Michael Flanagan was born in the Bronx, N.Y. and raised in the New York Metropolitan area. He currently resides in Richmond, VA, but is planning a move away from there in the very near future. He can be reached by email at: michaelflan44@gmail.com

Days Like These

Literature & Fiction

FLANAGAN, MICHAEL

Poetry

Luchador Press

"Catacombs of the Heart explores the loveliest and the most dreadful corners of existence. Its bittersweet accounts will break your heart, inspire you to see beauty in the mundane, and even, at times, make you laugh out loud. A gorgeous and powerful collection through and through."-Zara Lisbon, author of Fake Plastic Girl"Cailler's voice is unmistakable as he keenly observes his world, both inside and out. In poems that view the ordinary as extraordinary, Catacombs of the Heart is a collection that weaves together the emotions of our fragile and beautiful human coexistence." -Kali White VanBaale, author of The Monsters We Make and The Good Divide"In this poetry collection, the catacombs of the title are a fascinating repository of the 'things' that comprise a life. These catacombs are a magical mystery tour swerving along Southern California's freeways whereby the speaker encounters "a tango of perfume and Bay Rum cologne," "kisses that taste like Friday," or a homeless man explaining he imagines an assassination, while watching Bye-Bye Birdie, wouldn't be so bad. To one crucial line, 'maybe my brain isn't a series of nerves and pink-gooey folds, but a map, a globe, ' a reader can only nod in recognition. These poems with their stunning, surprising details, are bright, shining, revelatory globes." -Sue William Silverman, author of If the Girl Never Learns"A deeply moving portrayal of the complexities of the human heart. We all carry our own catacombs and Cailler's sharp, but balanced command of language makes his poems accessible and relatable. They deliver the message that maybe none of us are as alone as we think."-Racquel Henry, Founder of Black Fox Literary Magazine Mathieu Cailler is an award-winning author whose poetry and prose have been widely featured in numerous national and international publications, including the Los Angeles Times and The Saturday Evening Post. A graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts, he is the winner of a Short Story America Prize and a Shakespeare Award. He is the author of the short-story collection, Loss Angeles (Short Story America Press), which has been honored by the Hollywood, New York, London, Paris, Best Book, and International Book Awards; the poetry collection, May I Have This Dance? (About Editions), winner of the 2017 New England Book Festival Poetry Prize; and the children's book, The (Underappreciated) Life of Humphrey Hawley (About Editions), which has been nominated for the Caldecott Medal and the Newbery Award, among other notable prizes. Catacombs of the Heart is his second full-length poetry collection. Another children's book, Hi, I'm Night, is forthcoming from Olympia. For more information, please visit mathieucailler.com.

Catacombs of the Heart

Cailler, Mathieu

The Vade Mecum of the True Sublime

Gillard, Bill

"Jason Youngclaus has created a world within "Little Planet Raisins," written into existence with a unique and comforting voice comparable to Ginsberg and Kerouac, with a dash of the Romanticism that first inspired him to write. In this world, you follow a path --- a beaten road through maybe-messed-up lower-middle class America, lined with gods and goddesses like those in "The Cliffs of Thera." Where the real world meets constant mythological references, there is a steady level of realism throughout, and counteractive surreality playing in "Raisins," but most comfortingly is a sense of nostalgia which supports the mantra found in the folds of this book: "I am not a modern man." We wouldn't want you to be modern anyway, Jason; the old soul voice that carries through this collection is undeniably comforting, in a day and age where we need comfort more than ever... An exquisite collection in a number of ways, but perhaps most strongly is the vision that Jason has created: a little planet, abound with folds and wrinkles (not unlike a raisin's), full of life. Take your time reading, and dive into every detail." --- Maxine L. Peseke, Swimming With Elephants Publications " I am dyed-in-the wool urban poet, so I can appreciate the poetry of Jason Youngclaus. He is no slouch with invoking nature and the landscape, and he finds them in the sprawling metropolis of New York City, to the smaller burgs like Somerville, and Worcester, MA. He takes us to the Woodlawn Cemetry in the Bronx, New York where he spies the 'cool' spot and grave of Miles Davis. He is a master of detail with a poem about an old diner he haunted when he was a an undergraduate at Holy Cross. He brings in the bacon, the eggs, the ancient juke box, and the young wanderlust that he shared with his band of friends. Youngclaus is a holy fool in the best sense of the word, as he searches for the essence that we try to capture, but often fail to." -Doug Holder/ Lecturer Creative Writing--Endicott College/ Arts Editor of The Somerville Times "In this impressive debut collection, Jason Youngclaus acrobats the reader through train car diners, pawn shops, bars, the cliffs of Thera, and the whole zoo of human existence, moving us through time and space, through rage and restraint, love and longing, from California to the Himalayas and even into the dust of stars as he mines new rhymes from ancient myths, dusting off the old gods and strapping them across the hoods of chrome wheeled American engines to weave us through the pileup of all those personal and historical narratives we only barely survive, but somehow do, with Blakean persistence, to come out wiser, if wearier, on the other side. To borrow from the poet's own words, these are poems "entrenched in celebratory rebellion/through gust and squall to sail/ from that bedamned lack of plenty." Little Planet Raisins is the work of a poet well on his way." -Matt W. Miller, author of Club Icarus, winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Little Planet Raisins

Youngclaus, Jason

A Quiet Ghost

Arcangelini, Michael

"Denis Bell's stories are short only in length; in insight, vision, humor and style they have a farseeing distance and depth that will keep you wedded to the page, either laughing, marveling, or scratching your head."-- David L. Robbins, author, War of the Rats "A thought-provoking collection of flashes and longer stories: poignant, strange, humorous and humane. A Box of Dreams should be opened by all."-- Peter Blair and Ashley Chantler. Editors for Flash: The International Short: Short Story Magazine "In A Box of Dreams, nothing is as it seems. For the characters caught up in Denis Bell's intricately interconnected world of flash fictions, up is down. Black is white. Indeed, only one thing is certain: by the time you're done with A Box of Dreams, you'll find yourself looking over your shoulder... These stories are cool as hell.-- Andrew Geyer, Fiction Editor for Concho River Review, author, Lesser Mountains and Whispers in Dust and Bone "Denis Bell and flash fiction represent a marriage made in Heaven. The two dozen short works in his collection, A Box of Dreams, show him working at the top of his game. In each, the reader's mind is taken for a weird, wonderful walk that's by turns wryly humorous and darkly intriguing. Louise Brown's illustrations lend just the right atmosphere for an absorbing read." -- Paul Blaney, Writer in Residence, Rutgers University, author, The Anchoress Denis Bell's collection of short fiction A Box of Dreams, 2nd edition, centers itself in the tradition of Spoon River Anthology (minus the tombstones) and Winesburg, Ohio. A Box of Dreams is dark without a trace of cynicism: it invites empathy for even the least attractive of the characters; these protagonists commonly suffer from mangled memories, rightful guilt, and an inability to distinguish between delusion and reality, between past and present. The stories tease and tantalize: truth glimmers between the lines. Louise Freshman Brown's gorgeous images are haunting illuminations.-- Miriam N. Kotzin, author, Country Music, Spuyten Duyvil Press Each piece in Denis Bell's A Box of Dreams is a work of magic that moves steadily along, pulling you in, and not letting you go... The stories are by turns haunting, heartbreaking and funny, and they never fail to surprise... Blending the real with the surreal, these stories, more than anything else, get to the heart of our humanity, our vulnerabilities, and they do so in a way that represents the best in flash fiction.-- Dennis Pahl, Long Island University, Editor for Confrontation Magazine

A Box of Dreams

Brown, Louise

Bell, Denis

Short Stories & Anthologies

Leftover Distances

James, Mike

"In Remnants, the poems' freshness comes not only from Troy Schoultz's vivid images of bleak towns' inhabitants and geographies, but also from this unspoken in sight: the bleakness one confronts can be mitigated by its recollection, its retelling. Placed alongside the poems, Amie Brownfield's photos of everyday objects--watches, pictures, buttons, matchbooks, etc.--underscore the authenticity of Shoultz's poems. The resulting assemblages create a world the reader can readily enter, with real people, real places, and real things presented in a startling light." -Don Winter, author of Cleaning Up at the Hamtramck Burger Chef. &#65279;"Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks," wrote Plutarch.Artist Amie Brownfield and Poet Troy Schoultz provide the best of both worlds in these pairings of visual art and poetry that recall works by WilliamBlake, Kenneth Patchen, and, more recently, Banca Stone and WilliamTrowbridge. Narrative, at times nostalgic, and full of jolting surprises, this book made me grin and gasp, often simultaneously. On page after page, Brownfield and Schoultz tore me to pieces and then stitched what was left of me back together." -Tom C. Hunley, Ph.D., author of What Feels Like Love: New and Selected Poems.

Remnants

Schoultz, Troy

Arts & Photography

"Many years ago, when I first traveled through Yellow Springs, Ohio, the home of Antioch College, I felt a strange Twilight-Zone presence in that Sunday-morning vacant town. The inn's proprietor was not surprised because "upstairs Rod Serling taught class." I felt the vibe. Now, I'm catching that vibe again with Rikki Santer's Stopover, her poetic riffs on Sterling's Twilight Zone, which takes the series to another dimension, where the allegories are soft reminders of our humanity, our vulnerability, and our innocence. Our enjoyment is seeing episodes with "no moral, no message, no prophetic tract/just a suit of armor held together by one bolt/call it faith." She soars, for instance, when she shares the bird's-eye view of Mickey Rooney as a washed-up jockey, condensing the aging loser in a prison-like room with "walls closing in as your consonants rattled, your character out of his mind with shortness, neon gel of your ranting, nighty night." Rikki and Rod parse the lonely life of a has-been: Rod's washed-up jockey and Rooney's seedy actor with "frayed pockets: king high, ace low." In her cento poem, she uses Serling's voice in a fantastic world full of question marks and leavened by the possibility but never the reality of bromides. Rikki Santer's poetic appreciation of The Twilight Zone series embraces for our consideration cynicism about our intentions and unconditional love for our imperfection. Enter her lyrical zone to enjoy Serling's simple tales as the stuff of poetry. If you think humankind to be masterfully in charge, then Rikki and Rod will remind you that we are doomed to be served on a platter by those who know we deserve it." -John DeSando, producer and host of It'sMovie Time and Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take for NPR's WCBE 90.5 FM, Columbus, Ohio.

Stopover

Santer, Rikki

Invasion of the Shadow People

Ridgeway, Kevin

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