Alistair McCartney

Alistair McCartney is the author of two cross-genre novels The Disintegrations (2017) and The End of The World Book (2008), both published with University of Wisconsin Press. The Disintegrations is the winner of the Publishing Triangle’s Ferro-Grumley award for LGBTQ Fiction. TEOTWB was a finalist for the PEN USA Fiction Award and the Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White debut fiction award. Other work has appeared in journals such as 3:AM, Fence, SCAB, Animal Shelter, Blood-Tree Literature, 1913, Gertrude, and Bloom. Originally from Australia, he live in Los Angeles, where he teaches fiction in Antioch University’s MFA program, and directs their undergraduate creative writing concentration.

FOLK SINGERS, SKINHEADS, AND BEARS by Alistair McCartney

Folk Singers We have never enjoyed folk songs. In fact, we had a profound dislike of folk singing—all that plaintive strumming did not agree with us—that is, until the other evening, when we reluctantly attended a smoky folk club in downtown Los Angeles and the sleepy folk singer with the pair of lips tattooed on his neck sang the lines Ravage me, tattoo me, I’m a window, put your wrist in a soft bag and smash right through me as if he were singing directly to us. Ever since that evening, we have been huge fans of folk singing, folk…

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