Interviews & Reviews
February 3, 2026
Fiction
SETTLEMENT by Benjamin Niespodziany
after Chris Erickson Tristan Funicular fell asleep not long after dawn. His teeth were on wrong and his bong was full of something less like water and more like moss. He was lost. His stress level was Jurassic. His panics were unlearned. This was a mere hours before Tristan’s door was kicked down by the scholar Parlor Hallelujah who demanded her dues. You see, Parlor Hallelujah was a crooked academic, a well-known non-peasant, an aggressive lecturer, a stirrer of sins. The hushed business she conducted was equal parts consultation and intimidation. She lived off the wisdom she gave to others. Hundreds
February 2, 2026
Fiction
HOW TO SURVIVE A CROWD CRUSH by John Waddy Bullion
First and foremost, don’t panic, baby girl. And please understand that it’s not your fault—you aren’t in this situation because you’re young and dumb, or because your already-questionable decision-making has been dulled by the crumbled-up mushrooms you took in the Porta-Potty out in the parking lot before the show, or because you ditched your girlfriends and joined the stampede to the stage with thousands of others when those first chiming notes rang out; no, sweetheart, the blame lies squarely at the feet of the concert promoters who cared more about selling tickets than about crowd density, and in the hands
January 23, 2026
Interviews & Reviews
Samuel M. Moss Interviewed by Perry Ruhland
In Samuel M. Moss’ debut novel The Veldt Institute (Double Negative Press, 2025), anonymous patients seek the cure for their own ineffable malady. Their treatment is conducted on the grounds of the titular institute, some strange cross between an abbey and a sanatorium, where their philosopher-doctors prescribe a wide range of strange and specific activities. Reading this great book, and particularly the accounts of these treatments, prompted me to take long walks, sit by the lake, and stare at my ceiling. I asked Samuel M. Moss about some of the practices behind the cures. Perry Ruhland: One of the
January 22, 2026
Micros
GOTH TACOS by Paul Stinson
Tom wore black jeans, black Bauhaus t-shirt, no makeup. Three al pastor on corn, no onions. Clayre wore the long black lace skirt, black and yellow zebra top, black lipstick. Two barbacoa on flour. Tom was a lab assistant, Clayre a speech therapist. Funny, Tom had a daughter named Claire, with an i, a fourth grade sweetheart whom he saw on weekends. Funny, Clayre had a brother named Tom, a Grade-A turd who did real estate in Phoenix. Was Tom the coolest, best looking guy at Goth Tacos that Wednesday? Nope. But was he kind enough and safe-seeming enough to
January 21, 2026
Interviews & Reviews
YOU MAY APPLAUD NOW: JOSEPH COWARD ON ‘JESUS CHRIST KINSKI’ BY BENJAMIN MYERS
Klaus Nakszynski was born in Germany in 1926, and within a few short decades became everything from Nazi conscript, to piss-drinking mental patient, to one of the most prolific and notorious stage-screen presences of the twentieth century. Despite everything he was as an actor, Kinski (excising sections of his name after returning to Germany from a Colchester POW camp) became better known for his psychopathic behaviours both at work and recreationally. He screamed at Werner Herzog for an hour and a half over a cold cup of coffee; he once stalked one of his psychiatric nurses for three days before
January 20, 2026
Fiction
ROAD HEAD by Lila-Rose Beckford
Leroy wakes up in a desert turnout, contorted in his truck bed like he tried to hold himself together in his sleep. His head throbs. His mouth tastes like blood. The sun is already climbing. The sky is too clean, too wide. No eyes for miles. The desert has stripped him thin, but that’s the point. It’s burning off the wrong parts, leaving only what his wife will recognize when he goes home. Athena wakes in a guest bedroom with white plaster walls, glass doors, and a rug that was woven by someone else’s hand. The lovers have the
January 19, 2026
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
