Joe and Olivia talk about teaching and reading poetry, trash TV, and Joe asks Olivia questions an interviewer asked her what she would ask herself from 2014.

Olivia Cronk is the author of WOMONSTER (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2020), LOUISE AND LOUISE (The Lettered Streets Press, 2016) and SKIN HORSE (Action Books, 2012). With Philip Sorenson, she edits The Journal Petra.

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When Where How with Cavin Bryce Gonzalez

August 31, 2020 / Joe bielecki

Joe is joined by Cavin Gonzalez and they talk about his book I COULD BE YOUR NEIGHBOR, ISN’T THAT HORRIFYING? There's also talk of their substance problems, frustration with different methods being used to fight for justice in the world, and more.

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True Love with Sarah Gerard

July 31, 2020 / Joe bielecki

Joe is joined by Sarah Gerard to talk about her new book True Love.

Sarah Gerard is the author of the essay collection SUNSHINE STATE, which was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and the novel BINARY STAR, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seindenbaum Award for First Fiction. Her short stories, essays, interviews, and criticism hhave appeared in the New Yor Times, T magazine, Granta, Baffler, and Vice, and in the anthologies Tampa Bay Noir, We Can't Help it If We're from Florida, and Small Blows Against Encroaching Totalitarianism. She lives with her true love, the writer Patty Yumi Cottrell.

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Labyrinthian Rhizomes with Mike Corrao

June 30, 2020 / Joe bielecki

Mike Corrao joins Joe and they talk about writing as design, weird websites, book reviews and more.

MIKE CORRAO is the author of two novels, MAN, OH MAN (Orson's Publishing) and GUT TEXT (11:11 Press); one book of poetry, TWO NOVELS (Orson's Publishing); two plays, SMUT-MAKER (Inside the Castle) and ANDROMEDUSA (Forthcoming - Plays Inverse); and two chapbooks, AVIAN FUNERAL MARCH (Self-Fuck) and SPELUNKER (Schism - Neuronics). Along with earning multiple Best of the Net nominations, Mike’s work has been featured in publications such as 3:AM, Collagist, Always Crashing, and The Portland Review. His work often explores the haptic, architectural, and organismal qualities of the text-object. He lives in Minneapolis.

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BARNS with Zac Smith

June 01, 2020 / Joe bielecki

Zac Smith joins Joe to talk Barns. Also, writing in the age of social media, trying to write as a full time job, or not, and more.

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Sam Pink: Fries

April 30, 2020 / Joe bielecki

Sam Pink is the author of several books of fiction and poetry, including the No Hello's Diet, The Garbage Times/White Ibis The Icecream Man and Other Stories and many more. I find his writing to be funny, direct, and wholly compassionate. There is a quality to his work that makes him, in my opinion, one of the greatest American writers working today. Our talk rages from talking about editing, community, his visual art and more, but I think what comes across most strongly is that his writing is exactly that, his writing.

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Quarantined with Grant Maierhofer

March 31, 2020 / Joe bielecki

Joe is joined by Grant Maierhofer and they talk finding new things to read, crafting experimental writing, and more.

You can help the victims of the Nashville tornado by donating to the Middle Tennessee Emergency Response Fund.

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Scratching the Surfaces.cx

February 29, 2020 / Joe bielecki

Joe is joined by Mika and Anthony, the editors of Surfaces.cx to talk about their work and vision.

SURFACES.cx is an open literary arts platform, acutely oriented toward works of spontaneous creation by self-taught artists working outside of existing literary communities and the academic system.

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In a Negative Space with B.R. Yeager

January 31, 2020 / Joe bielecki

Joe is joined by B.R. Yeager to talk about his new book Negative Space, angry reviews, and More!

B.R. Yeager reps Western Massachusetts. His previous book is Amygdalatropolis (Schism Press).

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Javelinas - Noah Cicero

October 31, 2019 / Joe bielecki

Joe is joined by Noah Cicero and they talk about a turning point in Noah’s writing, Buddhism, and how to live in the world.

Noah Cicero is 38-years-old, grew up in a small town near Youngstown, Ohio. He has lived in Eugene, Oregon, Grand Canyon, Arizona, Seoul, South Korea and currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada. He has a movie made of his first book called The Human War which won the 2014 Beloit Film Festival award for Best Screenplay. He has books translated into Turkish, Kurdish and Spanish. His first book of poetry Bipolar Cowboy was voted one of the best books on Goodreads in 2015. He has many short stories, articles, and poems published at such places as Thought Catalog, 3AM Magazine, Wales Review, and Amphibi.us.

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Javelinas

I had a mission. I was going to walk into the forested part between the railroad and the West Rim road. It was probably not a good idea, no one ever did it, no one ever left the trails. But there was a part of me that didn’t care if I died. During those days, I felt like life was endless. All I could see was endless life ahead of me. There were no locations, no stopping points, there were no candles in any windows. The world had no place for me, I wasn’t even being sad, I wasn’t even having self pity, I had no interest in anyone telling me, “It is going to get better.” The banal platitudes of my country would not save me. All my friends were in Korea, or they had gone back to their homes in America, but I had no home. Where I was, I was just there, and that’s all.

On the way out the door, Dream was walking down the hall and asked me where I was going, I said to the forested part. He told me, “Man, I am scared to go there. Are you allowed to go there?”

“Hmm, I don’t think anyone will care. Do you want to come?”

He stood there thinking about it and said, “Yeah, let me get the right shoes on.”

Dream and I walked down the railroad tracks. Dream said, ‘I don’t know if my mom wants me going in here, she says there are rattlesnakes. I might run if I see a rattlesnake.”

“If there are rattlesnakes it will be okay. They won’t even notice us.”

“I don’t understand how a rattlesnake couldn’t notice us,” said Dream.

“Because they are busy. We we are afraid of snakes, we are projecting ourselves onto the snakes. We are making the snakes aware of us, but really they are snakes, and they are doing their snake thing. They have places to go and things to do, they know what they are doing, they aren’t looking for humans to bite.”

That calmed him a bit.

Right before we entered the forested part, I said, “We have to walk quietly if we are going to see something. Walk like this,” I placed my foot up and then put it down on my toes softly, and then mindfully pushed the back of my foot down. “See how quiet that is? You try.”

Dream, even though he was a big man, did the same kind of steps.

“Okay, let’s be quiet,” I said.

We slowly walked through the forested part. There were old Utah Junipers everywhere, little tiny cactus balls on the ground. I stepped on a cactus ball, I felt the spikes drive into my foot. I wanted to be angry but I didn’t care. I let it happen. Dream was like, “Oh shit, Billy, you stepped on a cactus.” I was like, “Yes.

We sat down on the ground. I took my shoe off and picked the needles out. The bottom of my foot was bleeding a little but it wasn’t bad. We stood up and walked. I realized we were lost but I didn’t tell Dream, he seemed to have full trust in me. It felt good that anyone trusted me.

As we were walking we heard noises, we both stopped. I loved hearing noises in the woods, I loved feeling the rush that something big and scary might be hiding behind a tree, ready to eat me. The desire to be eaten was overwhelming at times, but I didn’t tell anyone. Dream and I walked toward the noise. I looked back and Dream looked nervous, like he wanted to go back but he had to live up to a certain level of masculinity and keep going.

And there they were, a small family of javelinas, little pig like creatures covered in fur. There was a mom and three kids about 30 yards away. I pointed at them and Dream looked, his face lit up, our faces were full of excitement. The mom looked at us, then suddenly dashed ahead five yards toward us, stopped and made a noise. We both got scared neither of us had javelina training. We both picked trees and got up in them. We were both only four feet above the ground, but that was enough. Javelinas can’t climb trees.

The mother javelina realized we were no threat. We weren’t going to come any closer to her babies. We stood on branches in the trees, looking at the family living their lives. They were just living outside among the ran and cold and heat.

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We R the World - Dan Hoy

May 31, 2019 / Joe bielecki

Joe is joined by Dan Hoy. They talk about poetry, books, poetry books, and more!

Dan Hoy is the author of The Deathbed Editions (Octopus Books, 2016) and several poetry chapbooks, including The Terraformers (Third Man Books, 2017) and The Tree (Solar Luxuriance, 2016). His collaboration with Mike Kleine, We R the World, was featured in the 2019 Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction, and his collection The Terraformers was the recipient of an Elgin Award by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. His work has also been featured in The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Triple Canopy, Novembre, Elderly and other magazines and anthologies. He lives in Nashville.

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We R the World can be found HERE

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A Feast of You - Brendan Vidito

April 30, 2019 / Joe bielecki

Joe is joined by Brendan Vidito. They talk about body horror, illness, eye opening events, and more!

Brendan Vidito is a writer from Sudbury, Ontario. His work has appeared in several magazines and anthologies including Dead Bait 4, Splatterpunk’s Not Dead, Strange Behaviors: An Anthology of Absolute Luridity and Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana Del Rey and Sylvia Place. You can visit him online at brendanvidito.com or on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @brandanvidito

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A Feast of You

1. The Road Out

Ryker looked at the sky reflected in his coffee. Thick iron clouds pushed in from the city he had just fled, moving toward the diner with almost predatory purpose. He shifted uneasily in his booth. Cracked and blistered vinyl creaked under his weight. He brought the mug to his lips and drank. His hand shook so badly, a thread of coffee dribbled from the corner of his mouth. It was scalding, but he barely noticed. The only thought that occupied his mind was how he needed to get as far away from the city as possible. And as soon as the caffeine kicked in, he couldn’t afford to waste another minute. He was, after all, still within their zone of influence.

Despite its stinging warmth, the coffee—straight black and electrified with three packs of sugar—did an excellent job jump-starting his system. He hadn’t slept in over forty-eight hours and the energy now easing into his bloodstream almost brought tears to his eyes. The only thing was, he also had very little to drink in the last couple days and the coffee was beginning to fill his bladder to the point of discomfort. An itinerary formed in his mind. He’d take a piss, finish his third cup, leave the diner, drive until nightfall, find a cheap motel, unplug the room’s electronics to prevent them from learning of his whereabouts, get a good night sleep and finish up the drive in the morning. There was bound to be someplace where they couldn’t find him. He hoped with every quivering nerve in his body that it wasn’t simply a pipe dream.

The bell above the door jangled. Ryker spun around so fast his neck cracked. A family of three stood in the entrance. They looked like they’d stepped from the pages of a department store catalogue. The father had a kind but plain face, balding, the dark hair on his temples turning grey. He wore a t-shirt with the logo of some sports team Ryker remembered from his childhood. His wife was a head shorter, also plain but beautiful in her way. A scarf was knotted loosely around her neck and a purse dangled form one arm. She held her daughter’s hand, the diamond on her ring finger catching and refracting the diner’s fluorescent light. The child was clad in bright colors and in her other hand she carried a plastic, zipped container decorated with leering cartoon characters.

Sweat popped on Ryker’s forehead and trickled down the groove of his spine. An invisible fist punched through his stomach and squeezed his entrails. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. He watched, riveted with terror, as the father inclined his head, said something to his daughter that made her laugh, and together the family made their way to a booth on the opposite side of the diner. The only other patron apart from Ryker, an older man with a grey beard and weatherworn jacket, smiled at the little girl as she passed.

Ryker tore his eyes away from the new arrivals. The clouds reflected in his coffee were closer now. He scooted to the edge of his seat, shot up and walked briskly to the bathroom. His bladder was so full it hurt, and for one embarrassed second he thought he’d pissed himself, but it was only sweat. It coated every inch of his body like an amniotic sack.

The bathroom door hit the wall with a thunderclap smash. He darted toward the urinal, fumbled with his fly, and let loose a stream so powerful it splashed back from the stained porcelain. He bowed his head, breath coming out in labored gasps. His heart hammered, gunfire-quick. Empty, he zipped up, and staggered to the sink. His long black hair was plastered to his forehead. He threw cold water in his face, made a sound crossed between a groan and a whisper. That family…they’re just people…they’re harmless. Even so, they reminded Ryker too much of them—those things he’d fled from.

He remained at the sink for another minute or two, hands grasping the edges, head bent toward the drain. When his heart rate slowed and his breathing grew steady, he straightened and exited the bathroom.

The family, the old man and the waitress behind the counter all stared at him. His throat moved. He directed his gaze at the floor. Quick, purposeful strides carried him back to his booth. He gripped the handle of his coffee mug in a quaking fist and downed the rest of its contents, wincing at a bitter taste he hadn’t noticed before. When he turned around, running a hand over his mouth, the waitress was standing inches from his face.

“Ready to settle up?” she asked.

“Y-yeah,” he managed to stutter, removing the wallet from his back pocket.

He threw a five on the chipped Formica and got the hell out of there. He had to move.

The engine of his rusted beater growled in protest before sputtering to life. He peeled out of the gravel parking lot, throwing up dust and hitting the highway at sixty miles an hour. The woods on either side blurred into abstraction, flashes of green, brown and grey as the sky leaked through between gaps in the trees.

When the diner shrank then disappeared in the rearview mirror, Ryker finally eased off the gas. The speedometer swung from one-twenty to ninety. Thankfully this piece of shit didn’t explode—and he couldn’t help but laugh. It was strained but genuine, and the longer it went on, the louder and more unhinged it became. Soon he was howling, tears blurring his vision, an open palm beating a crazed rhythm against the ceiling. Calm returned in waves until he was silent and staring at the road, his throat and chest sore from the outburst.

Silence reigned for a time before he decided to turn on the radio. It should be safe to listed to a couple songs, he reasoned. As long as he remained quiet, they wouldn’t be able to hear him over the airwaves.

The jockey said, “Now here’s a favorite of mine. I think many of you out there can use some of its medicine—especially with all the bad in the world lately. So here’s—”

Ryker relaxed his shoulders, easing back into his seat, allowing the music to wash over him. The drum beat a slow, heavy sound. The guitar was mellow and muted, the lyrics deep-voiced and lullaby-smooth. Combined with the monotony of the road, the flashing yellow lines, Ryker felt himself lulled into a trance-like state. His eyelids grew heavy, his muscles slack.

A flash in the rearview mirror. He shook his head to clear it. Another flash and Ryker recognized it for what it was: lightening. The clouds and the storm they carried were closing in.

His head was full of cotton, his eyelids dropped and his limbs were growing numb. What the hell is happening? He blinked several times, but his vision refused to clear. It was like his eyes were smeared with petroleum jelly. He pulled onto the side of the road and could only tell he was on the shoulder by the crunch of gravel under the tires. His eyes were useless and he could barely keep them open.

His breathing grew shallower by the second, the rise and fall of his chest a lulling rhythm. Oh shit. No. I can’t fall asleep now. What’s going on? He lifted a leaden arm and clumsily jabbed the button to turn off the radio. Silence except for his own breathing. Thunder rumbled not far behind. His eyelids fluttered closed, his head lolled onto one shoulder.Please. Don’t fall asleep. The plea crawled around inside his head. As he plunged into a mire of unconsciousness his last thought was of the strange bitterness in his last mouthful of coffee.

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