In Eating Lightbulbs and Other Essays, Steve Fellner traces the seriocomic absurdities of his own mind and its obsessions with family, mental illness, film, poetry, and gay sex. His search for love finds its outlets and objects wherever it can: in an imaginary 1970s Cineplex movie theatre, at a baby shower, or in a co-ed sexual abuse support group; via a letter penned to the ghost of an environmental activist who killed himself; or in the form of the AIDS quilt, lava lamps, amoebas, and a famous queer poet who didn’t know he existed. As he charts the inherently flawed ways he—and we—live and love, Fellner is always ready to subvert victim narratives even if he has to commit a few (or more than a few) acts of betrayal along the way. Unflinching and sidelong, laugh-out-loud funny, and as sharp and unpredictable as shards of fine glass, these essays look straight at the moments in life most of us would rather forget.

Eating Lightbulbs and Other Essays (Machete)

Literature & Fiction

Fellner, Steve

Essays & Correspondence

Mad Creek Books

Poetry. Gay & Lesbian Studies. "Steve Fellner's poetry is spunky, raw, immediate, and utterly compelling. BLIND DATE WITH CAVAFY serves up hilarious pathos and devastating humor. Bleak, deadpan, enthusiastic, earnest: Steve Fellner's book is all of these things, sometimes all of these things in one poem, sometimes all of these things in one line. His 'Self-Portrait' at the center of the book pushes the conventions of the post-confessional, transgressive impulse. The poems in BLIND DATE WITH CAVAFY shimmer with vulnerability, leaps, and dizzying riffs"--Denise Duhamel. "Steve Fellner's poems have a wonderful innocence and playfulness that so many of us lose, or forget that we have. They sneak up on you--while you're laughing and admiring their wit and sparkle, they'll swoop down and kick your ass"--Jim Daniels.

Blind Date with Cavafy

Poetry

Marsh Hawk Press

Literary Nonfiction. Gay and Lesbian Studies. Memoir. Murder attempts ... missing umbilical cords ... haunted quarries ... fat camps ... these darkly comic stories fill the pages of ALL SCREWED UP. Young, gay, and poor, Steve Fellner attempts to shed his trailer park past and seize a better life for himself. But coming from the sticks offers a certain kind of freedom: no one expects anything from you, so you can be as wild and ridiculous as you want. Fellner's humorous and touching memoir centers on his odd relationship with his mother, a woman who was once a championship trampolinist and is now a champion of the unpredictable.

All Screwed Up

History

Benu Press

Biographies & Memoirs

Memoirs

Poetry. LGBT Studies. "Steve Fellner is not afraid to be unlikeable, which is precisely why I trust him completely. These are poems of rage and shame, confession in its purest sense—not employed to elicit sympathy or shock but because the stakes are very high: tell the truth or cease to exist. Prepare for journeys to psych wards and ERs; know that your guides will be Miss Piggy and meth, cyberspace and the shadows of the dead. Know, too, that you will meet forms of the divine, and forms of deeply earnest love. Steve Fellner fully understands—especially in his haunting cycle of poems to Matthew Shepard—the distance respect requires, and the intimacy poetry demands"—Lia Purpura.

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Books by Fellner, Steve