prestigious high school’s newspaper. But on only her second day, the new guy at school and boy band sensation, Alex Powell, puts a damper on her plan for perfection by asking her out. Just as Jules comes around to the idea of having a boyfriend, Alex commits the ultimate betrayal when he joins the school’s TV news show that’s putting her paper out of business. Amid cutthroat  competition and schedule overload, Jules must decide what’s more important – college applications or first love.

The New Guy (And Other Senior Year Distractions) encapsulates what it’s like to be a teenage girl today, from first loves to final exams and everything in between.

Praise for The New Guy:

“The sparks that fly between Jules and Alex, the ex-boy band star and newest addition to the senior class, are hot enough to make them a couple worth rooting for...”- Kirkus Reviews

"Amy Spalding writes endearing characters who stumble and soar in the most entertaining ways.”-Melissa Walker, author ofUnbreak My Heart

Amy Spalding grew up in St. Louis, but now lives in the better weather of Los Angeles. She received a B.A. in Advertising & Marketing Communications from Webster University, an M.A. in Media Studies from The New School, and currently manages digital media planning for an advertising agency specializing in indie film. Amy studied longform improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, and can be seen performing around L.A. Amy is also the author of Kissing Ted Callahan (and Other Guys), The Reece Malcolm List, and Ink Is Thicker than Water.

Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America (Simon & Schuster)

In 1996 Amy Goodman started a radio show called "Democracy Now!" to focus on the issues that are underreported or ignored by mainstream news coverage. Shortly after September 11, 2001, they were broadcasting on television every weekday. Today it is the only public media in the US that airs simultaneously on satellite and cable television, radio, and the Internet. Now Amy and her journalist brother, David, share stories of the progressive heroes, the whistleblowers, the organizers, the protestors who have brought about remarkable, often invisible change over the last two decades in seismic ways. 

This book looks back over the past twenty years of "Democracy Now!" and considers that as the courts and government abdicate their responsibilities, it has fallen to ordinary people to hold the powerful to account. Amy gives voice to these leaderful, not leaderless, movements: the countless charismatic leaders who are taking to the streets in Ferguson, Staten Island, Wall Street, and other places where people are rising up to demand justice. 

Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 1,300 public television and radio stations worldwide. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its “Pick of the Podcasts,” along with NBC’s Meet the Press. Goodman has co-authored five New York Times bestsellers. Her latest two, The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance, and Hope, and Breaking the Sound Barrier, both written with Denis Moynihan, give voice to the many ordinary people standing up to corporate and government power. She co-authored her first three bestsellers with her brother, journalist David Goodman: Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times (2008), Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back (2006) and The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them(2004). Goodman has received the American Women in Radio and Television Gracie Award; the Paley Center for Media’s She’s Made It Award; and the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship. Her reporting on East Timor and Nigeria has won numerous awards, including the George Polk Award, Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting, and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award. She has also received awards from the Associated Press, United Press International, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Project Censored. Goodman received the first ever Communication for Peace Award from the World Association for Christian Communication. She was also honored by the National Council of Teachers of English with the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language.

David Goodman is an independent journalist, contributing writer for Mother Jones, and the bestselling author of ten books, including four books with his sister, Amy Goodman. His books include the critically acclaimed Fault Lines: Journeys Into theNew South Africa; When the River Rose, a collection of flood stories that raised money for disaster relief his hometown in Vermont; and a series of award-winning historical guidebooks to backcountry skiing in the Northeast. He hosts a popular radio show, The Vermont Conversation. His work has also appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Outside, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, The Nation, and numerous other publications. He lives in Vermont. Visit him on the web at: www.dgoodman.net

Clandestine Occupations (PM Press)

A radical activist, Luba Gold, makes the difficult decision to go underground to support the Puerto Rican independence movement. When Luba’s collective is targeted by an FBI sting, she escapes with her baby but leaves behind a sensitive envelope that is being safeguarded by a friend. When the FBI come looking for Luba, the friend must decide whether to cooperate in the search for the woman she loves. Ten years later, when Luba emerges from clandestinity, she discovers that the FBI sting was orchestrated by another activist friend who had become an FBI informant. In the changed era of the 1990s, Luba must decide whether to forgive the woman who betrayed her.

Told from the points of view of five different women who cross paths with Luba over four decades, Clandestine Occupationsexplores the difficult decisions that activists confront about the boundaries of legality and speculates about the scope of clandestine action in the future. It is a thought-provoking reflection on the risks and sacrifices of political activism as well as the damaging reverberations of disaffection and cynicism.

Praise for Clandestine Occupations:

“Clandestine Occupations is a triumph of passion and force. A number of memoirs and other nonfiction works by revolutionaries from the 1970s and ‘80s, including one by Block herself, have given us partial pictures of what a committed life, sometimes lived underground, was like. But there are times when only fiction can really take us there. A marvelous novel that moves beyond all preconceived categories.” —Margaret Randall, author of Che on My Mind

“Diana Block creates a vivid and engaging tapestry of how political passion interweaves with the intricacies of personal relationships. Clandestine Occupations takes us into the thoughts and feelings of six different women as each, in her own way, grapples with choices about how to live and act in a world rife with oppression but also brightened by rays of humanity and hope.”—David Gilbert, political prisoner, author of Love and Struggle

“Through this fascinating novel, Diana Block brings to life stories about radical history that will educate and engage today’s activists. Her portrayal of a woman in solitary confinement rings true to experience, offering a raw view of the struggle for resilience under daunting circumstances. Through flights of imagination, the novel gives us hope for political transformations in the future.” —Sarah Shourd, author of A Sliver of Light: Three Americans Imprisoned in Iran

“Diana Block once again challenges our understanding of the ethical essence of revolution. Beyond political theory and practice, the moral dilemmas and turmoils are constant and consistent. Where does your loyalty lie, how does your dedication confront obstacles? These are the questions found in these pages as Diana searches for a just balance in human relationships and politics. Clandestine Occupations captures and occupies the heart and spirit, teaching us what it means to be genuine and sincere in revolutionary life and love.”—Jalil Muntaqim, political prisoner, author We Are Our Own Liberators: Selected Prison Writings

Diana Block was a founding member of San Francisco Women Against Rape and the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. She spent thirteen years living underground with a political collective committed to supporting the Puerto Rican independence and Black liberation movements. Since returning voluntarily from clandestinity in 1994, Diana has committed herself to anti-prison work, becoming a founding member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and the Jericho Movement. Previous writings include her memoir Arm the Spirit and she is a member of the editorial collective of The Fire Inside newsletter, which has been giving voice to women and transgender prisoners since 1996. She lives in San Francisco with her life partner, former political prisoner Claude Marks.

A Murder Over a Girl (Henry Holt & Company)

On February 12, 2008, a beautiful morning in Oxnard, CA, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney and the rest of his eighth grade class walked to the computer lab with their teacher, Dawn Boldrin. As his classmates typed their history papers, Brandon quietly stood and shot 15-year-old Larry King—who for just two weeks had been wearing traditionally female accessories and identifying as “Leticia”—twice in the head. 

Larry died in the hospital two days later. Psychologist and NYU professor Ken Corbett was unsettled by the media coverage that sidestepped the issues of gender identity and race, and went to California to attend the trial. In , A Murder Over a Girl, Corbett, a leading expert on gender and masculinity, details the case, and all the social issues still littering the American landscape eight years later. 

The brutal murder begged the question: How this could happen? Ellen DeGeneres spoke out; Newsweek and The Advocateran cover stories. Once again, "a normal boy” like Brandon had taken a gun into a school and killed another student in cold blood. But others, still, wondered: How could this not happen? 

In many ways this was a “perfect storm” of race, poverty, gun violence, and gender identity fueled by ignorance and fear. Brandon had been raised by drug-addicted parents. His mother shot his father days before their wedding, and his father later shot his mother in front of him. His home was a veritable culture of guns. Larry’s birth mother was a 15-year-old drug addicted prostitute. He had recently been removed from his adoptive parents’ home after reporting abuse. Larry identified as gay from the age of 10, and by 15 had realized he was a girl. He wore makeup and stilettos to school with his uniform and had asked the boy who would be his killer to be his valentine. Brandon says he was being sexually harassed by Larry and sought peace the only way he knew how.

Nearly eight years later, we as a country are not on the same page on so many of the major issues at play: gender identity; sexual and racial equality; gun control; drug laws. Neither experts nor lawmakers nor voters can come to a consensus, and yet, teachers—most of whom have received no training in any of these areas—are thrust to the forefront in the classroom.

Praise for A Murder Over A Girl:

“Harrowing, humane, and utterly engaging, A Murder Over a Girl is a triumph of storytelling, delivering deep insight into gender and adolescence while drawing us into a fascinating narrative. It is a book very much of the moment, but at its heart it is a classic tale of human emotion.”—Susan Orlean, New York Times bestselling author of The Orchid Thief

“Ken Corbett was put on earth to write this stunning book, now, at a moment in our history when we need him to be our secret agent, our witness, our guide inside the maelstrom of this mad hatter court.”—PETER CAREY, Booker Prize-winning author of Oscar and Lucinda and The True History of the Kelly Gang

“With great compassion, insight, and care, Ken Corbett takes us to the scene in which one transgendered child’s daring and vibrant bid to become a girl met with the murderous rage of a boy well taught in using a gun. A murdered girl is gone, a nearly undocumented life, yet her spectre lives on in this remarkable book, a narration that enters us into the minds of those who make hatred into a form of pernicious reasoning. A Murder Over a Girl is about youth culture, gender, school, and the failures of the legal system, about cunning reversals in argument whereby murderers are cast as victims, and the traces of the dead are nearly effaced. Corbett does justice to this death and to this life with a book both intelligent and loving, exposing a world tragically lacking in those very qualities, calling upon us all to intervene to halt gender violence before it begins.”—Judith Butler, author of Gender Trouble

 “A Murder Over a Girl narrates a searing tragedy, meticulously laying out the aftermath of the crime, exposing the pathos not only of the victim, but also of the classmates, parents, jurors, lawyers, and others who had to grapple with the troubling nuance of the case. And in doing so Corbett unforgettably reveals the flaws of the American judicial system, the destructive influence of sensationalizing mass media, and the blindness of good intentions at the intersection of masculinity, grief, prejudice, and empathy.”—Andrew Solomon, New York Times bestselling author of Far from the Tree

“I’ve never read a book like A Murder Over a Girl. It’s an account of a murder trial, the outcome of which is known; yet, the book is a hard-to-put-down page-turner. It achieves its extraordinary narrative intensity not through any sensationalizing of the facts, but rather through its author’s quiet authority, piercing insights, and his refusal to deliver hasty or easy judgments. Through patience, respect and empathy, Corbett allows us to see how dehumanization conceals a consequential and potentially fatal refusal to confront loss. And in confronting loss, this book renders justice, restoring to the memory of the victim her dignity, her vital subjectivity and her agency.  A Murder Over A Girl is magnificently written, shattering, original and immensely valuable."—Tony Kushner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angels in America

“There are events that break out of a culture as illness breaks out of a body. Ken Corbett has written an account of a crime yes, a trial yes, a tragedy, but he has also perceived a way for us to comprehend the gender dis-ease just below our cultural skin. This is a brilliant and necessary book.”
—Marie Howe, author of What the Living Do and The Kingdom of Ordinary Time

"One young teenager is dead. Another is a murderer. And all of our contemporary dividing lines--race, gender, class, orientation, homophobia, privilege, and fear of the unknown--are drawn in a California courtroom. Telling this devastating story with clarity, empathy, and insight, Ken Corbett brings his profound understanding of the minds of boys--their hopes, their dreams, their terrors, their longings--to bear in the service of making the unimaginable clear to us. This essential book will broaden your mind even as it breaks your heart." —Mark Harris, author of Pictures at A Revolution and Five Came Back

 “Ken Corbett corrals the chaos and trauma of the King murder trial into a riveting story of the “cratered minds” that result from, and perpetrate, violence.  With an analyst’s attunement, he also takes us beyond the courtroom, imagining his way into the lives and minds of Brandon McInerney and Leticia King with nuance and tremendous compassion.  He gives a devastating account of the emotional landscapes of the school, the families, and the communities in which both murderer and victim were and were not held. Corbett’s determination that this crime be named and these lives be told results in a powerful and heartbreaking book.”—GAYLE SALAMON, author of Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality

Ken Corbett is a clinical assistant professor at NYU in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy with a private practice in New York City. He is the author of Boyhoods: Rethinking Masculinities.

Maggie Nelson is the author of The Argonauts, as well as an American poet, art critic, lyric essayist and nonfiction author of books such as The Red Parts: A Memoir, The Art of Cruelty, Bluets, and Jane: A Murder. The Art of Cruelty was a 2011 Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times and recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Nonfiction. Jane: A Murder was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir. Nelson has taught at the Graduate Writing Program of the New School, Wesleyan University, and the School of Art and Design at Pratt Institute; she currently teaches in the CalArts MFA writing program. She was awarded an Arts Writers grant in 2007 from the Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation. In 2011, she was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry.