Chatting with the Meat Puppeteer: Ben Gross interviews Hannah Smart
Hannah Smart’s debut novel Meat Puppets (Apocalypse Confidential, 2026) is a metafictional romp through the lives of people who know they want more without being entirely sure of what they want more of. Weaving her way through drug-use, acting seminars, and a celebrity-based stock exchange where people can put up real money in the hopes of cashing in on the soon-to-be-famous (or-not), Smart crafts characters whose lack of self-transparency makes them as relatable as they are complicated, as charming as they are repulsive, and as touching as they are fantastic—then she puts them through the wringer. Like all great works of experimental fiction, Meat Puppets’ formal fireworks
Miracle on Route 45 by Owen Harrington
There was only one way things could end. I was trying to find something else to think about and he emerged, covered in red clay mud like the first or last man, right onto state route 45. The ride back to State College was just long enough to fixate on something, but not long enough to work up the nerve to turn around. It strung together Mifflinburg, Harleton, and Milheim like the dim lights of a dying civilization in the heart of darkest Amish country, and had few features to catch the wandering eye. But just past Mifflinburg, a man
Author on Author: Cairo Smith and David Polonoff – Part Two
Part Two: Cairo’s Questions to David about Wannabeat (Trouser Press Books, 2024). Click here for Part One. The Novel Within the Novel Cairo Smith: Your hero, Philip, spends much of WannaBeat working on (or avoiding working on) his book, which seems like a deliberate parallel to your own project. It features thinly veiled versions of the people around him (Sally Sassafras for Wendy, Heine for himself), an elaborate Gold Rush allegory, and eventually the arrival of El Nihilismo to destroy everything he’s built. Is the novel-within-the-novel a parody of WannaBeat itself, or a record of an earlier failed attempt,
Author on Author: Cairo Smith and David Polonoff – Part One
Part One – David’s Questions to Cairo about Scenebux (New Ritual Press, 2025). Part Two will publish tomorrow. Is Scenebux a Kind of IRL Cyberpunk? David Polonoff: Many of your readers (myself included) have noted the parallels between Scenebux and the work of William Gibson in its fluid mixture of hard-boiled detective/thriller narrative and post-human technology. You’ve quoted ARX-Han on the difficulty of “writing cyberpunk now, because real-life just is cyberpunk.” To what degree is that true? Is it like reading Jules Verne in the 20th century and marveling at the inventions and gadgets he foresaw or more that the cyborgian
Art, Oxy, & L.A.: An Interview With Luke Goebel By Kevin Maloney
Luke Goebel is a unicorn in the literary world: an outlaw writer with an underground classic in the indie lit community (Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours, 2014) who has also collaborated on screenplays for two major Hollywood films, Causeway and Eileen, cowritten with Ottessa Moshfegh (the two married in 2018). His new novel, Kill Dick, seeks to bridge these worlds, bringing all of the fire, guts, and intelligence of an experimental indie to a page-turning sunshine noir thriller that feels ready for the big screen (and is in the works). The result is an imminently readable crime novel
One Late Summer Morning by Louis Scantlebury
1 One late summer morning, we found two ladybugs humping doggy-style in Max’s garden. We held each other and watched them. “Look,” Max said, “the top one is pinning down the legs of the bottom one.” “The thrusting is so smooth,” I said. “Their bodies are so shiny,” Max said. “They remind me of us,” I said, and bent down to pick them up. “Amy, what the fuck!” Max said. “But I want them to come inside and be with us when we have sex,” I said. “That’s so sweet,” Max said. “OK, pick them up.” I placed my finger
by Mike Topp
$25 | Perfect bound | 72 pages
Paperback | Die-cut matte cover | 7×7″
Mike Topp’s poems defy categorization. That’s why they are beloved by seamstresses, pathologists, blackmailers and art collectors.
–Sparrow
