Fractured

Literature & Fiction

BAKER, DANNY

Poetry

Punk Hostage Press

A Collection Of Prose and Poetry from A. Razor, who has published and written and shared his work on the road and from inside prison for many years, now here is the writer's work in one book that presents many styles and influences all worked out with a genuine love that has driven a lifetime struggle for peace among the words of this world.

Better Than A Gun In A Knife Fight

Razor, A.

In “The Daughters of Bastards,” Iris Berry reflects her experiences and gives insight to some of her adventurous times growing up on the streets of Hollywood during the golden era of the L.A. punk rock scene. It’s a ride through the dirty streets of Hollywood that never stops delivering the real taste of a womanhood claiming a place for itself surrounded by the perverseness of a crumbling mystique that was once a golden tinseled dreamland. Her work has been inspirational and historical all at once. The words here tell the story of that beginning and that progression through some of the wildest of times during one of the most unique eras that Los Angeles has ever known. It also tells the story of a young woman coming of age in the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll inspired madness of those times. A woman who bears a shared first-hand witness to her own incredible survival.

The Daughters of Bastards

Biographies & Memoirs

Iris Berry

True Crime

An up and down poetic ride through the life and times of an American writer living in the margins and his sometimes surrealist/situationist/realist view of the world around him. This book contains so many styles, forms, variations on themes and images that it is in a category all its own. It is apparent that this is a complete work that is the culmination of a life lived on the edge with an original voice that will sometimes echo as if it is emanating from that void that is engulfing the last bit of reality in this universe. From the early influence of Walt Whitman, Poe, Eliot, Pound, Langston Hughes, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Bukowski, Wanda Coleman, librarians & bookstores, ruins of Hollywood & Venice Beach, history of his birthplace in Brooklyn and the place he was raised in San Bernardino, life on the road, life in prison, life strung all the way out to the interactions with today that cause the writer to keep writing in spite of it all, it is all here. A. Razor's Beaten Up Beaten Down is a trip through an experience that touches so many familiar places, yet will seem so new in its vision of this world that every reader will come away with a new perspective of their own life after reading this book. From the introduction by S.A. Griffin to the last page you will be in for a beating that you will never forget and will hopefully continue to prosper from.

Beaten Up Beaten Down

In this book you will find a diverse style and approach to poetry and prose writing that speaks of a lyrical lifetime experience not usually apparent in a premiere collection for a writer. Along with the experience, there is the craftsmanship of a songwriter, a modern bard of contemporary musicality. This book is an amble down the open road as well as the dark alley ways and then across a soft beach sand and on into vibrant sunsets that shine on contoured boulevards of dreams both broken and healing. 8th & Agony is a broad tapestry of wordsmithing that has been assembled here in an open parade of personal triumphs and pitfalls that coincide with the scope and vision of a writer who has tuned his work through the trials of performance in a way that has shared this experience with numerous audiences and now has been laid bare for the record here in these pages. Rich Ferguson is a well-heeled spoken word performer that brings a thespian musicianship to the stage along with a storied amount of influence and knowledge of the word, hence the diversity of style and content in this collection. This work is an exploration of poetic road mapping that convenes inside the travelogue of a life experience that touches on all the muses have to bring to bear in this world.

8th & Agony

Ferguson, Rich

"Not just inspiring but the book itself is eye catching and coffee table worthy!" "Tomorrow, Yvonne. Poetry & Prose for Suicidal Egotists" is a beautifully designed collection of inspiring and powerful poetry presented in a classic look and feel. It is presented in bodies of epic prose, potent thimbles of poetry and joyous haikus. Poet Yvonne de la Vega’s body of work is compiled in her first book. The presentation of de la Vega's works is a display that beautifully emanates a delicate aesthetic arranged in the classic book design of the traditions evolved and set by the publishers of centuries before, with the exception of the book's paperback cover that is nonetheless eye catching and coffee table worthy. The interior is equally as appealing, possessing an ease of reading with each wonderful poem, due to the layout; the cascading flow of various fonts employed, as well as the images of de la Vega's own beautiful family, used for illustrations. The book’s Foreword is an astonishing contribution by Ray Manzarek of legendary rock band, The Doors. An author himself, the foreword is a beautifully written piece of prose that is an ode to Jim Morrison’s “City of Night”, as well as a promise that all who read Yvonne are in for “a hell of a good time. ”Ray’s apparent love for LA. is that common thread that runs through every LA Poet from Bukowski to Morrison, and he honors de la Vega’s work from that familiarity of the city they’ve both shared a lifetime in. Ray muses that, “Yvonne is the lucky little lady in the lights.” In the words of Los Angeles poet Rich Ferguson, "Whether contemplating life, death love, war or hope, she pulls no punches. Her poems go toe to toe with the beauty and brutality of reality and memory, and come out victorious every time. Her vibrancy, her creativity and insights are strong enough to carry the living and the dead, the hopeful and the hopeless." Iconic and veteran poet Michael C Ford states, "Yvonne is, quite simply, universal. She speaks in a universally sharp and stringent voice. Whether  verbally meditating on the turmoil and terrible beauty of El Barrio La Loma or the deceptive twinkling shroud of Los Angeles lights from the secure porticos high in the Hollywood hills, she writes with an acuity and easy brilliance that just happens to be, at her very best, astonishing." And, poetry guru Michael Lally announces in his writing of Yvonne de la Vega that, "...There is no one in the world of poetry quite like her, or the world of anything for that matter."

Tomorrow, Yvonne. Poetry & Prose for Suicidal Egotists: Tomorrow, Yvonne

de la Vega, Yvonne

Life has a way of facing us down when we least expect it. Moments that become overtaken in milliseconds by shifting winds, instincts, impulses or subconscious desires that can blindside us without warning. The measure of life can be the way we ride these changes, weather these storms and extricate ourselves from the wreckage. As we do this, we will notice, not everyone makes it through intact, or makes it through at all, for that matter. The debris piles up in the soul, the scars last forever. This is a collection of stories that plunge the senses deep into the tactile memories of those moments and give the undiluted vision of the wilderness inside the last acts of desperate hearts and pathological minds. There is a touching grace that is woven in between the chaos and order of the story as it unravels in each vignette. Sometimes it is only a slender thread that traipses off into the pathos, but it is there throughout in the voice of the humanity as it is besmirched, battered and bruised, but never is driven into a complete submission. Jack Grisham spins these tales from the heart, even from the point where it has been bruised or torn asunder, straight out into the universe as a primal cry of a wild beast let loose on wanton rampage. The words are compacted into dangerous bludgeons in one voice, then lilts into sorrowful songs of stoic suffering in another. The poignant melodrama that unfolds in each story is crafted as artistically as stone arch on a rocky point that juts out into the stormiest of seas. All the while it wears the cool skin of a survivalist creature that defies any cliché pantomime of trite language or colorless imagery. This skin is worn as wild adornment in rugged demeanor as it struts into dangerous territory where instincts rule the animalistic urges and self-control is a bargain that begs to get struck. This collection of streetwise encounters is an esoteric submergence in a world gone mad, taken to its limits, then taken a bit further down the road for a ride that will send some chills up the spine of the most jaded cynic, yet give relief to the most beaten down souls in search of redemption. Jack Grisham creates a perspective that can easily be identified with, but seldom gets the opportunity to have a voice of its own, especially so clear and distinct a voice as it is given here, in line after line, all throughout every narrative, from every angle. The stories in this collection come punctuated with the edgily artful illustrations of Scott Aicher. Each piece gives dimension and representation to the story and helps to make the book into a moving visual experience that conquers the senses by setting them free to envision this world that is outlined in the story, but accentuated in the artwork as well. The result is a tandem realization of the wordsmith and the graphic design into a singular vein of trajectory that helps launch the mind of the reader full tilt into the cosmos and back. Scott Aicher has definitively captured the essence of the writer’s intentions and has connected them in a way that makes for some vivid projections that illuminate what even the blind dog can’t see.

Untamed

GRISHAM, JACK

Short Stories & Anthologies

“Michael Marcus takes us on a wild adventure through the darkest depths of addiction, sexuality, deceit, and depravity with a raw grace and eloquence that brings to mind the voices of Jim Carroll in THE BASKETBALL DIARIES, Irvine Welsh in TRAINSPOTTING, Denis Johnson in JESUS’ SON, and Junot Diaz in DROWN. Not for a moment do we question our narrator’s truth as he depicts larger-than-life characters who are in a constant struggle to survive. “Marcus has an engaging voice as an author that is matched by his raucous humor. To read #1 SON is an experience of monumental proportions. A powerful, fresh new voice has taken center stage on the literary scene.” --Jon Hess, from his introduction

#1 Son and Other Stories

Marcus, Michael

Nadia Bruce-Rawlings has written a collection of stories with a dark humor and candor that only someone with a survivor’s gratitude can. She takes us on a journey that cracks open family secrets, illustrating the evolution of dysfunction from its very core. She reminds us, as children we do not get to choose our surroundings, while relying on our parents for protection, love, and nurturing, preparing us for our own adult journey into the world, and that more times than not, this isn’t the case. Because parents get abused and scarred, by their parents who got abused and scarred, by their parents, and so on. And with each generation the trauma grows, becoming a collection and a reflection of an ongoing tradition of generational abuse. This book is written based on Nadia’s experiences on the front lines of her own personal battles with child abuse, domestic violence, molestation, addiction, crime, cutting, incarceration, and recovery. After hitting a bottom so hard with only two options left, life or death. Nadia drives home the sad and brutal truth that not everyone gets that choice. Many do not live to tell. This book is written for them, an epitaph. This book is also a love letter and a promise that there is hope for a better life, written for the ones that are still out there, still fighting their way in, and not out, who have lost their way, and still collecting scars.

Scars

Rawlings, Nadia Bruce

Drawn from interviews conducted by director Danny Garcia for his acclaimed documentary LOOKING FOR JOHNNY, this oral biography of the legendary Johnny Thunders includes first-hand recollections from those who knew Johnny best, from his fellow New York Dolls, Heartbreakers, and Oddballs to his friends, fellow musicians, and loved ones. Johnny Thunders lives again through the reminiscences of Sylvain Sylvain, Walter Lure, Leee Black Childers, Billy Rath, Marty Thau, Lenny Kaye, Peter Perrett, Bob Gruen, Richard Lloyd, and many more. "The stories and anecdotes contained in this book are a strike against mortality, and a lasting testament to the inimitable spirit of Mr. Johnny Thunders, and stand as a worthy companion to the documentary." -Nina Antonia (author of JOHNNY THUNDERS...IN COLD BLOOD and TOO MUCH TOO SOON: THE NEW YORK DOLLS)

Looking For Johnny: The Legend of Johnny Thunders

Garcia, Danny

Arts & Literature

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