I’m working on the flash fiction pieces for each book now and will be shipping them out as soon as they’re finished.

It seems fitting (and a little douchey) that my first blog post in like four months finds me asking for money. However, should you decide to give me money, you will get something in return for it. My book A LIFE ON FIRE is now up for pre-order.

Why should you pre-order?

If you order between now and April 30, I will include cool freebies. What type of freebies? I’m not sure yet. However, I assure you they will be cool. Also, if you’d like it autographed or doodled-in, I’m more than happy to do that, too.

Not enough incentive? The first few pre-orders will get an exclusive flash-fiction story written in those weird blank pages at the end of the book. Length of the stories will vary, but the only place each story will exist is in that particular copy of the book.

So, if any of that sounds like it’s worth plunking down some money, feel free to send me $8.00 ($7.95 for the book, plus a 5-cent handling fee. If you’re outside the continental US, add $8. I’ll email you the ebook and other digital goodies to help offset the cost.) via paypal at chrisbowsman@gmail.com.

If you’re impatient like me and would like to read right away, mention in the paypal comment section that you’d like to read the book right away and I’ll send you a pdf.

For all you ebook readers out there who don’t want a print copy, the Kindle version will be released the same time as the paperback, and will be priced at $2.99, because I think $10 for an ebook is bullshit.

Zombie Story

“Brains…” moans the zombie on my television. I change the channel. Another zombie. I sigh heavily and walk over to the collection of DVDs: Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Resident Evil… nothing but fucking movies about zombies.

“I watch too damn much TV, anyway,” I say, and turn to the bookshelf. Again, nothing but zombie titles, which is strange, because I don’t even remember buying books about zombies.

There is a crash upstairs, so I go up to investigate. It sounded like it came from my son’s room. I knock on his door, which is only half closed. I look in, and see him stumbling around, knocking things off his shelf. He turns to face me, and I’m a little surprised to see his skin has turned gray. I look closer and notice his eyes aren’t focused together, and his jaw is hanging slack. One of his ears is missing as well.

“Are you a zombie?” I ask. He moans and stumbles towards me. Uncertain of what to do, I exit the room and shut the door, which he tries to walk through. When he does it again, I decide closing the door is sufficient defense. I look around for my wife, as she normally knows much more than I about what’s going on around our home.

“Honey?” I say, raising my voice a little. “Did you know Junior is a zombie?” I hear another crash downstairs, and have a bad feeling about it. I call for my wife again, and again I receive no response.

Descending the stairs slowly, it occurs to me I should find some sort of weapon. I reach the bottom, and look around the room, and decide upon a fireplace poker. There is another crash, this time I can tell it’s coming from the office. I raise my eyebrow and the poker and head for the office.

“Honey?” I say again, this time with more apprehension. My wife stumbles from the office with the same slackened expression on her face as Junior’s. I say her name, but there is no visible response from her. She merely keeps shuffling toward me, step-drag, step-drag. I turn and run, closing as many doors as possible on my way out of the house.

Once I’m outside, I hear more moaning and crashing. Looking around, I see that everyone in the neighborhood has become a zombie. Zombies to the left, zombies to the right… everywhere I look, nothing but zombies, zombies, and more fucking zombies. Unable to stomach another second of the horror, I stab myself in the face with the fireplace poker, dying instantly.

Bradley has another book, Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy that just came out, and is not mentioned in the interview. I haven’t read it yet, but if it’s like the others, it’s funny and worth your time.

Also, Bradley is the editor of Bust Down The Door And Eat All The Chickens, an absurdist journal, home to many stories by awesome bizarro authors. Check it out, and also visit Bradley’s website.

Now, without further delay, on to the interview:

What kind of computer do you use?

It’s a PC laptop. The alt key on the left side is missing. I need to hit the spacebar really hard to make it work. It overheats a lot. I think I need to take it into the shop.

What is your favorite movie, book, and beer? Least favorite?

Once Upon a Time in America.

Favorite book is a tough one. I really like Steve Aylett’s Accomplice Series, so maybe the first book in the series: Only an Alligator. And maybe all of Steve Erickson’s novels besides Zeroville (because they seem like a long novel to when combined together).

My favorite beer is Raspberry Wheat, which they have at two pub/brewery kind of places in Boulder, Colorado: Mountain Sun and Southern Sun. Unfortunately, I swore off beer a few days ago. This makes me very sad.

Least favorite movie and book is a tough one. I’ll just pick bad ones at random: The Room (I used to be a connoisseur of bad movies, but The Room isn’t fun to watch. It’s just a boring piece of shit.) And as for books: I don’t know. I rarely finish books I don’t like. I really didn’t like Tom Robbins’ B is for Beer (which I finished), while I’ve loved every other novel he has ever written.

Least favorite beer is easy. Pabst. I can’t stomach that garbage.

You have published two books: a novel, It Came From Below The Belt, and a short story collection, My Heart Said No, But The Camera Said YES! Do you prefer one form over the other?

At the moment, it seems like I’ve forgotten how to write shorts stories because it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything besides novellas and prose poems, so I guess I prefer novels. It’s exciting to work on a story for a long period of time and I find it difficult to attain the same level of enthusiasm for shorter pieces of writing, unless I can write them in one sitting.

It could be said that one of the main characters in It Came From Below The Belt, Adolf Hitler reincarnated as a sentient penis, pushes the boundaries of tastefulness. What are your feelings on good taste and Nazi penises?

I think I can pretty much get away with it because I’m Jewish. But I think one of the best ways to combat tragedy is to make fun of it.

You have described your writing in the two aforementioned books as “busy.” Your prose is full of wordplay like “peanutbutterfly nets” and packed with odd imagery. Does this style come easily?

No way! Actually, I think I forgot how to write that way as well (my first two books were written years ago). Back then, I would work on my stories, sentence by sentence, and rewrite each one until it was near perfect. Sometimes it took me about an hour to write a sentence.

Do you have any interest in writing more “conventional,” plot-driven fiction?

Yes. I’ve been doing this for a while, although the content is unconventional. My novella, Cheesequake Smash-up (which appears in the Bizarro Starter Kit (Blue), is an example of this. The majority of my future book releases will be like this, starting with the novel, TV Snorted My Brain, which Evil Nerd Empire is supposed to publish this year. I prefer writing this way (no more hours spent on one sentence!), but I don’t like the end product as much. But it is more accessible to the reader, so I suppose an easier writing process plus accessibility is better than a tough writing process and possible inaccessibility even though I don’t like the books as much. But I “do my own thing” more with my prose poems, which have become minimalist in style rather than “busy.”

D Harlan Wilson said that after all the time he’s spent in school with literature (both studying and teaching), he has trouble reading purely for pleasure. As someone who has spent a large amount of time in school, do you have this same problem?

No, not really, although I go through long periods of time where I’m unable to enjoy anything that I read. But I also go through long periods where I love nearly everything that I read. Anyway, I don’t know if I’ve spent a large amount of time in school. I’ve been in grad school for about a year, and there was an eight year gap between getting my Bachelor’s degree and starting grad school. And although I feel like I have to read too much for school (considering I’m a writing student, not a literature student, and I read a ton outside of school anyway), it’s not a lot of required reading.

Marvel or DC?

DC. I switch back and forth depending on what company Grant Morrison is writing for, but I’m not obsessed with his work like I used to be. Although I preferred Marvel when I was in elementary school and junior high. I feel like DC is more “adult.”

If you could give aspiring writers one piece of advice, what would it be?
 
Read lots of good books.
 
Advice for experienced authors?
 
You should probably quit writing unless your name is Steve or some variation of it. Same thing if your name isn’t Bradley.

I’ve read a bazillion things since my last update. Nearly all were great. I’ve watched a lot of shitty movies since then, but a few really good ones. Earlier this week, I bought an awesome limited edition Dark Knight dvd in a case that looks like Batman’s mask for $6. All in all, things are good.

My Fake War & Zerostrata – Andersen Prunty
Dr. Identity – D. Harlan Wilson
Night in the Lonesome October – Richard Laymon
Wall of Kiss – Gina Ranalli
King Scratch – Jordan Krall
Closet Treats – Paul Cooley
Pulse – Jeremy Robinson
LIVINHELL & Doom! Magnetic – William Pauley III

I usually have two books going at a time; one on my iPod and one real one. Right now, the two are Sideshow PI by Nathaniel Lambert (digital) and Under the Dome by Stephen King.

What? You’ve never heard of a Bizarro Spaghetti western, and not quite sure what it might be? Here’s an equation for the mathematically inclined folks:

So, go to Amazon, buy FISTFUL OF FEET, and maybe these guys won’t roll in and fuck up your town:

Amazon
Smashwords

Sure, I had memories, golden days in the park when he couldn’t push me high enough on the swings, summer afternoons wading through the creek catching crayfish, and how his knowledge of the stars could easily turn a sleepless night into adventure. He sang me ancient lullabies in a language I never learned, and his bedtime stories came from the heart, not the pages of a book. I knew that I got my green eyes from him, the red sheen of my hair from his mother’s grandmother, and the freckles from his brother, Owen, whom I had never met. Yes, I had more than enough memories to carry me through, but it was his paintings that lingered on after he was gone.

Despite living in the middle of farm country Pennsylvania, all of my father’s paintings were of the sea in its many guises. Each painting was a tiny piece of him that he’d left behind, the only goodbye note before he mysteriously disappeared that afternoon while I was at school. Every night after he left I sneaked into his studio, stood in the half-dark of the setting sun and tried to decipher the messages he’d left me. Orange slices of sunset slanted through the blinds behind me as I watched the raging sea roil inside the canvas. Alive and overwhelmingly real, in the silence I could hear the distant call of gulls as the waves smashed like fists upon the shore.

Eventually my mother put a lock on the door and gave me a stern lecture about putting the past behind us. She did it just to punish me. She was jealous that the paintings spoke to me, but more afraid that I might discover some hint about where he’d gone. Maybe she worried that I would follow and forget her just like he did. She hid the key so well that entry was impossible. I didn’t cry, or fight her though I needed to. I wanted to scream and tear the smug look from her face, but instead I acted like I didn’t care. She took away from me the last physical connection I had to my father, and for that I could never forgive her.

It wasn’t long after she locked the door that I began to dream myself inside the paintings. Drifting from wave to wave, surrounded by a host of sleek, grey seals, whose joyful song soared high above the waves. Around and around the seals swam in an ancient spiral dance, and then my father appeared from the edge of the circle, young again, younger than I’d ever seen him even in photographs, but his eyes always gave him away. He smiled, and it was a real smile.

“It’s time to come home,” he said.

He held out his hand, and I grasped his fingers, but as he disappeared beneath the water, the waves pushed me upward every time I tried to follow. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t follow where he went, as though the sea itself kept spitting me out. One by one the seals all disappeared and darkness drew the sun away. Alone, buoyant, wave over wave of salt musk and hundreds of miles between me and dry land, I laid back and floated beneath the endless stars while moonlight rippled silver sheets over my ocean bed.

Here’s an excerpt:

On Raven Wings

Screaming tires spit chunks of rock and painted a cloud of dust on the road behind them. The Charger hugged the turn dangerously, and Eric squinched as he leaned forward to grip the dashboard. Kenny licked his lower lip and grinning, looked back out at the road in front of them.

“Relax man,” Kenny said. “I could drive this road blindfolded.”

Tendrils of smoke drifted into the front seat on the currents of Andy’s laughter, and Eric’s fingertips dug deeper into the dashboard. Several times he opened his mouth to speak, but lack of courage stopped him until Andy’s giggling in the backseat finally pushed him to say, “If you wreck my car, I’ll kill you.”

Kenny flashed the charming rows of his perfect teeth across the car. A stretched black curl fell over Kenny’s forward, across his line of vision and he huffed it away with a confident breath, “You need to chill, man.”

Coughing, Andy slid down the backseat and pressed his knees into the back of Eric’s seat, escalating Eric’s temper.

“Seriously, man,” Eric glowered over the seat at Andy. “Cut it out.”

“Kenny’s right, you need to chill,” Carmen bumped herself forward and shouldered into Sara. Her bangle-braceleted arm held the joint to Kenny’s lips, and he inhaled. “Don’t be such a pussy, Eric.”

One of Carmen’s bracelets caught on Kenny’s jacket as she withdrew and the car reacted to the jerk with a leftward leap. Eric clenched his stomach muscles so tight he almost puked. At seventeen, Kenny was on his second driver’s license suspension and shouldn’t have been driving to begin with. He had been Eric’s best friend since the second grade though, and often all it took was a clever, trust-me smile to convince Eric that Kenny’s brand of trouble was fun. Someone almost always got hurt, or wound up in trouble.

Eric watched the speedometer jump ecstatically against one-thirty-five, and the roar of the motor vibrated his body inside and out. The simplest turn had become a nightmare that not even Eric could close his eyes to anymore and it was only a matter of time before they went spinning over an embankment to their death. .

“All right, you had your fun.” Teeth clenched, knuckles white on the dashboard, Eric roared, “Kenny, stop the car! I mean it, stop the fucking car.”

Most people signaled their own negligence with phrases like “trust me,” but Kenny said nothing. He implied the sentiment in the dangerous twitch of his lips. His gaze lingered sidelong as he approached a blind turn that would surely be the end of them.

“I’m going to be sick,” Eric’s heart dropped into his stomach.

“Dude, trust me.” Those words were like a death sentence

“Jesus, Kenny,” he drew in short, intoxicating breaths through his nose. “Jesus!” The second time was more like a prayer, a last ditch effort to save them from the certain doom that waited beyond that turn. Eric closed his eyes, repeating the small mantra, “Please God, don’t let us die. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything. . . I’ll do anything. . .”

The car spun effortlessly around the curve. It hardly trembled at top speed, barely even lifted its tires off the asphalt. Kenny straightened it out with a whooping, “Woo!”

Relief flooded like cool water through Eric, battling the heat of adrenaline pumping his heart and warming his cheeks. His trust in Kenny was completely renewed, despite the nausea he felt. Completely confident, Kenny half-smiled and shook his head, “I told you to tr—”

Time froze. Somewhere in the suspension of reality Sara cried, “Kenny!”

Her warning shot through both passenger and driver like a bolt of electricity, but the shock wasn’t enough to register a quick reaction. Eric turned forward in his seat. The girl in the middle of the road looked right at him, and panic gripped Eric as the horrific truth that was about to take place entranced him. The girl’s eyes were calm, blue as winter, as death itself, and she smiled in welcome—as though she had waited all her life for that exact moment.

Kenny tried to react, but his arms stiffened as he gripped the wheel and stamped down on the brakes. His body elongated as the scream of rubber on asphalt carried them through an eerie silence, and then her body slammed into the windshield and rolled across the hood of the car like thunder. Carmen wailed from the backseat and the car spun out of control. Kenny scrambled, his fingers slipping across the steering wheel as if it had been slathered in butter.

And then Eric looked toward Kenny. Dumbfounded, he seemed to stop trying to regain control of the vehicle and the horror of the moment spanned across forever. They had killed someone and were all going to die, Eric realized, and then the terror halted as the driver’s side of the car impacted with the limestone cliff. Gravity drew Eric left and then immovable force threw him into the passenger side window. There was a painful light and realization, and then there was nothing.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pretty cool, huh?

Now go dig through the couch cushions for $1.99 and go buy it at Smashwords or Amazon.

Because of this, I’ve zipped through two and a half ebooks since yesterday afternoon. I read Andersen Prunty’s flash fiction collection THE OVERWHELMING URGE, Jordan Krall’s PIECEMEAL JUNE, and started Carlton Mellick III’s THE HAUNTED VAGINA, which I’ll likely finish over the next hour or so.

Speaking of Andersen Prunty, I went to his bookreading with Patrick Wensink last Friday. It was a lot of fun. I highly recommend all of Andersen’s books, plus Patrick Wensink’s SEX DUNGEON FOR SALE! It’s a short story collection, one of which is available free on his website. I guarantee, it’s at least twice as funny as the title.