These Books from Artistically Declined Press Will Change Your Life - Border Run from the Shya Scanlon and A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst by the Hosho McCreesh.

Read. Read. Read. Holidays. End of the year. Compulsions. Escape. Read. And enough of that. We suppose we could mention our clear bias and endless subjectivity regarding the work of Artistically Decline Press, but what's the point in that? They have been very good to us and we love them, a lot, yes, done. But that would overshadow the fact that present company aside, the authors they've worked with are among our most gifted, diverse, and beloved. Ken Sparling? Roxane Gay? Fuck yes. And yes, we're using the word fuck a lot this week, but we're worked-up, yo, holidays, sleep, and so much good reading. It's da lovely really. Which we also suppose brings us to Border Run from the Shya Scanlon and A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst by the Hosho McCreesh. More gifted. More diverse. More beloved. All of it. And in both cases, work that drifts a foot from our normal reading head space - speculative fiction and poetry respectively - and places maybe we should vow, or resolve as it may be, to read more of in the new year? Yes? Yes. Because we've done not enough of either this year and it is rapidly coming to an end. So, looking forward, terrific, we will, and back, yes, we will soon as well, tomorrow. But for now there is the Border Run, a story of clones and government, and how things get corrupted. Maybe more so on the border, where so much is hidden and space is so expansive. And yet despite, or is it inspite, of all of this, the Border Run still comes back to family and love, and trying to discern what we really know about either, and how much we are willing to give of ourselves to make either work, when it is so much easier, to hide from these things, and ourselves. Something else that the border and the west and the space allows for if that is our wont. 

Then there is the A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst, which is so deep and so gorgeous, and also about love and family. But as memory piece. And drenched in alcohol. Always, saturated, and a celebration of sorts. Which is one of McCreesh's gifts as a poet, to be in motion and exultant at all times about all things. And the Thirst is about all things funny and sad, the dark edges always lingering, but never quite enveloping the moments. Or the life. His work too is about escape, into a glass, a bottle, or a bar, but even within that it celebrates life, and love, constantly, and lovingly, even if at confusingly at times, because life is confusing, whether you are inside, or outside, a bottle. And these are things that McCreesh and Scanlon share in their work. Escape may be a pattern, a trope, and a need, but there is love, could be love, will be love, and even when it's all so confusing, that possibility makes life worth living for. All of which is to say that we are biased towards love as well, and living, with pain, and escape and all the messiness contained therein. And with that, Happy New Year, yo, live it, fully, and with joy, knowing sorrow and darkness and confusion are there, always, waiting, but can be held at bay when we are watching for them, conscious, and living it, all of it. It being life, changed and otherwise, or more accurately, knowing what life is, so we can embrace all that it throws at us.

A most cool Sententia 3 call for submissions.

Artistically Declined, in partnership with Guest Editor and TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Shya Scanlon, has opened submissions for Sententia 3 and what they're up to is very cool indeed.

"Issue 3 of Sententia will be themed around the pitch, and therefore against the notion of “self-contained” excerpts. It will be a collection of novel excerpts whose purpose is to leave the reader not with an artificial feeling of completion, but actively wanting more.

We will be considering excerpts of three chapters or ten thousand words—whichever comes first. In addition to an excerpt and bio, authors are required to submit a one-page synopsis of the full work, to be printed along with each excerpt. The novel need not be finished at the time of submission.

Submissions will be read as might an agent or editor looking to publish, and in this spirit, 60 copies of the resulting collection will be sent to presses and agents we consider most likely to use the work therein as a resource during their own search for talent."

As we said, coolness.

A We Were Cheated; I Got Mad Six Miles South In This Alone Impulse Shya Scanlon joint thing.

We recently had the opportunity to do a We Were Cheated; I Got Mad Six Miles South In This Alone Impulse Shya Scanlon joint thing and we are most appreciative that TBWCYL, Inc. players David Masciotra and Brandon Will were willing to help out. Enjoy.

This Book Will Change Your Life - In This Alone Impulse by Shy Scanlon.

As you know, we've been traveling. As you also know, travel equals reading, and during the past week we had the chance to read the poetry collection In This Alone Impulse by Shy Scanlon. What's interesting to us, is that as we read this, we thought sure, okay, arguably these poems may be all about being alone, and all about impulse, and yet what we kept thinking, is that these are riffs on relationship, all kinds of relationships, with those we love, at least those we love right now, but also with cars, money, language, and the world we are so very much of and in. Maybe the point here, is that even when we are in relationships we are still alone, sometimes, all the time, and driven by impulse, things we can't and don't escape. Maybe. Meanwhile, there is a top secret project we are working on with Shya, or at least Shya's words, and while that may be be a little dramatic, or not even so top secret, be warned, and be ready, because its coming soon.