MONGREL EMPIRE PRESS PUBLISHES SIX NEW WORKS

Norman, OK ) May 20, 2010--Mongrel Empire Press, an Eclectic Publishing House specializing in regional and unusual literary works, announces the publication of six new titles in the past five months. Of the six titles, three are poetry and three are nonfiction. Four of the collections also feature black and white photographs.



The three poetry titles are Spare Parts by Ken Hada, My Sideways Heart by Nathan Brown, and Oklahomaography by Joey Brown.





Ken Hada, author of Spare Parts, is a literature professor and coordinator of the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. His collection includes powerful, finely crafted yet accessible poems about fishing, hunting, waitresses, sons, and fathers. Award-winning novelist Diane Glancy says that Hada’s poems, “acting as spare parts in themselves, go into the making of one smooth-running, powerful engine.”





My Sideways Heart by Nathan Brown, popular regional poet and musician, offers the reader fractured love poems, funny and poignant at the same time. As Concho River Review poetry editor Jerry Bradley opines, Brown’s poetic voice is “compassionate, frighteningly honest, and disturbingly beautiful.” Nathan’s collection includes black and white photographs, as does Joey Brown’s Oklahomaography.





As the title suggests, Joey Brown’s Oklahomaography offers a poetic geography of Oklahoma people and places; Missouri Review editor Speer Morgan recommends the collection for “anyone who understands the abiding connection to place.” Oklahomaography has recently been featured on Amazon.com’s Hot New Releases recommendation list.





The three nonfiction titles recently released by Mongrel Empire Press are a biography, L. W. Marks: A Baptist Progressive in Missouri & Oklahoma, 1862-1943, by Alvin O. Turner; a memoir, Crossing a Different Bridge, by Judith Tate O’Brien, and Fighters & Writers, a collection of creative nonfiction essays by John G. Rodwan, Jr.





Alvin O. Turner, brings his historian’s rigor and his poet’s instinct for graceful writing to the fascinating story of minister, businessman, and mayor of Edmond, OK, L.W. Marks. The collection is illustrated with vintage Marks family photographs.





Judith Tate O'Brien's Crossing a Different Bridge presents “distilled memories of a life in the oil patch, Catholic boarding schools, and the convent are honest and intense. Her spare, precise language and unflinching inward gaze crystallize harsh experience into high art” (Terry Britton, President of Rose State College).





John G. Rodwan’s Fighters & Writers is a “spirited and far-ranging meditation on boxing that's also a thoughtful inquiry into the relationship between the writer's craft and the fighter's” (Carlo Rotella, author of Cut Time: An Education at the Fights). Fighters & Writers is illustrated with black and white photographs.





For more information on Mongrel Empire Press or to obtain review copies of these and other titles, contact the Press by sending an email from the web site: www.mongrelempirepress.org. Mongrel Empire Press books are available from the Press, the authors, Amazon.com and selected independent bookstores.





About Mongrel Empire Press


Mongrel Empire Press was established in 2007 with a mission to publish well-written, thoughtfully-considered works across generic and disciplinary boundaries. The Press actively identifies and promotes Oklahoma and regional writers while at the same time making room for outside the region works that, because of their mixed generic, disciplinary, and philosophical approaches, cannot find a home at other presses that have a more narrowly defined mission.




Jeanetta Calhoun Mish
Editor & Book Designer
Mongrel Empire Press
www.mongrelempire.org
mongrel@mongrelempire.org

WEIRD HORROR TALES: THE FEASTING"

The long await banquet is ready.....
“Run!” he screamed. “It’s still alive!!”


Yes, Tulsa author Michael Vance is still alive and writing, and has signed with Cornerstone Book Publishers and Airship 27 for publication of the second of three novels, “Weird Horror Tales: The Feasting”. His second braided novel of fifteen interrelated horror, SF, and fantasy stories was also written in the style and tradition of pulp magazines in the ‘20s, ‘30s, and ‘40s, and will be released in the fall of 2010.



"The first volume of this collection was simply the unnerving appetizer. Vance and Geier now offer up the main course and it's a terror filled delight!” said Ron Fortier, editor of “The Feasting”.



“My stories are founded on the premise that there is something larger than our narrow view of reality,” said Vance. “Each interconnected story shares setting, history, prominent families, and a macro plot. The stories also focus on the Azrealites, a religious cult that works tirelessly to reinstate that ‘Other’ on Earth through science and the occult.”



These stories about the fictional town of “Light's End” in Maine have been published in dozens of magazines in three countries. Vance’s influences on these stories are H. P. Lovecraft, William Faulkner, and Ray Bradbury.



The cover was done by France’s Christophe Dessaigne, a journalist, scenarist for role playing games, and photographer. Mainly influenced by the science fiction, horror, and fantastic genres, his atmospheric, surreal creations combine digital photography and manipulation in a dark and post-apocalyptic future.



The interior illustrations are by artist Earl Geier, best known for his horror, fantasy and science fiction artwork. In the role playing game industry, his work includes art for “Battletech”, “Call of Cthulhu”, and many others. He has illustrated books for “Cemetery Dance” magazine, Chaosium, Gryphon and Subterranean Press. For comic book, he's had work published by Dark Horse Comics, Comiczone, Now, Innovation and DC Comics Paradox.



Vance has written for national and international magazines, and as a syndicated columnist and cartoonist in over 500 newspapers. His history book, “Forbidden Adventures”, has been called a "benchmark in comics history”. He briefly ghosted an internationally syndicated comic strip, wrote his own strip and several comic books. He is listed in the Who's Who of American Comic Books and Comic Book Superstars.



The publisher of “The Feasting” and “Weird Horror Tales”, Cornerstone Book Publishers also publishes Masonic and esoteric books, selected pulp fiction, art literature, limited children's books, and poetry collections. The braided novel, “Weird Horror Tales, is available on-line, at book stores, and from Cornerstone. For more information about Cornerstone, go to www.cornerstonepublishers.com.



Airship 27 packages and publishes anthologies and novels in the pulp magazine tradition.

In the past, Airship 27 has released “Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective”, a series of “Captain Hazzard” pulp thrillers, more pulp fiction in “The Green Lama” and “Secret Agent X”. For more information on Airship 27, go to www.airship27.com.