Tom Perrotta’s latest novel, Mrs. Fletcher, involves a lot of porn and sexual adventure, but that’s not to say it’s lacking in heart. Beneath the more sensational parts of the book is a story about embracing the fluidity of your identity and giving yourself the freedom to change.
The first part of the novel cuts between the titular character of Eve Fletcher—a single mother in her mid-forties—and her son Brendan during a major transitory period in both of their lives. Brendan leaves home for his first year of college, and Eve is alone for the first time. In her son’s absence, she is left to reexamine her choices. Her newfound independence becomes the impetus for her awakening sexually, intellectually, and socially. Specifically, she becomes transfixed by lesbian porn sites and starts seeing the scenes of her life through the lens of porn scenarios.…
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Christoph Paul is an award-winning humor author. He writes non-fiction, YA, Bizarro, horror, and poetry, including The Passion of the Christoph, Great White House Volume 1 and Volume 2, Slasher Camp for Nerd Dorks, and Horror Film Poems. He is an editor for CLASH Media and CLASH Books and edited the anthologies Walk Hand in Hand Into Extinction: Stories Inspired by True Detective and This Book Ain’t Nuttin to Fuck With: A Wu-Tang Tribute Anthology. Under the pen name Mandy De Sandra, he writes Bizarro Erotica that has been covered in VICE, Huffington Post, Jezebel, and The A.V. Club. He is represented by Veronica Park at the Corvisiero Literary Agency.
In this episode, Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum chats with Paul about managing life as a full-time writer and editor, exploring bold and fearless possibilities with a pseudonym, reflecting on punk rock roots, and much more.…
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Born in Mexico and residing in New Hampshire, Leza Cantoral is the editor of CLASH Books and the author of Cartoons in the Suicide Forest, a wonderfully twisted, clever, and poignant short story collection that we, among many other outlets, enjoyed very much. In this second episode of Cover to Cover with . . . , Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum and Cantoral touch upon many topics, including her work and inspirations, the highs and lows of AWP (where they recorded this), Trump, bigotry, and of course, sex and drugs!
– Leza Cantoral…
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I hate the pain. I hate the mindlessness torture of loving someone. I hate the meaningless of it all.
– Leza Cantoral, Cartoons in the Suicide Forest
“Spawned” in 2013 as an imprint of JournalStone Publishing, Bizarro Pulp Press has quickly become a major name in the realm of speculative prose, as it specializes in offering “dark pulp fiction for readers who enjoy art that challenges the boundaries of ‘normal’ in the literary world.” With over two dozen wonderfully weird works under its belt, it’s fair to say that B.P.P. champions the bold, unusual, and fearless, which is why its newest release, Leza Cantoral’s Cartoons in the Suicide Forest, feels perfectly at home next to its twisted siblings. As an editor at both CLASH Media and Luna Luna Magazine, Cantoral is no stranger to hard-hitting explorations of topics like sexuality, femininity, abuse (be they physical, emotional, and/or mental), subjugation, and identity, all of which she touches upon here with poised eccentricity, imagination, and valor.…
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