Contents: 45 brief stories. None are deep. None are wise. Some are funny.. Some just thing they are funny. The only thing the stories have in common is that they were inspired by the titles to 45 books by Joyce Carol Oates. The stories are not inspired by the books. They just took her titles and did their own thing. You will like these stories. You will not like these stories. You will read this description and wonder why anyone would waste their time with this book. Or you can buy this bo...

David Macpherson writes every day. He does not write a lot every day, but small amounts go pretty far.For this year, he kept a written record of what he was writing and how it was going along. He get to see the story ideas that floundered and those that made it to the end. You will read the frustration of projects that are not coming together. You will also read of the summer where everything he worked on was completed and he was happy with all of it.It is a year in the lif...

People weep at the movies. If an old guy goes to a movie by himself, there is a chance he will be crying by the end. No matter what kind of movie it is, he will be crying.David Macpherson is that old guy crying at everything.In this personal essay, he attempts to understand the joy and art of crying at the movies.What movies do you cry at?Should men hide their tears away, because crying at a movie is a such a girl thing to do?Or is it universal?...

In 2019, I was going to turn fifty and had my midlife crisis by wallowing in the comic books I loved as a kid.I started buying comic books again. Not new comics. Hell no. I was keyed into old comics.The shit I read when I was a kid.When I was a teenager in the 1980s, I spent all my money on comic books. I would go to the local shop on Saturdays and buy a large wedge of books and spend the next week reading them all.I loved all of them, but would they all stand up?

Bad writing doesn’t just happen. It takes time and effort. Bad writing is not something anyone can do. It requires a dedicated student to master the wrong turns and poor decisions that are necessary to excel in lousy work.There are many books and workshops that offer good writing advice. But none for bad writing advice. Where can we go to get the awful suggestion?Fret no more. We have spent years compiling this helpful and useless list. There is not a good idea in the lot. ...

Some people like comic books. They read them. They collect them. They grade them and sell them for a profit. Or, at least, they try to sell them for a profit. Comic book people love their comics from superheroes to romance to funny animals. These are the books that define them. Comic people love to talk about comics.Here, in these pages, comic book people have a chance to take center stage and tell about their comics. Each chapter is another person telling their story.Some ...

A lot of people read Perry Rhodan novels. Just not here in the English speaking world. In Germany, the science fiction novels about Perry Rhodan are published once a week. They are rip roaring space operas.There is nearly sixty years of Perry Rhodan novels. But they never took off in America.David Macpherson picked up a bunch of Perry Rhodan novels that were translated and published in the 1970s. He reads eight of those books and takes you along for the ride. While reading the book...

Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker's 1982 video "You Got Lucky" is considered one of the important early music videos. It blended this new form of film with science fiction.This book is a second by second look at that video. It is serious, funny and irreverent. "In This Reality" is an examination of a four minute and thirty second movie. It is a chance to see how the possibilities and variety a small narrative can offer.

One cocktail. One Man. Every damned bar in town.There are a lot of bars in the City of Worcester, Massachusetts. David Macpherson took it upon himself to go to every watering hole and have a drink. Which drink? Why a gin and tonic, of course. He wrote about each of the 144 bars he went to from 2014 to 2015.There were good gin and tonics and then there was the time he got a gin and Coca-Cola. He found lovely people all around the city. He was also ignored and threatened. Dav...

Every fella needs a joint to sit down and have a beer at. The bar, O. Onions, caters to thirsty folk who also can bring the dead back to life. Just because they are reanimators doesn’t mean they don’t get thirsty.The FlipSwitch happened: where some people got some powers. That created telepaths, pyrokinetics and a bunch of other talents. For some reason, those who got the power to bring corpses back to life does not get the respect others do.They gather at O. Onions, where ...

What's the best part of a hardboiled detective yarm?Is it the drunk detective rooting around for the solution?Is it the relentless mood of impending doom?Or could it be the confession?The confession is the such a cool part of a hardboiled detective yearn.And this novel has person after person coming into the police station to confess to the same crime.What's wrong here?Not every one who says they killed the rich man could actually kil...

Santo was the greatest luchador that ever danced in the ring.His moves were so good they were like poetry.And that is why we present a book of poetry.Most are inspired by some of his great movies, where he fought vampires, werewolves and robots.These poems are irreverent and sometimes touching.There is a world to explore in the films of a masked wrestler fighting Aztec Mummies. There is a world of poetry in the saga of Santo.. We are brave enough to ...