Curbside Splendor Issue 1

Victor David Giron

Stephanie Waite Witherspoon

Karolina Faber

Curbside Splendor Publishing

"What’s it about? It’s about you. Something you said to me five years ago, five days ago, five minutes ago. It’s about sex, honesty, sadness, falling in and out of love, firsts and lasts, awkward moments. It’s my secrets and yours." Piano Rats is a collection of delectable short stories by a young Los Angeles-based writer who calls herself Franki Elliot.

Piano Rats

Literature & Fiction

Elliot, Franki

Genre Fiction

For everyone who's always wondered what would happen if Roger Ebert had taken Oprah Winfrey to a critics' screening of Revenge of The Nerds for their second date. In Chicago Stories: 40 Dramatic Fictions by Michael Czyzniejewski, each story is told in the persona of a famous Chicagoan, from Mrs. O’Leary to Barack Obama. Illustrated by Chicago artist Rob Funderburk.

Chicago Stories: 40 Dramatic Fictions

Czyzniejewski, Michael

United States

May We Shed These Human Bodies peers through vast spaces and skies with the world's most powerful telescope to find humanity: wild and bright and hard as diamonds. Here is humanity building: families reconstruct themselves, mothers fashion babies from two-by-fours and nails, boys make a mother out of leaves and twigs and wishes. Here is humanity tearing down: a wife sets her house on fire in revenge, a young girl plots to kill the ghosts that stalk her, a dying man takes the whole human race with him. Here is humanity transforming: feral children, cannibalistic seniors, animal wives—a whole sideshow's worth of oddballs and freaks.

May We Shed These Human Bodies

Amber Sparks

Everything Flows is the first collection of short fiction by novelist and screenwriter James Greer. The nineteen stories range from short and surreal to long and surreal, but all share a consistency of intent: to fracture traditional narrative tropes and reassemble the shards into coherent, if occasionally undulant and meandering forms (see: the title). Greer mixes anachronistic pseudo-history and unserious/serious digressions into pop culture, pop physics, pop philosophy and pop music (see: the title), to arrive at something both universal in scope and intensely personal, twisting language(s) into sometimes-strange shapes to devise new ways of looking at familiar things. Everything Flows also features the art of Guided by Voices front man Robert Pollard. Besides being known as one of today's most prolific song-writers, Mr. Pollard's irrespressible creativity has been an inspiration to many. His stunning color collages make a fantastic compliment to Greer's writing.

Everything Flows

Arts & Photography

Greer, James

History & Criticism

Beds are the most intimate of places, where you spend a third of your life. They are quiet places, they are rambunctious places. We are combining prose, comics, illustrations, and interviews into a fantastic (not so) little book all about beds and sleep.

The Way We Sleep

Comics & Graphic Novels

Graphic Novels

Samantha Irby explodes onto the printed page with her debut collection of brand-new essays about trying to laugh her way through failed relationships, being black, taco feasts, bouts with Crohn's disease, and more. Every essay is crafted with the same scathing wit and poignant candor thousands of loyal readers have come to expect from visiting her notoriously hilarious blog, bitchesgottaeat.com.

Meaty: Essays by Samantha Irby, Creator of the Blog BitchesGottaEat

Biographies & Memoirs

Irby, Samantha

Community & Culture

Zero Fade chronicles eight days in the life of inner-city Richmond, Virginia, teen Kevin Phifer as he deals with wack haircuts, bullies, last year's fly gear, his uncle Paul coming out as gay, and being grounded.

Zero Fade

Teen & Young Adult

Terry, Chris L.

Don’t Start Me Talkin' is a comedic road novel about Brother Ben, the only remaining True Delta Bluesman, playing his final North American tour. Set in contemporary society, Brother Ben's protege Silent Sam Stamps narrates an episodic 'last ride,' laying bare America's complicated relationship with African American identity, music, and culture, and like his hero Sonny Boy Williamson once sang, Silent Sam promises "I'll tell everything I know." Don’t Start Me Talkin’ is not merely a story about the blues, but with its rhythm, language, and sense of self and place, it also channels the DNA of this very American style of music.

Don't Start Me Talkin'

WILLIAMS, TOM

Humor & Satire

"The typewriter idea got my attention, but the writing kept me hooked. Franki's stories have soul and wit, but are also made of real flesh and blood."—Drew Dernavich, cartoonist for The New Yorker
"Franki Elliot's creative writing experiment is proving to be a unique blend of performance art, public art, literature, and text-based multimedia."—L.A. Weekly
"Sometimes I run across a poem that makes me second guess my opinion on poetry. It could be a line in the poem that impresses me. Or a person in the poem that makes me wonder what he'd be like in another situation. Or a relationship that makes me want to know if it worked out. Or a memory I have while reading the poem. For me, Piano Rats by Franki Elliot had all of the above."—Chicago Tribune
Kiss As Many Women As You Can presents new Franki Elliot "typewriter stories" in an art book brimming with full-color detachable postcards adorned with Chicagoan Shawn Stucky's ethereal paintings. Stucky's work has been shown across the United States and Europe, most notably at Aldo Castillo Gallery, Chicago (2009); Ferreira Projects, London (2008); and Sundlaugin (the recording studio of Sigur Rós) in Mosfellsbær, Iceland (2007).
Franki Elliot is a music industry professional making a name for herself by crafting typewritten stories for people upon the suggestion of a word or phrase, as covered by L.A. Weekly and Flavorpill. Curbside Splendor published her first book Piano Rats to critical acclaim.

Kiss As Many Women As You Can

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Books by Curbside Splendor Publishing