I hope this New Year’s Eve finds you well. 2021 was a hell of a ride. Ups, downs, in-betweens, all-arounds. Whew.
Anyway, I did a few things this year.
- Old Fort Sessions: My wife and I got a cabin on Black Mountain in the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina. I set up a few mics and we recorded five new songs. The songs were mixed and mastered by Travis Geiman at Bigfoot Studios in Waterville, OH. You can stream Old Fort Sessions at all the usual places. You can buy the EP from my Bandcamp for $5.99. Here’s a link for all the streaming services spots.
- DIY Lamp Kit: my short story DIY Lamp Kit was published in FILTH. It tells the story of one woman’s struggles with addiction and healing. Read that here. Thanks to editor Alexandrine Ogundimu for believing in the story and putting it out.
- Audiobooks From Hell Podcast: Audiobook narrator Sean Duregger and I talked about writing and music and art. You can stream the episode at all the usual places: Spotify, Apple, Audible, etc.
- Steve Harvey Just Didn’t See You Like I Saw You: My poem Steve Harvey Just Didn’t See You Like I Saw You was published in the Rye Whiskey Review. Read it here. Thanks to editors John Patrick Robbins & Scott Simmons.
- Rust Belt Blues #666: My buddy Dan Denton is an amazing writer. We’ve had some crazy adventures together. We also wrote a poem together and it was published by The Dope Fiend Daily. It’s call Rust Belt Blues #666. You can read it here. Thanks to editor Scott Simmons.
- WAKT 106.1FM Appearance: WAKT 106.1FM is based out of Toledo, OH, a city that holds a special place in my heart. I called the city home for four years. The city is full of creativity including the work of WAKT. The station has a program called Homegrown Toledo Creatives hosted by Dr. David Harms and Miriam Wagoner. They asked me to contribute twenty minutes of material so I recorded two stories (The Flock Unseen & DIY Lamp Kit) and seven poems (I’m not sure how I feel about the sound, Flirting with Disaster, Running Sound Interference, Feeble, The Eavesdropper, For the City of Light, & A bit too obvious).You can stream the episode online right now or if you’re in the Toledo area you can catch it at 106.1FM tonight. The Flock Unseen was first published in The Merida Review. It was reprinted in my four-story collection The Flock Unseen published by Clare Songbirds Publishing House. DIY Lamp Kit first appeared in FILTH. All seven of the poems I read on the program appear in my first full-length collection of poems Flirting with Disaster published by Alien Buddha Press. I’m not sure how I feel about the sound won The Song Is.’s Thelma Prize as judged by Catfish McDaris. Flirting with Disaster first appeared in Thirteen Myna Birds. It was reprinted in The Song Is. Running Sound Interference was published by Can We Have Our Ball Back? Feeble was published in The Rush. The Eavesdropper was published in Taxicab Magazine. For the City of Light was published by Foliate Oak Literary Magazine. A bit too obvious was published by Red Bird Chapbooks’ Weekly Read.
- This Is Poetry Volume IV: Poet of the South: First off Michele McDannold is an amazing poet. She’s also a great editor and activist for literature. Through Citizens for Decent Literature Press/Literary Underground she’s released four volumes of her anthology series This Is Poetry. The first volume was filled with wonderful poems from women of the small press. Volume II centered around poets of the Midwest. Volume III focused on poets of the West. For the fourth volume of the series Michele McDannold has collected poems from poets of the South. I’m lucky to have three poems included in this volume: Maybe the Burning Bush, I Wrote this Sober, and Flirting with Disaster. Maybe the Burning Bush was originally published by Foliate Oak, I Wrote This Sober was originally published by Meow Meow Pow Pow as a broadside, and Flirting with Disaster was first published in Thirteen Myna Birds then reprinted by The Song Is. You can pick up a copy on Amazon (where the book has crept into the top 100 poetry anthologies).
- Interview and New Work in Ramingo: Catfish McDaris interviewed me. He asked me questions about my writing, books, music, art, magic lamps, and a slew of other things for Ramingo. I got to talk about Memorabilia (11:11 Press), Shining the Light (Atlatl Press), Rush’s Deal (forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press), Misdeeds (forthcoming from Shotgun Honey Books), Birth of a Monster (forthcoming from Grindhouse Press), my ambient records Rural Eminence Volumes I & II, my new EP Old Fort Sessions, & my band The Coomers. Catfish and the other editors were kind enough to publish a new piece of flash fiction titled Lace, a new poem The [Little] Big Sleep, and they reprinted my poem Even a Little Shit Can Make a Big Stink (originally pub’d in The Rye Whiskey Review). We also touched on some of my recently published works in The Collected Voices from the Expanded Field (11:11 Press), Cowboy Jamboree Magazine, Hobart, FILTH, C.V. Hunt’s HORRORAMA (Grindhouse Press), The Dope Fiend Daily, Back Patio Press, The Rye Whiskey Review, Michele McDannold’s This Is Poetry Volume IV: Poets of the South (Citizens of Decent Literature Press). You read all of it here. Thanks to all the Ramingo staff: Elena Bello, Mendes Biondo, John D Robinson, & Catfish McDaris.
- Review of Timmy Reynolds’ “Life, Loss, and the Pursuit of Happiness” in the Museum of Americana: I had the pleasure of reviewing Detroit musician Timmy Reynolds‘ record Life, Loss, and the Pursuit of Happiness for The Museum of Americana‘s twenty-third issue. It’s a great record and a great issue. You can read the review here.
- RUSH’S DEAL: My first novel, RUSH’S DEAL, saw a paperback release via Alien Buddha Press. There’s an except from the novel on Alien Buddha Press’ blog. You can buy all 275 pages of Rush’s Deal on Amazon for $14.07. The front and back covers of Rush Walters and Velutina were painted by tattooist Cole Dunn.
- BIRTH OF A MONSTER: My novel BIRTH OF A MONSTER was published by Grindhouse Press. It’s a book about America’s worship of violence, especially violence against women. It’s a beast of a book—in fact, it’s Grindhouse Press’s longest title. Pick up a copy here. Signed copies available here. Big thanks to C.V. Hunt & Andersen Prunty for all their hard work on this project.
- Writing the Rapids Podcast Interview: Here’s a half-hour conversation I had with Joe Bielecki on his podcast Writing the Rapids. We talked about my new novel BIRTH OF A MONSTER, American violence, religious fanaticism, extreme horror, and some other things. Subscribe to the podcast and listen to Joe talk with all sorts of amazing, creative people. Listen here.
- SHINING THE LIGHT Audiobook: The tragic story of legendary musician Homer Antumbra is now on Audible. Sean Duregger (narrator of The Fetishists, The Devil’s Gospel, Kill for Satan!, Gods of the Dark Web, and a ton of other titles) did a fantastic job with the narration. Check it out on Audible here. Paperback available via Atlatl Press. SHINING THE LIGHT turned three years old this year.
- MISDEEDS: My crime fiction collection MISDEEDS was published by Shotgun Honey Books this year. It contains the previously-unpublished novella, Dellie’s Ditch, as well as five short stories: The Goddamn Amazon Here, The Fixer, Trail Magic (Good Intentions), Buffalo Nickel Hat, and the Pushcart Nominated More Rust than Nickel. While these five short stories have appeared in print, in one form or another, this is the first time they’ve been included in a single collection. Dellie’s Ditch unleashes a vagabond Rasputin with ill intentions onto a quiet neighborhood in south Toledo, where he quickly begins inflicting his sinister control of the suburban children.The Goddamn Amazon Here lets the horror slip into the ordinary. The Fixer is the guy you don’t want to meet, the guy who collects debts and fixes problems. Chances are you’re not going to like the way he fixes things. More Rust than Nickel is a bleak look at the pale, seedy underbelly of America. Set in his hometown of Detroit, Cable is a man in limbo, no longer able to fully exist in the past but not willing to adapt to the present. Something’s gotta give and somebody’s gotta pay for Cable’s hard-luck life. Trail Magic (Good Intentions) is an epistolary from a monster that preyed upon hikers and wilderness lovers on the Appalachian Trail. A casino in Toledo, Ohio is the stage for an armed robbery that doesn’t go quite as expected in Buffalo Nickel Hat. Big thanks to the editors of the journals/magazines/sites where several of these short stories first appeared. The Goddamn Amazon was originally published by Literary Orphans. The Fixer was originally pub’d in Shotgun Honey. More Rust than Nickel was originally pub’d by Serving House Journal and was nominated for a Pushcart. Trail Magic (Good Intentions) was originally pub’d by Horror Sleaze Trash. Buffalo Nickel Hat was originally pub’d in Heater.
- Rural Eminence Volume III: I released my third collection of ambient instrumentals RURAL EMINENCE VOL. III. Cam Chaney made two videos for two of the tracks. Rural Eminence Volume III is a collection of 17 instrumentals reflecting rural life.
- My existentialist novel MEMORABILIA turned two.
- Lost, Long Gone, Forgotten Records: I worked on three LLGFR singles this year.
Happy New Year!
-A.S. Coomer
Categories: Article, Audiobook, Creative Nonfiction, crime, Excerpt, Fiction, Flash Fiction, horror, Journalism, Literature, Music, Nonfiction, Novel, podcast, Poem, Poetry, Review, sale, Short Short Story, Short Story, single, Songwriting, story, Video
A.S. Coomer 