BLACK BILE PRESS
CHAPBOOKS
Our Guidelines: Please do not send unsolicited chapbook submissions. BBP publishes chapbooks by invitation only.
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Our backlist:
My Uncle Roy Was A Mob Guy
By Len Gasparini
p. 36, 2006, ISBN 0-9780200-0-6
$8.00
Len Gasparini shows his flexible might in this collection of biting short fiction. From comical insights into mobster life, to the lustful Jamaican wanderings of a loner seeking a dash of danger, to sudden yearning between strangers stranded by an Italian snowstorm – Gasparini knows humanity is often comprised of equal parts beauty and ugliness. Gasparini is a valuable asset to Canadian literature, a potent antidote to its middling mainstream musings. He is at his best in this succinct collection of visceral short fiction.
“Gasparini’s descriptive skills and psychological insights are repeatedly
evident. His dialogue is bracingly candid.”
The Globe and Mail
Outside
By Salvatore Difalco
p. 36, 2006, ISBN 0-9780200-1-4
$8.00
Salvatore Difalco’s fiction is a finely blended mix of toughness, street-smart insights and violence, along with flashes of tenderness and compassion. In the four stories in Outside, he takes readers inside the minds of raging youth, confused, yearning males and various damaged characters teetering on the brink, one small step from either redemption or damnation. This is honest, from-the-gut storytelling told with style and verve.
Nemesis Girls
Stories by Christina Decarie
p. 32, 2005, ISBN 0-9680097-9-4
$6.00
Nemesis Girls is a collection of four short stories centred on growing up ordinary, angry and lustful in Kingston, Ontario (the city of contrasts) in the 1980s and then moving away wiser and thicker-skinned. Christina Decarie takes readers to the core of adolescent rivalry, teenaged longing, minimum wage frustration and then early-adult isolation in this smart, small book. Her prose is clear, unsentimental and unrelenting. Decarie is a sharp new voice packaged here in a tidy, limited edition chapbook. All copies of Nemesis Girls are signed and numbered by the author.
Spray Job
by Harold Hoefle
p. 36, 2003, ISBN 0-9680097-7-8
$8.00
What's The Danforth Review saying about Spray Job? Read on.
Spray Job introduces the short fiction of one of Canada's rising literary stars. Harold Hoefle's fiction achieves the nearly impossible: it seamlessly blends an international flavour devoid of pretence with a clear eye for what's going on around the corner, at the end of the street, or down at the neighbourhood pub in just about any Canadian community. Hoefle's voice is one that will be heard from again. Catch his work early as he ascends.
"Hoefle's narrators are modern-day versions of the ancient mariners. His stories show the persistence of our quest myths. They are tales of yearning, conflict and adventure."
Michael Bryson, The Danforth Review
Folly
by Bill Brown
p. 40, 2003, ISBN 0-9680097-8-6
$8.00
Folly marks the stunning debut of a strong new voice in Canadian fiction. In the collection's title story, Bill Brown portrays a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality amidst the hostile environs of a 1950s Ottawa suburb. This is powerful, clear writing for readers who like their CanLit anything but sugarcoated.
"Bill Brown creates well-crafted, yet edgy, stories that take the reader into the lives of young men. While he explores the gay culture in depth, he creates characters of universal empathy and places them in a world we can all understand. Brown's ability to capture people on the brink of change and his unflinching honesty make this a powerful debut." Rita Donovan
Stripe
by David Rose
p. 43, 2001, ISBN
0-9680097-6-X
$6.00
What The Danforth Review has to say about Stripe: read on.
A collection of five short
stories by an accomplished writer from Middlesex, England. David Rose
is a master of subtlety and flexibility, blurring styles and structures
to write unique prose that bores straight to the bone. Widely published
in UK magazines, anthologies and journals, this is his first book.
Blind in One Eye and Drunk
on Cotton Candy
by Matthew Firth
p. 18, 1997, ISBN
0-9680097-3-5
$4.00
Still in print, this is the
author’s second chapbook. His first, Scattered
Among the Heathen, is
out of print. This collection of six short stories marks the evolution
of Firth’s style, from black comedy to subtle dark realism.
Salt Pork and Sunsets
by T. Anders Carson
p. 21, 1997, ISBN
0-9680097-4-3
$5.00
A collection of thirteen
poems uniquely laid out with accompanying photograph’s from the estate
of the author’s grandfather. T. Anders Carson’s second book, Salt Pork
and Sunsets, shows the poet in full stride. Blending rage,
sincerity,
humour and honesty, this is a book that stands alone; testament to
Carson’s commitment to the poetic art form.