Fractured Fairy Tales - by William Merricle (CC#79)

Crisis Chronicles Press gleefully announces the publication of Fractured Fairy Tales, a new chapbook by William Merricle, on 26 February 2016.  Merricle has long been one of my favorite writers, with incomparable wit, wordplay, dark humor and insight. And this collection of 29 poem tales showcases his work at its finest. 

Fractured Fairy Tales is 34 pages, hand assembled and saddle stapled, with red card stock cover, black card stock end papers and white pages. Laser printed. 8.5 x 5.5". ISBN 978-1-940996-31-8. Limited first edition of 99 copies. Nominated for a 2018 Ohioana Book Award.

The chapbook is currently out of print, but all of its poems (in some cases, slightly revised) appear in Merricle's Contempt of Gravity: The Complete Published Poems, 1981–2020.

 

Merricle in Cleveland [photo by Chandra Alderman]

William Merricle, of Lima, Ohio, has had many poems published in this and a previous century. His most recent chapbooks are Grace, You Let the Screen Door Slam (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2011) and Chaos Theory (NightBallet Press, 2013).

xx poems - by Jennifer MacBain-Stephens (CC#78)

Crisis Chronicles Press is very happy to announce the publication of xx poems by Jennifer MacBain-Stephens. This is the latest release in our Ninesense series of 9-poem chapbooks by writers you need to read.

"Clearly, MacBain-Stephens understands the texture of words, understands the need to feel them on teeth and tongue.  In one poem, she writes 'We are accustomed to the language of the torso.'  Her language is that of the synapse, firing off psychedelic sparks that invite, intrigue, and infiltrate."

      —Dianne Borsenik, editor at NightBallet Press

 

 

xx poems is hand assembled, saddle stapled, bound with white cover stock, black card stock end papers and ivory/cream parchment pages. Cover photo by Steven Smith. 8.5x5.5". ISBN 978-1-940996-30-1. Available beginning 11 February 2016 for only $4.99 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Blvd., Cleveland, Ohio 44143 USA.

Jennifer MacBain-Stephens went to NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and now lives in the DC area. Other chapbooks are out or forthcoming from Grey Book Press, Dancing Girl Press and Shirt Pocket Press. Her first full length collection is forthcoming from Lucky Bastard Press. Recent work can be seen or is forthcoming at Jet Fuel Review, Pith, Freezeray, So to Speak, Entropy, Right Hand Pointing, Chiron Review, Cider Press Review and decomP.

Visit http://jennifermacbainstephens.wordpress.com.

Special Watch - by Richard M. O'Donnell (CC#77)

Crisis Chronicles Press is happy to announce the publication of Special Watch, a chapbook by Richard M. O'Donnell, on 31 January 2016. These prose poems are sensitive and often dark true accounts from the author's time working around maternity, pediatrics and the mentally disturbed at the nation's oldest naval hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia. A compelling read! 

 

Special Watch is 24 pages, hand assembled and saddle stapled, 8.5 x 5.5", laser printed on white pages with black card stock end papers wrapped in pale charcoal cover stock. ISBN 978-1-940996-29-5. Limited edition. Nominated for a 2018 Ohioana Book Award.
 

As of 2024, this chapbook is currently out of print but copies may be available from Mindfair Books in Oberlin, Ohio.

O'Donnell [photo by Kathleen Horton]

Richard M. O'Donnell‘s works have appeared in many venues including Sniplits audio stories, Everyday Poets, Everyday Fiction, the North Coast Review and The Gamut, to name a few.  He is the co-founder and facilitator of The Oberlin Writers Group and the founder and facilitator of the Infinite Monkey Sci-fi/Fantasy Writers.  A link to his online publications and YouTube films is available at www.wormsview.com.

The Gravity of Chainsaws - by Azriel Johnson (CC#76)

cover photo by Steven B. Smith

Crisis Chronicles Press is thrilled to announce the publication of Azriel Johnson's latest poetry chapbook, The Gravity of Chainsaws,  on 18 January 2016. This themed cycle of poems is being called Johnson's best work yet, and we agree. Get it while it's hot.

The Gravity of Chainsaws is 34 pages, hand assembled and saddle stapled, 8.5 x 5.5", laser printed on white pages with dark cream parchment endpapers wrapped in blue-gray cover stock. ISBN 978-1-940996-28-8. Limited edition. Only $7 US from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44143 USA.

Choose Your Location

North America $7.00 USD Elsewhere $10.00 USD

author photo by Jen Pezzo

 

Join us for the official book launch (and author's birthday bash) on 18 January 2016 from 7 to 9 p.m. during Stark Knights at Cultured Coffee Co, 309 Cleveland Avenue NW in Canton, Ohio.

Azriel Johnson is a poet, novelist, and all around shady character; an ink spatter analyst by day and a serial writer by night; shaman of the International Temple of Self Expression; and the founder and director of Writing Knights Press. His other books include Hellfire, Heavensent thru Writing Knights, Poemaholic thru The Poet's Haven and his recently released fantasy / alternate history novel Sunset Red.

This Frankenstein Union - by Esteban Colon (CC#75)

Crisis Chronicles Press is thrilled to announce the publication of Esteban Colon's latest poetry chapbook, This Frankenstein Union,  on 30 November 2015. It is the latest release in our Ninesense series of 9-poem chapbooks by writers you ought to know.

Colon's work is dark, funny, sexy, heavy in all the right places and unflinchingly truthful. This cycle of poems pulls love and passion through seductive fire. Come close, get hot, combust, and then remember it warmly.

Where do you want it?

North America $4.99 USD Elsewhere $7.99 USD

This Frankenstein Union is 16 pages, hand assembled and saddle stapled, 8.5 x 5.5", laser printed on white pages with kelly green card stock endpapers wrapped in white cover stock. Front artwork by Kevin Eberhardt. ISBN 978-1-940996-27-1. Limited edition of 150 copies, each available for a mere $5 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44143 USA.

Esteban Colon is a Pushcart nominated writer and experiential educator from Kenosha. His work has found print in a variety of journals and anthologies. He is also the author of chapbooks Edgar Avenue (Naked Mannequin Press) and Between Blue Lines (Exact Change Press), along with his full length collection Things I Learned the Hard Way (Plain View Press).

Our Pushcart Prize and Ohioana Book Award Nominees

I love everything we publish in various ways, so it's always hard to choose what to nominate for this prize or that.  In 2015 alone, Crisis Chronicles Press will have published seventeen books (three of them forthcoming) including hundreds of poems.  First I narrowed down my potential Pushcart Prize nominees for this year to a couple dozen favorite poems.  But I can only nominate six. I then spent hours more mulling before I finally forced myself to make some hard decisions.

So here they are, our nominees for the next Pushcart Prize.

"Creepy Dolls" by Kevin Ridgeway, from Contents Under Pressure
"Deadtime" by Susan Sheppard, from Balefire
"Let's Get It On" by Dianne Borsenik, from Thunderclap Amen
"Poem for Christian O'Keeffe" by John Dorsey, from Ghost on the Inside
"The Road" by Michael Ceraolo, from Readings / The Road
"The Fine Line of Beautiful Living" by Tracie Morell from Matilda's Battle Waltz

We've also nominated Alex Gildzen's Ohio Triangle for an Ohioana Book Award.

Good luck to you all!
John Burroughs, editor
Crisis Chronicles Press

Drink Drank Drunk - by Bradford Middleton (CC#74)

Cover photo by Chandra Alderman

We are thrilled to announce the publication of intoxicating new work by UK poet Bradford Middleton on 14 November 2015. Drink Drank Drunk is a pamphlet of poems on the joys or otherwise of drinking, the latest release in Crisis Chronicles' Ninesense series of 9 poem chapbooks by writers you ought to know.  Available for a mere $4.99 in the USA (a few dollars more for overseas orders).

Drink Drank Drunk is hand assembled and saddle stapled, 8.5 x 5.5 inches, laser printed on white pages with black card stock endpapers wrapped in white cover stock emblazoned with a Honeydew bourbon image. 

ISBN: 978-1940996264. Limited edition of 99 copies. This chapbook is currently out of print.

Click here to rate/review at Goodreads.

Bradford Middleton was born in southeast London in 1971. He spent the next 30 years desperate to either get to the middle or get out, he could never decide, and eventually landed above a pseudo-legendary punk record shop in Croydon. After six years it became too much and he moved back deeper into south London and somehow landed a job. He went back to university and then aged 34 he finally got the chance to go away to university to study at postgraduate level in something interesting but not exactly vocational. Within a year he landed in Brighton and began writing crazy stories and poems of outrage and insanity. At the age of 38 he finally decided to show someone his work, and a series of editors received strange tales and bizarre poetry as he eschewed the influence of his friends. Just before his 40th birthday the Mad Swirl, those glorious souls from Dallas, USA, published his first poem, a joyous ode to losing your mind. That is not included here, so you’ll have to go find it online. He has, as of 2015, accumulated over 100 unique publications in various places including Empty Mirror; Zygote in My Coffee; Ppigpenn; Word Riot; Rolling Thunder Quarterly; The Camel Saloon; Fuck Art, Let’s Dance; Dead Snakes; The Weekenders; and Electric Windmill Press, as well as some others. His debut novel, DIVE, is now available from New Pulp Press. Follow @beatnikbraduk on Twitter.

Contents Under Pressure - by Kevin Ridgeway (CC#73)

Kevin Ridgeway's new poetry chapbook, Contents Under Pressure, took me on a Kerouacian trip through broken appliances, drunken charades, fallen angels, kissing couples, hip-high grasses, mind fucks and sinister grooves with a keen eye and ear. When it was done, all I could say was "Amen!"— and "Again!" So I had to publish it.

Available 22 October 2015, Contents Under Pressure features 16 poems on 28 pages, is hand assembled and saddle stitch bound with textured ivory card stock cover, kelly green card stock end papers and white pages. 5.5 x 8.5". Cover image by Steven B. Smith.
 

ISBN: 978-1-940996-25-7. This chapbook is currently out of print.

Kevin Ridgeway lives and writes in Long Beach, California. His work has been published widely in the small press, with recent poems that can be found or are forthcoming in Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Lummox, San Pedro River Review, Misfit Magazine, Right Hand Pointing, Bicycle Review, American Mustard and The Mas Tequila Review, among others. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Contents Under Pressure is his sixth chapbook of poetry.

Balefire - by Susan Sheppard (CC#68)

Crisis Chronicles Press is thrilled to announce the publication of Susan Sheppard's long-awaited Balefire, a winner of our most recent poetry chapbook competition.  I absolutely love these poems!

“From the first poem’s first line, Evening is the monster we swim in, a compulsion gripped me to read straight through to the last line of the last poem. It’s as if Sheppard is a dark angel who clasped my hand and floated me through haunting poems of ‘chrome moon’ and ‘autumn’s sorcery.’ Balefire will chill you, thrill you, and fill holes you didn’t know were there.”
          —Dianne Borsenik, publisher at NightBallet Press

Balefire is 32 pages, hand crafted and saddle stabled with textured ivory card stock cover, black endpapers, and cottonwood fiber pages.  Laser printed, 5.5 x 8.5", with cover art by Susan Sheppard. ISBN 978-1-940996-24-0.  Only $7 (plus p+h) from Crisis Chronicles Press.

Currently sold out and out of print.

Susan Sheppard of Parkersburg, West Virginia, has poetry published in over 100 magazines and has been writing poetry for more than 30 years. She is descended from the Blackfoot-Saponi and Lenape-Shawnee tribes of her region. In 1998, she was awarded a Poetry Fellowship from West Virginia Arts & Humanities. Sheppard is the author of a number of books, including four non-fiction and one novel. She teaches poetry every Thursday at Sacred Way Arts in downtown Parkersburg. Her seasonal ghost tour, the Haunted Parkersburg Ghost Tours, is rated the #8 most popular ghost tour in the nation.

7th Anniversary Deal - 11 for 71

Crisis Chronicles Press has published 11 fantastic titles so far this year. That makes 71 in all since we started out back on 8 July 2008. We plan to publish at least 13 more by the end of 2015 and reach 100 titles in print by next summer. To celebrate our 7-year anniversary (and raise funds for upcoming publications) we are offering a special deal: send us $71 to receive (postage free in the U.S.) all 11 titles we've published between January and June 2015 - plus an added bonus book. That's a $95 value (more if you had to pay postage). Any takers?

Books include:

063 - #ThisIsCLE: An Anthology of the 2014 Best Cleveland Poem Competition

064 - Be Closer for My Burn by Robin Wyatt Dunn 

058 - Poems for Explosion by John G. Hall 

065 - Cutting the Möbius by Jonathan Thorn 

066 - Thunderclap Amen by Dianne Borsenik 

067 - Bookmobile: From the Library of Jesus Crisis by David S. Pointer 

059 - Ohio Triangle by Alex Gildzen 

069 - 2015 Hessler Street Fair Poetry Anthology 

071 - Readings / The Road: Two Poems from Euclid Creek Book Three by Michael Ceraolo 

070 - Matilda's Battle Waltz by Tracie Morell 

072 - Ghost on the Inside by John Dorsey

Ghost on the Inside - by John Dorsey (CC#72)

Crisis Chronicles Press is pleased to present Ghost on the Inside, a new chapbook by John Dorsey published 27 June 2015.  It features the poems "steel city rope-a-dope," "icarus revisited," "sheboygan sean," "brian on n. 6th  street," "sheboygan 1," "sheboygan 2," "at 37: for mikey west," "harry’s diner poem: for mj taylor," "in his 60's," "on oak street: for everette maddox," "steve goldberg death poem" and "poem for christian o’keeffe."  As D.R. Wagner has said of John Dorsey, "Boy, this guy means it. What a fine poet, ladies and gentlemen."

Ghost on the Inside is 5.5" x 8.5", hand assembled, saddle stapled, with cover image by Steven B. Smith on white cover stock with black card stock endpapers and the poems printed on pale cottonwood paper.  Only $6 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 535 Parkside Blvd., Cleveland, Ohio 44143 USA.

 

 

Please choose US or International

US Orders $6.00 USD International $10.00 USD

ISBN: 978-1-940996-23-3. Only a few copies remain.

John Dorsey is the author of several collections of poetry, including Teaching the Dead to Sing: The Outlaw’s Prayer (Rose of Sharon Press, 2006), Sodomy is a City in New Jersey (American Mettle Books, 2010), Tombstone Factory (Epic Rites Press, 2013), Natural Selection: Early Poems (Kilmog Press, 2014) and Imaginary Foxholes (Rusty Truck Press, 2015). His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.

Join us for the official release celebration on 27 June 2015 during Sylvania Avenue Performances in front of the West Toledo Library.