From the author's violent childhood in suburbia to eventual homelessness on the streets and piers of New York City, to recognition as one of the most provocative artists of his generation - Close to the Knives is his powerful and iconoclastic memoir. Street life, drugs, art and nature, family, AIDS, politics, friendship and acceptance: Wojnarowicz challenges us to examine our lives - politically, socially, emotionally, and aesthetically.

The "fierce, erotic, haunting, truthful" memoirs of an extraordinary artist, activist, and iconoclast who lit up late-twentieth-century New York (Dennis Cooper).One of the New York Times ' "50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years"David Wojnarowicz's brief but eventful life was not easy. From a suburban adolescence marked by neglect, drugs, prostitution, and abuse to a squalid life on the streets of New York City, to fame—and infamy—as an activi...

From life in the streets and love in the alleys to fame in the spotlight and an untimely death—raw, biting, and brilliant selections from the personal journals of one of the most uniquely creative artists of the late twentieth centuryWhen his life ended at age thirty-seven—a casualty of the AIDS epidemic that took so many before their time—David Wojnarowicz had long since established himself as one of America's most vital artists and activists. In the Shadow of ...

"Wojnarowicz is a spokesman for the unspeakable." —New York MagazineDavid Wojnarowicz, one of the most provocative artists of his generation, explores memory, violence, and the erotism of public space—all under the specter of AIDS.Here are David Wojnarowicz’s most intimate stories and sketches, from the full spectrum of his life as an artist and AIDS activist. Four sections—"Into the Drift and Sway," "Doing Time in a Dispo...

Voices from the margins of American life tell tales of trickery, betrayal, sex, and defeat in these short monologues by "a spokesman for the unspeakable" ( New York magazine).In his full but regrettably brief lifetime, David Wojnarowicz was many things: a visual and performance artist whose radical work incensed the right-wing establishment, a tireless AIDS and anticensorship activist, and, most emphatically, a writer. His Waterfront ...

Ozzy is the short story of a cat and his master. After losing his beloved wife, the man struggles to cope with a lonely life, a troubled son, and the nightmares of his past.

A spectacular new anthology of the best short-short fiction from across the United States.It has been more than thirty years since the term "flash fiction" was first coined, perfectly describing the power in the brevity of these stories, each under 1,000 words. Since then, the form has taken hold in the American imagination. For this latest installment in the popular Flash Fiction series, James Thomas, Sherrie Flick, and John Dufresne have searched far and wide for...

When former NHL player Cole Ripley needs a stand-in girlfriend ASAP, his friend Fedora Echeveria agrees to play along for one night. Problem is, she’s the executive chef at the brew pub he co-owns and all three partners have agreed never to date the help.As for Fedora, she’s been there, done that. Early in her culinary career, she fell under the spell of her boss and when the relationship soured, he fired her. There’s no way she’s going down that road again. And yet on the fake dat...

The National Book Award–winning coming-out memoir. "One of the most complex, moral, personal, and political books to have been written about gay life" ( LA Weekly).Paul Monette grew up all-American, Catholic, overachieving . . . and closeted. As a child of the 1950s, a time when a kid suspected of being a "homo" would routinely be beaten up, Monette kept his secret throughout his adolescence. He wrestled with his sexuality for the first thirty years of his ...

Deserted by her people at a kennel one dog longs to go home. Will someone choose her and take her to their home? Or is she meant to be alone with no human to call her own. This story is based on the life of a real dog but told by her.

A love affair blooms between two officers in the impartially worded pages of a police blotter."Officers Weep" is a story from Daniel Orozco's critically acclaimed collection Orientation, which leads the reader through the hidden lives and moral philosophies of bridge painters, men housebound by obesity, office temps, and warehouse workers. He reveals the secret pleasures of late-night supermarket trips for cookie binges, exceptional data entry, and an exiled dictator's occ...

The Size of a Bird is an invocation of desire in times of violence and trauma. Refusing to shy away from difficult topics the poet tackles addiction, abuse, suicide, and sexual violence while infusing each word with a relentless drive for life. Seeking pleasure, these poems navigate dangerous terrain, staying with ambivalence and probing its depths. Queer femininity seeks heterosexual masculinity with varying results. First dates and one-night-stands, alleyways and coffee shops, forest flo...