Justin Grimbol’s parents were Presbyterian Ministers. They raised him on the east end of Long Island in a town called Sag Harbor. He attended Green Mountain College in Vermont where he wrote for the school paper. After dropping out, he moved into his girlfriend Heather’s dorm room where he wrote his first book, Drinking Until Morning. He and Heather eventually moved around the country together. They lived in Astoria (Oregon), Portland (Maine), Racine (Wisconsin), Oneonta (New York), and are now back in Vermont, where they met. He has published some books. His most recent is Mud Season, which was published by ATLATL Press.
In this episode, Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum shoots the breeze with Grimbol regarding Mud Season, writing in general, nature, horror, punk and metal music, and much more.… ...continue reading
In the high court of sparrows
I plead my wants, turn on
every light switch, gather twigs
build a nest of sorrow
in the high nest of wants
I build sparrows, gather light,
court twigs of sorrow
plead every switch to turn
in the twigged light of nests
I court the plea of sparrows,
build high my wants, my sorrow,
turn, gather the switch
to strike the sparrow, to empty
the high nest, to gather fallen twigs,
to touch the still feather,
to plead my guilt in the court of sorrow
– Jim Zola… ...continue reading
“Be wat chu is
cuz if ya be wat chu ain’t
then ya ain’t wat chu is”
He sings the gospel
in a low down dirty bass
as he glides in the bar
on a yellow paper airplane
He places his bible
on the table
and orders a drink
of vodka and juice
He’s a retiree
with a pension trickling in
from Ford Motor Company
but he never has money
because it’s swallowed up
by his young wife
who has alligator teeth
and a large appetite
for crack cocaine… ...continue reading
As the vocalists of Black Flag and The Misfits (among many other projects), Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig, respectively, are widely considered two of the most outspoken, manic, and/or hypermasculine figures in punk/hard rock and metal. Of course, Rollins has also established himself as an impassioned and intellectual socio-political author, actor, and radio host, but his original persona still follows him somewhat. As for Danzig, his fascinations with horror, eroticism, and the occult/theology—joined with his often-chronicled imbalanced behavior—have made him quite the interesting character.
It makes wonderfully twisted sense, then, that they’d be turned into an off-the-wall domesticated couple in Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever, an underground comic series by Tom Neely and his Igloo Tornado troupe that ran for the past decade or so.… ...continue reading
My parents’ faces in the photograph
(a formal portrait in an oval frame
to celebrate their sixty years)
are fading to a ghostly blue.
It’s premature, some weakness in the ink.
I feel it as my own ambivalence,
residual resentments, sibling jealousies
dissolving pigment into sadness and regret.
In ancient graveyards, time and rain
reduce a chiseled stone to formlessness,
to what degree depending
on the hardness of the rock.
– Maureen Eppstein… ...continue reading
The living room is a dangerous place when you are married to the author. The further into the night we descend, the more danger looms.
After my infant son falls asleep I nuzzle into the far side of the couch. Within my lamp-lit kingdom, I wrestle a tower of books on trauma studies that circles around the vortex of loss, but never seems to lose any of its own girth. The companion mound of finished reads never seems to grow. I fall into the sonic rhythm of the mechanical keyboard’s click as my husband– the author– works in a feverish trance across the room. Gaming headphones pipe nondescript medieval music through his brain. The almost-music coupled with the dim light lulls me to false complacency, and I forget the quiet battle he’s fought every evening for three months at his keyboard. … ...continue reading
Gender roles are constructs built by communities and society to define the expectations those communities have on women and men. These constructs are often based on political and religious influence and are problematic in how they contribute to individual development and growth. Over time, these expectations serve to further divide women and men, excluding individuals from accomplishing even daily tasks because they are seen through the lens of these social constructs. Even small gender roles (assigning things like cooking to women and household maintenance to men) contribute to the continual divide between genders and impact the interactions between women and men. Chinua Achebe’s short story “Girls at War” is a commentary on gender roles, reflecting the interpersonal struggles that arise when someone does and doesn’t meet the expectations placed on them by society.… ...continue reading