PUNCHY WRITERS SERIES is a new poetry & fiction imprint of DC Books edited by Jason Camlot and David McGimpsey.
Punchy is committed to publishing formally engaging and thematically fun literature. Readers who pick up a book from the Punchy Writers Series will know that they are in for a challenging and pleasurable ride. If it's excellent and compelling, strange and fun, Punchy will get behind it. Punchy Writers Series fits nicely within the historical mission of DC Books to embody "a tradition of literary innovation, dissent against convention, and artistic facilitation that is second to none."
We are not presently accepting unsolicited manuscripts. Send queries to punchywriters@gmail.com
The Punchy Writers Series will be launched with two titles in Spring 2008:
DEAD CARS IN MANAGUA
By Stuart Ross
Stuart Ross's sixth poetry collection is both an experimental departure for Ross and an offering of some of his most accurate surrealistic observations to date. Dead Cars in Managua gathers into one volume three discrete poetry projects—an absurdist Baedeker of image-driven prose poems about Managua accompanied by his original photos, a formally various sequence of personal, narrative poems about the claustrophobic spaces and amorphous moods of hospitals, and a selection of cubist and abstract poems where Ross shows his experimental New York School cards like never before. All of the poems in this book are touched by Ross's unique ability to dissolve our common-sense understanding of the world, and then distill a more potent truth from the remains of sense and reason.
SQUISHY
By Arjun Basu
Arjun Basu's fiction collection is a wry and provocative book which exloses the realities beneath social conventions. Squishy asks: Do you still love me? Do you want fries with that? Do I look fat? Life is full of small moments that define us, tangents that lead us to unexpected places, bad decisions and no decisions with repercussions you couldn't possibly predict. This is the world of Squishy—an aspiring actress fast approaching her best-before date, a world weary travel writer, a disgraced ballplayer suffering the lingering effects of a wardrobe malfunction—all characters aware of life's promise and impossibility, tempted by something just beyond, something surely delicious.
PUNCHY EVENTS: May/June 2008 [Keep Checking Back for Updates]
Stuart Ross and Betty Jane Hegerat Edmontonganza!
DATE: Thursday, May 15, 2008
Toronto poet Stuart Ross launches his sixth full-length collection, Dead Cars in Managua (DC Books), and the CD collaboration An Orphan's Song: Ben Walker Sings Stuart Ross, and Betty Jane Hegerat launches her brand-new short-story collection A Crack in the Wall (Oolichan).
CITY: Edmonton, AB
TIME: 7:30 PM
VENUE: Audrey's Bookstore
10702 Jasper Avenue
INFO: 780.423.3487
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Stuart Ross at Punchy Writers/Insomniac Press Toronto Launch
DATE: May 21, 2008
This is, officially, the first Toronto launch ever of a book from the DC Books Punchy Poetry series! Stuart Ross will read from Dead Cars in Managua (DC Books/Punchy Writers). Jason Camlot will read from The Debaucher (Insomniac Press), Catherine Graham from The Red Element (Insomniac).
CITY: Toronto
TIME: 7:00 PM
VENUE: Dora Keogh Traditional Irish Pub
141 Danforth Ave.
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ROSS – CAMLOT – McGIMPSEY in Buffalo
DATE: Friday, May 23, 2008
Join us for an evening of poetry with Jason Camlot (The Debaucher), David McGimpsey (Sitcom), Stuart Ross (Dead Cars at Managua), and Buffalo's own Andrea Strudensky.
CITY: Buffalo, NY
TIME: 7:30 PM
VENUE: Rust Belt Books
202 Allen Street
INFO: 7168859535
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PUNCHY joint launch on the PLATEAU in Montreal
DATE: Sunday, June 1st, 2008
Punchy Writers/DC Books, Matrix Magazine/Pilot Reading Series, Writers Read at Concordia, Insomniac Press/Serotonin Books present: A Punchy Plateau Launch!
Featuring
Stuart Ross, Dead Cars in Managua (DC Books/Punchy Writers)
Arjun Basu, Squishy (DC Books/Punchy Writers)
Sara Steinberg, We Could Be Like That Couple (Insomniac Press/Serotonin Books)
PLUS!!! special guest David McFadden
Griffin Prize nominee, reading from Why Are You So Sad? (Insomniac Press/4 A.M. Books)
AND!!! Puggy Hammer, rocking like idiots
CITY: Montreal
TIME: 8:00 PM
VENUE: The Main Hall
5390, boul. St. Laurent, Montreal
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