Brian Alan Ellis's Blog, page 16
January 21, 2016
January 13, 2016
houseofvlad:
A Series of Pained Facial Expressions Made While...
A Series of Pained Facial Expressions Made While Shredding Air Guitar: Poems, Observations, Lists, Letters, Notes, Bullshit Aphorisms, and General Tales of Ordinary Crabbiness by Brian Alan Ellis
Have you ever listened to heavy metal albums on a tape deck while playing Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! Over at your best friend’s trailer? Are you a Shia LaBeouf completist? Have you ever wondered what would happen if you suddenly peed on your cat? Have you ever tried drunkenly convincing loved ones that Goodfellas is mandatory Christmas viewing? Do you long for the days when Hulkamania was the strongest force in the universe? Do you scream into pillows? Do you get sad pleasure from watching Chuck Norris kick the shit out of dudes on coke? Do you eat cream cheese sandwiches for dinner and then cry yourself to sleep every night? Have you somehow Jacque Cousteau’d a new depth to the ocean that is your self-hate? Is this the year you finally give up and start a food truck and then immediately crash it into something? If so, then congratulations: You’ve just graduated into your total dark side persona, and Brian Alan Ellis is here to text you “Zzzzzzz…” and other sweet nothings using a Virgin Mobile flip phone purchased at a Dollar General before Obama was president, so get hella stoked!
House of Vlad Productions
ISBN-13: 978-0692494233
ISBN-10: 0692494235
148 pages
Paperback: $8.95
Release date: March 2016
Sneak peek of my forthcoming book…
January 7, 2016
January 2, 2016
CCLaP: The Year in Books 2015: The CCLaP Guilty Pleasure Awards
Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty by Brian Alan Ellis made the 2015 Chicago Center for Literature and Photography “Guilty Pleasure” list, obvi.
December 31, 2015
Calm Face: A Novella - Kindle edition by Bud Smith. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
CALM FACE: A Novella by BUD SMITH
(January 2016)
Welcome to Bud Smith’s New York, where you run out of gas on your way to work; where a set of keys goes missing at a New Year’s Eve party; where you neighbors are either nosy, naked, or screaming; where putting an inflatable hot tub in your apartment seems like the best/worst idea ever; where little kids break-dance on the subway; where the corner bodega becomes your only salvation in a city overtaken by nail salons; where friends text you selfies of themselves dying in hospital beds; where sometimes the only thing a person can really do to stop from unraveling is to keep a calm face.
“There is definitely a Kerouac quality to Smith’s writing… This is blue collar. This is everyday people. [He] crafts each piece in the same manner as if he were sitting on your porch drinking a beer telling about his day. No added fluff or emotion, just what it is. His “yeah, this is my life” attitude is refreshing and leaves you wanting a larger glimpse into that life—that lifestyle.”—Blotterature
“[Clam Face] is humanizing and personal. All of the short stories revolve around the everyday, yet there is a longing for something beyond our grasp. We see it in the main characters. We see it in the dyed armpits of people relegated to the background. We see it in talks of colonizing Mars.”—Literary Orphans
“Smith’s prose is minimalist but keys in on the details necessary to make his writing atmospheric. His storytelling might look effortless but it gives you a real sense of how the protagonist gets through his days by keeping the big worries of life at bay, digging into the unique slices of life going on around him and taking a dryly humorous approach to the mundane yet necessary parts of his daily routine.”—Schlockmania!
E-book: $2.99 $0.99
December 30, 2015
TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog: A TNBBC Twist on "Top 2015" Lists
Honorable mention for Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty by Brian Alan Ellis is on fleek.
December 27, 2015
YEAR IN REVIEW: 2015
BOOKS
Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty: Stories (House of Vlad Productions, February 2015)
Tables Without Chairs #1 with Bud Smith and Waylon Thornton (House of Vlad Productions, August 2015)
Illustration: Michael Seymour Blake
TRAILERS
Directed/Edited by Andrew Seward; Music by Strange Lords
Directed/Edited by Andrew Seward; Music by Room Full of Strangers
FICTION
“Haunted Alarm Clock,” The Round Up Writer’s Zine (winter 2015)“Hello Mary,” Out of the Gutter (winter 2015)“Ambition of a Flower,” The Heavy Contortionists (winter 2015)“The Separation,” The Heavy Contortionists (winter 2015)“Kool-Aid,” Revolution John (winter 2015)“What I Know about Clem,” Juked (spring 2015)“Rape Distance,” Literary Orphans (summer 2015)“Flowers at Full Speed,” The Round Up Writer’s Zine: The Greatest Anthology (summer 2015)“Just Trees,” Lost in Thought (fall 2015)“A Real Boyfriend,” People Holding (fall 2015)“Tony,” HYPERtext (winter 2015)“Aunt Jackie,” HYPERtext (winter 2015)“Loco Mask II,” Working Stiff: The Anthology of Professional Wrestling Literature and Art (winter 2015)
REVIEWS/NON-FICTION/ARTICLES
“The 10 Best Books of 2015… That I Actually Got Around to Reading (In No Particular Order),” CLASH Media (winter 2015)“Letter to Our Drunk-Ass Neighbor,” The Driftless Area Review (fall 2015)“Grimestore Cowboy,” Hobart (fall 2015)“Today I Am This Boring Apocalypse Posing For Hustler: Notes on New Books by xTx, Brandi Wells, and Andrea Kneeland,” Revolution John (spring 2015)Book Review: Bipolar Cowboy by Noah Cicero, Heavy Feather Review (spring 2015)Book Review: More Wreck More Wreck by Tyler Gobble, That Lit Site (winter 2015)“What the Hell Does Author Nathaniel Tower Listen To?: An Interview with Nathaniel Tower by Brian Alan Ellis,” Revolution John (winter 2015)The Great Indie Press Review 2015, Electric Literature (winter 2015)
PRESS
An Interview with Brian Alan Ellis by Julie Demoff Larson and Kayla Greenwell, Blotterature , winter 2015An Interview with Brian Alan Ellis by Karl Wolff, The Driftless Area Review , fall 2015The Literary Underground presents Turn the Page with Kayla Greenwell: Focus on Alexandra Naughton and Bud Smith (featuring Brian Alan Ellis), a podcast interview by Kayla Greenwell, Turn the Page , summer 2015Movies that Matter: Bud Smith and Brian Alan Ellis, a conversation curated by Troy James Weaver, Enclave, summer 2015Scott Waldyn interviews Bud Smith and Brian Alan Ellis, The Tavern Lantern , summer 2015Fiction Points: Brian Alan Ellis, an interview by Amy Long, Points: The Blog of the Alcohol & Drugs History Society , summer 2015Show Me Your Shelves: Brian Alan Ellis, an interview by Gabino Iglesias, Bizarro Central , winter 2015The Unknown Show with Sarah Gerhard, Bill Lessard, and Brian Alan Ellis; a podcast interview by Bud Smith, The Unknown Show , winter 2015Chaos Questions #8: Brian Alan Ellis, a questionnaire by Sheldon Lee Compton, Enclave, winter 2015Episode #83: Brian Alan Ellis & Christoph Paul, a podcast video interview by Jayme Karales and Mike Malkiewicz, Shootin’ It with Jayme K., winter 2015Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty, a review by Hayley Morris, Blotterature , winter 2015Tables Without Chairs #1, a review by Don Guarisco, Schlockmania!, fall 2015Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty, a review by Karl Wolff, Chicago Center for Literature and Photography , fall 2015Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty, a review by Anne Kilfoyle, Atticus Review , fall 2015Tables Without Chairs #1, a review by Julie Demoff-Larson, Blotterature , fall 2015Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty, a review by Lixian Ng, Notes on the Shore , fall 2015This Book Will Change Your Life: F-250 by Bud Smith and Tables Without Chairs #1 by Bud Smith and Brian Alan Ellis, a review by Ben Tanzer, This Blog Will Change Your Life, summer 2015Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty, a review by Lori Hettler, The Next Best Book Blog , spring 2015This Book Will Change Your Life: The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes by David S. Atkinson and Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty by Brian Alan Ellis, a review by Ben Tanzer, This Blog Will Change Your Life , spring 2015King Shit, a review by Lixian Ng, Notes on the Shore , spring 2015King Shit, a review by Simon Sotelo, Razorcake , winter 2015Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty, a review by Gabino Iglesias, Verbicide Magazine , winter 2015Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty, a book trailer review, Ink Bitten , winter 2015“Indie Lit’s Top Ten Hottest Men,” a list by Gabino Iglesias, Enclave , fall 2015
FORTHCOMING 2016
Calm Face: A Novella by Bud Smith e-book (House of Vlad Productions, January 2016)
“Haircut 100,” NYSAI PRESS (winter 2016); HYPERtext (summer 2016)
A Series of Pained Facial Expressions Made While Shredding Air Guitar: Poems, Observations, Lists, Letters, Notes, Bullshit Aphorisms, and General Tales of Ordinary Crabbiness paperback/e-book (House of Vlad Productions, January 2016)
Sexy Time in The Spook House, Oh Yeah: A Novella e-book (House of Vlad Productions, February 2016)
Ha-Ha! Sad Laughter: A Writer’s Guide to “Idioture” e-book (House of Vlad Productions, April 2016)
Something To Do With Self-Hate: A Novel paperback (Lucky Bastard Press, summer/fall 2016)
Tables Without Chairs #2: Bad Job paperback/e-book (House of Vlad Productions, fall 2016)
Thank you, and Happy New Year!
December 26, 2015
SOMETHING GOOD, SOMETHING BAD, SOMETHING DIRTY by Brian Alan Ellis
YEAR IN REVIEW: Over at Verbicide, Zero Saints author Gabino Iglesias drops the first review of Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty by Brian Alan Ellis (February 2015)!
December 24, 2015
“Aunt Jackie” and “Tony” | HYPERtext
Spike the eggnog with two of my holiday bangerz over at HYPERtext ‘cause Stone Cold said so.
December 22, 2015
Blotterature: merging the art of fancy talk with blue collar sensibilities.
It’s apparently my day over at Blotterature. Check out a review of my latest short story collection (Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty) as well as a rad-ass interview I did with editors Julie Demoff Larson and Kayla Greenwell!
