Fifty years of writing, and what I have to show for it . . .
This is the home page of J. (Joe) Weintraub. On the pages attached to this site you will find listings of what I have published along with links (blue) to stories, poetry, and other things.
In the meantime, until I think of something else to make this homepage more interesting to any reader who wanders by, here's an excerpt from "An Investigation into the Life of Henry Frank, Screenwriter," from my appearance at the Tuesday Funk reading series in 2011.
In the meantime, until I think of something else to make this homepage more interesting to any reader who wanders by, here's an excerpt from "An Investigation into the Life of Henry Frank, Screenwriter," from my appearance at the Tuesday Funk reading series in 2011.
Recently . . .
(Click on blue to link to work or for more info.)
For the second year in a row, one of my plays was featured at the Gi60 International One-Minute Play Festival in Houston, TX (July 2-3, 2024). The video of the entire production is available on YouTube, and you'll find "The Right Choice," my stage adaptation of a Nicola Lombardi short story, at about the 9:15 mark. in 2023, Border Crossing was one of the 48 produced at the Houston Gi60 Festival (July, 6-7). A video presentation of the performances is on YouTube, and you'll find Border Crossing at around the 35:30 mark here.
"It's Not Over 'til the Bald Soprano Sings," was performed as part of B3 Production's "7th Festival of Shorts," May 17-18, 24-25, in Scottsdale, AZ. Directed by Ilana Lydia, the play featured Cheryl Banks ("Woman"), John Perovich ("Man"), and Brady Anderson ("Voice"). An homage to Eugene Ionesco (well, sort of), an earlier production was performed in 2016 by the Gemco Players of Emerald, Australia. Short interviews with the playwright's participating in the festival are currently available on B3's Facebook page here.
Also with a repeat performance, this time as a podcast, was my short play of "existential horror," Exit 34. With previous productions (bo5h stage and audio) at the Atlanta Fringe Festival (2015), Chicago Dramatists (2013 & 2014), NYC's Petite Morgue (2013), and Yeppoon Little Theatre in Queensland, AUS (2023), On and Off Theatre's version is perhaps the best one yet (kudos to director Daniel G. Husson and actors Brian Bickerstaff and Stefanie Frame), and it can be found here as the lead in their podcast "Soundbytes III."
Joining the work of such accomplished playwrights as Glenn Altermann, Gregory Strong, Kieran Carroll, and Judy Klass, my short play Little Boy appears in the March 2024 (#27) issue of the biannual arts and literature journal Masque & Spectacle.
Along with work by authors from Canada, Australia, England, and Israel, my essay "My Mother's Recipes" has been reprinted in the anthology Such a Loss from the Canadian publisher MacKenzie Publishing. Originally appearing in the Spring/Summer 2003 issue of Crab Orchard Review and the winner of the Illinois Arts Council Award for CNF that year, the piece can also be found in the special "Food" issue of Clerestory (issue #6), here. All profits, incidentally, from Such a Loss will be donated to the Canadian Cancer Society, and copies of the anthology can be purchased in both Kindle and paper copies here.
"August Sun" my translation from the Italian of the Swiss author Davide Staffiero's flash fiction "Sole d'agosto" was published in the Bloody Valentine's Day issue of Tales from the Moonlit Path. This quiet, evocative horror-love tale is the first of is the first of my translations of his work and the first of Mr. Staffiero's stories to appear in English.
The third of my translations of a Nicola Lombardi tale to be broadcast by the UK's The Other Stories appeared in January. "Inside the House of Mirrors" (#92.3), broadcast as part of their "Maze" series, was narrated by Manny Realguy and is a truly spooky tale. "Hungry Shadows" (#90.1) was also narrated by Manny Realguy and was produced in 2023; this story was first published in Disturbed Digest (#9, 2015) and later collected in the anthology This Book Is Cursed (Bac/Lac, 2018). The ghost story, "Desire & Sons" (#81.2)--this one narrated by James Barnett (AKA Jimmy Horrors)--was selected by the production team as a 2023 "Staff Favorite."
Now available online, my translation of Nicola Lombardi's "The House of the Scolopendra"--along with the original for those who read Italian--is in the January 2024 issue of Samovar, where it shares space with the work of Guy Goffette (a former Prix Goncourt winner) and the Hungarian scifi writer and editor, Gábor Képes. First published in Blood Tomes: Vol.II, Creatures Short Stories Edition (TellTale Press, 2019)--and also appearing in The Gypsy Spiders, mentioned below--the story is not for the faint-of-heart; but for those seeking new and active nightmares, it can be found here. Also now online, my translation of Nicola's flash fiction "Bedtime Tales" can be found in the "Demented Mothers' Day" issue of Tales from the Moonlit Path (May, 2024) here, a tale that was originally published in the anthology Stories We Tell after Midnight: 2 (author and translator interviews are available on the Crone Girls Press website).
The limited cloth edition of my translations of Nicola Lombardi's The Gypsy Spiders and Other Tales of Italian Horror from the UK's Tartarus Press (Dec. 2021) has sold out, although copies are appearing on the second-hand market for upwards of $75. But paper and Kindle editions have become available from Amazon here and elsewhere. Opening with The Gypsy Spiders--which in 2013 won the Premio Polidori, Italy's most prestigious award for horror fiction--the novel is followed by eight of Lombardi's most compelling and terrifying stories. In one of its first reviews (from Oddly Weird Fiction), the reviewer concluded: "Incredibly dark stories . . . but god help me nothing short of a bomb blast in my living room would have made me put the book down. . . . Absolutely brilliant." Publishers Weekly (Feb, 2022) has also chimed in: "Lovers of postwar narratives and surrealist horror won’t want to miss this."
In Feb. my short play The Old Neighborhood was read as a Zoom production by Northport Readers Theatre in Northport, FL The play has had, so far, one full production, for the "Fifth Annual Orange County International 10 Minute Play Festival" at the Sugar Loaf Performing Arts Center (Chester, NY) in 2021, but Northport is considering it for a possible stage production in 2024.
2023
My existential horror tale, “The Theater of Infinite Delight,” was published in the September 2023 issue of Cosmic Horror Monthly #39. This was my fourth story translated by Nicola Lombardi (who is also the translator for the Australian horror writer Lee Murray) into Italian, and it appears as “Il Teatro dell’Eterna Delizia” in the anthology Midnight (eds. L. Boccia & N. Lombardi), a publication of Weird Books Press. Also late in 2023, my story "Midnight Run" became available for the first time in print (at least in English--an Italian translation, by Nicola Lombardi, appeared in The Horror Show, Weird Books, 2021). First published online ("Flying Fox Flash"-- Novel Noctule, May 14. 2021), the story is now part of the collection Descent into Madness, ed. Michael Bertolini, now available on Amazon from M Presents Publishing here.
Published on the eve of Halloween, Nicola's "The Last Night of October" appeared in Issue #3 of Tales from the Moonlit Path here. A truly terrifying tale of Halloween horror (Be Warned!), it was the lead story in the third volume of Halloween Horrors, a publication of DBND Publishing (ed. Zach Friday), which can be purchased here. My translations of two of Nicola's shorter short stories also appeared late in 2023. The ghost tale, “Step-by-Step,” was in the Fall issue of Café Irreal: International Imaginings (#88), and the dreamlike “One Night on the Train” can be found in the anthology We’re Infested: Tales of Vermin, Insects and Filth, edited by Alex Gonzalez of Raven Tale Publishing.
In the Fall of 2023, two of my shorter plays had staged readings by community groups. Easter Sunday was read by Northport Readers Theater in Northport, FL, in October, and in September Full Moon was read by Theatrikos for the “Northern Arizona Playwriting Showcase” in Flagstaff, AZ. A video of the latter reading is available here.
In addition, my stage adaptation of Nicola Lombardi's Walpurgis Night was produced as part of the GreenMan Troupe's "8 to the Barista" for its 20th anniversary at the Brewpoint Pub Cafe (Elmhurst, IL; July 14-16) where it was voted as the "Audience Choice" winner. Kudos to the artistic team of Kimberly Brumirski (director), Jenny Hogan (Martina), and Clarissa Lehnig (Elena) for making it happen.
Bob Galley of the Yeppoon Little Theatre (Queensland, AUS) seems to have found my short dramatic work to be particularly appealing, and from August 2022 to October 2023, he has produced five of my short plays--Roadkill, Walpurgis Night, Intervention, Easter Sunday, Exit 34, and Full Moon--for Yeppoon's "Script in Hand" staged reading series before live audiences throughout the Capricorn Coast and for broadcast on Keppel FM 91.3, which can be heard on the web throughout the world.
Several of my fictional pieces have been revived. Originally published in The Cream City Review (2010), my speculative tale "The Couch Club" can now reach the sci-fi reading public as it joins work from a crew of international authors in the anthology Cosmic Contact: First Contact Stories (ed. Jay Chakravarti; CultureCult Press: Kolkata, India). Ebook and print copies available here. CultureCult Press also reprinted my flash fiction, "Sunset," (originally in the Ocotillo Review) in the anthology It's All in My Mind: Short Psychological Thrillers, available in 4-color, B&W, and e-editions here. Also reprinted, "A Visit to the Catacombs" can be found in Hidden Realms: Short Stories, a deluxe clothbound edition by UK's Flame Tree Press, accompanying the work of E.A. Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, H.G. Wells, Lewis Carroll, and many other masters of speculative fiction both classic and contemporary. Originally published 2007 in Karamu, the story is also available as Podcast #608 from Pseudopod (one of the "Top Ten Pseudopods of 2018," according to Owltail.)
In addition, first published in Suicidally Beautiful: A Collection of Sport Stories (Mint Hill Books, 2012) and since adapted and produced as stage and radio plays, “The Year the Padres Won the Pennant” has been reprinted in the anthology No One Should Kiss a Frog: An Anthology of Love Gone Wrong (MacKenzie Publishing, 2023); both print and ebook editions available here. Also, published long ago in The Kansas Quarterly (1984!), "Sam Gottlieb's Hot Car" originally written to accompany several other stories published in Motor Sports Journal (also long since gone), has found a new home in Defuncted: A Collection of Abandoned Things, here. And finally, just in time for the 2023 baseball playoffs, Defuncted picked up my essay "Rooting against the Sox," originally published in The Cool Traveller (1992), and it can now be found here.
My translation of Nicola Lombardi's "The Blood-Witch" is part of the most recent volume of The Horror Collection: Sapphire Edition: Bk. 13, one of the UK's more prestigious horror series (edited by Kevin Kennedy of KJK Publishing) and is available in a Kindle edition. Nicola's story "Three Seconds" was also published in The Horror Collection: Nightmare Edition , the 12th in the series (2022), and his collaboration with Ramsey Campbell “In a Pale Rainy Morning,” (the Italian part of which I translated), appeared in The Horror Collection: Emerald Edition: Bk. 7 (2020).
And, if you are interested in learning whether you would be a victim or a survivor should you find yourself in the middle of a horror movie, you can find out by reading my translation of Nicola's "Victim or Hero? (A Survival Test for Participants in a Horror Film)" in the second volume of Let's Go to the Movies, a publication of Quarter Press, which can be purchased here. The article is the second of my translations drawn from his Non Aprite Quelle Porte ("Don’t Open Those Doors")--a compendium of laws and survival tips for those who might mistakenly wander into the plot of a horror movie. The first, "Famous Last Words: 20 Lines Spoken by Characters in Horror Movies and Thrillers Just Prior to Meeting a Bad End," appeared in Dark Moon Digest #46, available here.
My one-act Easter Sunday (first produced at the Alley Theatre, Middleboro, MA, 2011) appeared in the Spring 2022 issue (6, #1) of The Ponder Review (a publication of The Mississippi University for Women--former stomping ground of Eudora Welty and a sponsor of The Tennessee Williams Ten-minute Play Festival). and the issue can be found here. I've also joined 75 other playwrights, many of them members of the Dramatists Guild, in the April 2023 issue of Literature Today: An International Literary Journal, with my one-minute play Preordained. Paperback copies can be purchased here.
I'm not writing much poetry nowadays, but an earlier verse of mine, "Elegy in F Major," finally found a home in the Winter 2023 issue of one of the Midwest's more prestigious literary reviews, Albert DeGenova's After Hours. On April 2, I joined Kurt Heintz, Susan Cosgrove, Pamela Miller, and other contributors at Oak Park's The Actors Garden for a reading to celebrate the issue.
Congratulations to Editor Whitney Scott on her exceptional effort in bringing Play--the 27th in her celebrated series of "black-and-white" anthologies--to print after 2+ plague-ridden years of challenges. I'm pleased to have my work--"Ten Dreams of Softball" in this case-- appear in the annual, as it has in Loon Magic, Home, The Mountain, Music in the Air, and others, all available here from Outrider Press.
Upcoming . . .
A contract has been signed for the publication of my translation of Nicola Lombardi's novella Club Magritte, scheduled to appear in late 2024 or early 2025 from Interstellar Flight Press. Selected by the series editor, Australian novelist Lee Murray, the other novellas scheduled for this series are by Amanda J. McGee, Emma Osborne, Elaine Chen, and J. V. Gachs.
My a translation of Alphonse Daudet's "Paysages Gastronomiques" ("Gastronomic Landscapes"), originally published in the Spring 1995 Palo Alto Review, is scheduled to reappear on the website Mediterranean Poetry.
And, another radio script, "Exit 34," is scheduled for production by the On and Off Theatre Workshop as part of "Soundbytes: Vol. III" program.
2022
Five of my shorter plays were produced in the first half of 2022, one on each coast and three in the Midwest. The Bright and Shining Future, an historical-absurdist play, was premiered by First Run Theatre for “Spectrum 2022: A Festival of Short Plays” under the direction of Robert Ashton at The Chapel St. Louis, MO, during the first two weekends in March.
Also premiered was The Interview, for the GreenMan Theatre Troupe's summer festival "8 to the Barista" in Elmhurst, IL (July 14-16), directed by Gina Palmer, with Danny Parrott (as the reporter from Metropolis) and Pete Gately (as the industrialist from Gotham City), and judged by the audiences as their third favorite. Also in July (15-17), The Wedding was was given its ninth production by Rhino Theatre Co. for the "6th Annual One-Act Jamboree" in Pompton Lakes, NJ (Heather Maurietto, dir.), and Vietnam Zippos had its seventh production on July 7 at the "Crafton Hills New Works Festival' in Yucalpa, CA, under the tutorship of Prof. Paul Jacques. And, finally, Roadkill was part of "The Network 10-Minute Play Festival" in August at Chicago Dramatists, directed by Joshua Fardon, with Stephen Spenser and Edin Wald as the two drivers.
In July 2022, two of my short plays were published in collections under the editorship of "Som" at Fresh Words: An International Literary Magazine. "The Best Polish in Chicago" appeared in Volume 4 of Contemporary One Act Plays, and "Border Crossing" appeared in the inaugural volume of Contemporary One Minute Plays. Both titles are available in print from Lula Press, and e-editions are available for reading at the Fresh Words website here.
My translation of Nicola Lombardi's "The Boy in the Trunk," first published in Deadman's Tome (2016), has been reprinted in Horror for the Throne: One Sitting Reading (Fantastic Books), a collection designed for bathroom libraries, and it is available here.
After making the rounds of all sorts of literary reviews in the USA over the last several years, my story "The Queen of Quinniac Creek" finally found a home in London, in the current issue (#4) of Cerasus Magazine (John Wilks, ed.: my first fiction published in the UK!). Print issues available on Amazon, but the pdf can be purchased for about $5 here. Also finally published after many years of submission, was my short story "Roach," which found a home in The Concrete Desert Review, a literary review from California State University's San Bernardino's Palm Desert Campus.
In addition, a pair of fictions found new life in 2022. "Lunch in Antibes," originally published in Roosevelt University's Oyez Review (2014), appeared on the website Mediterranean Poetry here, along with the imaginings of other poets and writers from the USA, Spain, Ireland, Croatia, and elsewhere. Also reprinted (first published in Chasm in 1985), my sci-fi tale "The Colonizers" was one of the 20 among an international crew of authors selected for Cosmic Convocation: A Space Opera Anthology (Jason Russell, ed.), now available from Starry-Eyed Press on Amazon. A podcast of the story produced by the Hugo-Award-winning StarShipSofa (#648), is available here.
A few of my "creative nonfiction" pieces (also known as "essays") have also been reprinted. "My Mother's Recipes,"
And "Sparta," which originally appeared in The Macguffin in 2001--a disturbing encounter on a train passing through Switzerland in the early 80s (very Hitchcockian)-- is the leadoff article in the Nonbinary Review special issue ("In Motion"; #29); an author interview along with ebooks (for $5 from Zoetic Press) are available here.
Guest editors Lynne Thompson (Los Angeles Poet Laureate) and Patricia Smith (four-time National Poetry Slam champion) have chosen my poem "Oedipus & the Sphinx” for Spillway 29, an annual poetry anthology from Tebot Bach Press. Another of my "Classical" poems, "Circe's Song" was published in the Summer Solstice issue of Eternal Haunted Summer, a review devoted to pagan songs and tales. Another literary review devoted to mythologies, Carmina Magazine, has reprinted "The Lament of an Ancient Shepherd of Laius"--a poem also drawn from the Oedipus legend--and "Unnatural Selections"--one drawn from The Old Testament; they can be found here, along with a short statement from the author. Also reprinted, the poem "My Parents' Home, 1995"--first published in the anthology Home (Outrider Press, where it won "Honorable Mention" for best poem)--was featured in the November 2022 issue of Better Than Starbucks. It's available in print, and also online, at least temporarily, here.
2021
My microplay, Empty Shelves, has been published in the anthology, Laughter is the Best Medicine: Forty-Five Five Minute Plays in the Time of Coronavirus (Ed., Debbie Lamedman, Smith&Kraus). The play was also chosen for American Blues Theater's 2020 "Ripped: The Living Newspaper Festival." Unfortunately, due to the pandemic the festival could not be produced, but appeared as one of ABT's 2020 "30 plays for 30 days" here. A shorter version of Empty Shelves was read online in April for the "One Minute Play Festival," a production of the Coronavirus Plays Project.
Also on stage, The Year the Padres Won the Pennant received two productions in 2021, one by the Westchester Civic Theatre for their "80'sx10 Play Festival" (Dir. Becca Easley) and the second on Zoom for "Never Tell Me the Odds" at the Crafton Hills New Works Festival (Dir. Paul Jacques; Yucalpa, CA). Earlier productions of the play include “The Directors’ Workshop (2017)” (Dir. Cal Turner) for Theatre of Western Springs (Western Spring, IL,) and a radio version produced by 8 Scribes for the program Love, Sex, and Other Nightmares at Chicago Dramatists in 2012.
In 2019 "The Tears of San Lorenzo," my dramatic adaptation of a Nicola Lombardi short story, was one of the winners of Strange Rx Productions "Your Worst Nightmare Festival" in San Francisco. Due to the pandemic, it could not be staged, but a shortened version was produced , and it is available here. In addition, a full radio version was produced in 2020 as part of Studio@620's "The Radio Theatre Project: Spooky and Sweet." Directed by Bonnie Agin, a video of the reading is still available in their FB video archive here. ("Tears" starts at about the 8 min. mark.)
"Plant Closure"--a corporate communication from a dystopian future somewhere--was published in the April 2 issue of Terror House Magazine, a literary review based in Budapest, Hungary, that stands against "the stultifying Beigeism of major NY publishing houses . . . and sterilized Iowa Workshop pieces from pampered white trust-funders," but supports "the Charles Bukowskis, Louis-Ferdinand Celines and Philip Dicks [and other] bold, audacious writers who depict human life in all its ugliness and comedy." So, me and Charles Bukowski. Anyway, the piece is here.
"Afloat," a story originally published in Altered States: Sci-Fi and Fantasy Stories about Change (Mint Hill Books, 2011) was produced as a podcast by the by the UK-based StarShipSofa (#669), which has also recorded work by George R.R. Martin, William Gibson, Neil Gaiman, Paolo Bacigalup, and many masters of the genre. Narrated by Anthony Babington, the podcast is available here.
On the scholarly front, “The Paris Night: A Flâneur in Post-Revolutionary Paris” (which includes my annotated translation of Eugène Briffault’s 1830 essay “The Paris Night”), appeared in the June issue of French History, a publication of Oxford University Press. Here is the abstract.
"Aureole (9/11)" a poem written to memorialize the Twin Towers disaster, has found a home in the twenty-year commemorative volume Never Forgotten: 100 Poets Remember 9/11. Ernie Brill, Dina Ellenbogen, Alice Friman, and Alice Ostriker are among the poets featured in this anthology, edited by Bill Batcher and Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan. In addition, "My Cat's Real Name" appears in the special "Animal Love" issue of Shooter Literary Magazine, my second poem to appear in a UK journal. Also, "Last Things" was published in the Winter 2021 issue of Months to Years, a journal devoted to aging, final illnesses, and understanding mortality. Two dramatic monologues were also published in 2021. "The Elderly Poet Considers His Dotage" appeared in the Spring issue of Muse, a publication of Riverside City College, and "Naples, Florida," first published in Troubadour in 2000 and reprinted in Outrider Press's Deep Waters (2012)--is now available online in the August issue of Better Than Starbucks here.
2020
The Summer Season, my two-act adaptation of Carlo Goldoni's Villeggiatura trilogy (considered by Michael Billington as one of the 100 best plays ever written) has just been published in the Fall 2020 issue of The Mercurian: A Theatrical Translation Review, a publication of UNC--Chapel Hill, Dept. of Dramatic Art. The introduction, describing the production history of the play and the evolution of this adaptation along with the full script, can be found here.
Several of my short stories also saw the light of day in 2020. My fictional exploration of the conjunction of science, race, and society, "The Rector Addresses His Expeditionary Teams on the Eve of Their Departure," was chosen for the inaugural issue of Sangam, the literary review of Southern University (Baton Rouge, LA). "Driving Mom and Dad Home from the Wedding," appears in New World Writing (August 2020), a digital journal affiliated with the Mississippi Review. Edited by Frederick Barthelme, New World Writing has published the likes of George Saunders, Ann Beattie, Francine Prose, and Bobbie Ann Mason, and my story can be found here. And my flash fiction story, "Sunset," appeared in the special food theme Summer issue of The Ocotillo Review, a publication of the Kallisto Gaia Press out of Austin, TX.
"Selling to the Goyim," a story first published in the Bryant Literary Review in 2002, was included in "After Dinner Conversation: Short Stories for Long Discussions," a website devoted to encouraging "ethical and moral conversation with friends, family, and social groups." The story is available on Amazon, as a free Kindle edition, and on the ADC website. It has also been reprinted in the anthology After Dinner Conversation: Series Two. "A terrific collection of short stories for courses on civics, ethics, or contemporary social problems."--Luc Bovens, philosophy prof, UNC--Chapel Hill. Available on Amazon in ebook or paperback here.
Also appearing as a reprint is "Dialogues with My Mother," an essay originally published in The Santa Clara Review (Spring, 2010) and now given new life as part of the blog "Memories of Our Parents;" it can be found here.
"Alina's Ring," my translation of Nicola Lombardi's "I buoni e i cattiva," has been published by Soteira Press for its anthology What Monsters Do for Love: I. In return, Nicola has translated my story "A Visit to the Catacombs" into Italian and it now has been published in Dark & Weird: Vol. 2, eds. L. Boccia & N. Lombardi (Weird Book, 2020).
Two of my shorter personal poems have been published in Grand Little Things (Oct. 8, 2020), "My Father's Victory Garden: 1945" and "Assisted care Arcadia, PA," and they can be found here.
A pair of my older poems were also reprinted. Originally published in Rockhurst Review (Spring 2010), "All My Dead" ("It has a fiercely gentle nature which was just what we were looking for.") was reprinted in The Very Edge Poetry Collection . It is also the lead piece in the anthology Ghost Stories, from SEZ Publishing. And, my poem "Artisans" appears in the special issue on "Pride: (p. 8) of Heirlock Magazine (I, 2), which can be downloaded here. "Artisans" was originally published in Troubadour: Best of Rhyme at the Year 2001.
And, my poem "The Academic Publishes Addresses the Books in His Sales Catalog" is the first to appear in the UK in the March 2020 issue of Lighten Up Online: The Quarterly Light Verse Webzine, here.
Some dramatic "almosts" for 2020: the following short plays made it into the "short list," but no further: Bauhaus for the "2020 King's Shorts" in Nova Scotia; It's Not Over 'til the Bald Soprano Sings for the 2020 Short & Sweet in Dubai; Roadkill for the 2020 "Little Wonder Radio Play Competition," in Paris, France; Reunion for the 2020 "The Ten Show," The Hive Collaborative, Provo Utah; The Interview, "2020 Pint-Sized Plays," Tenby, Wales.
2019
Two of my shorter short stories appeared in 2019, as well as a couple of reprints. "Ingratitude" is one of my soft psychological horror tales and it appears in the Spring issue of the crime/mystery mag, The Dark City here. "Elevator Down" is a more experimental story (a "dreamscape" with style to match). Difficult to place, it finally found a home in the Summer 2019 (#20) issue of the appropriately titled lit review Your Impossible Voice, here. "Mr. Ledbetter Misses His Stop," originally published in the Spring 2009 Karamu (a literary review out of EIU), was reprinted in a special issue, "Invisible People," of Moon Magazine (July 2019). Just a few days later, it reappeared, in CommuterLit, an ezine designed to be read on mobile devices during commutes. Fittingly enough, the story takes place on Chicago's Red Line. The Moon version can be found here.
In addition, my tale "Christmas in Vegas" appeared in the Winter 2019 issue (#117) of Chiron Review, an independent literary journal that's been around since 1982 and has published everyone from Charles Bukowski to Marge Piercy. For those of you who saw Three Cats 2015 production of "Holiday Stories," my play of the same name was adapted from this story.
One of my short plays, Thinking Outside the Skinner Box was performed as a staged reading as part of the Pittsburgh New Works Festival Original Play Reading Series. The reading took place at the Higher Voice Studio, Carnegie, PA, under the direction of Erika Krenn.
In May, I presented a talk on my annotated translation of Eugène Briffault's Paris à Table: 1846 in front of Chicago Foodways Roundtable. The talk was recorded, and it is now available in the archives of the Culinary Historians of Chicago as a podcast here. In July I repeated the presentation in front of the TallGrass Writers Guild at the Sulzer Library. The book also continued to attract critical attention. Moira Hodgson in her May 24 "Food" column for the Wall Street Journal included it as one of the four recommended books for "2019 Summer Books: Food," labeling it a "captivating edition" of a "classic chronicle."
In June, I appeared with other contributors to the anthology Loon Magic and Other Night Sounds in the Poetry Tent, during Chicago's Printers Row Book Festival to read my poem "Apologia for My Wife Who Snores" (also published in Off the Coast under the title of "After 30 Years of Marriage, One Adjusts." I also joined with Martin Altman, Gay Guard-Chamberlin, Bob Lawrence, Willa Moore, Susan Namest, and Diane Williams in April as TallGrass Writers Guild honored National Poetry Month with "Poetic Voices: A Literary Reading" at Sulzer Library.
Also on the poetry front, my poem "Sparrows in Early Spring" was published in the Summer 2019 issue of Plainsongs, a literary review from Hastings College, NE, "After 30 Years of Marriage, One Adjusts" was published in the Summer 2019 issue of Off the Coast, and my poem "My Father's Peach Tree" appeared in the 2018-2019 issue of Caesura, the journal of the Poetry Center of San Jose (CA). A framed copy of my poem "Summer Commute" was on display at the "Weather the Weather: Artists and Poets Respond to the Weather" exhibition from December to March at the Art Center at Highland Park (IL) City Hall, and it was one of the "Leaves" hung on the trees at the Waterford Township (MI) Public Library "Poetry Leaves" exhibition from May to June. The poem appeared in the subsequent anthology Poetry Leaves (Vol. 4).
My translation of Nicola Lombardi's "Striges" was published in The Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror: IV (Altair, Australia, LTD), joining a world-wide cast of prominent fantasy writers from, et al., the Netherlands, Finland, Egypt, Romania, Argentina, and Germany., and it can be downloaded here, gratis. Print copies are also available for $17 here. Two translations of Nicola's shorter tales were also published in 2019. "Walpurgis Night" appeared in Vol 2, no. 3 of Coffin Bell, and it is available here. In addition, Nicola's apocalyptic story "It's Dark Out There" appeared in the third number of the Econoclash Review, a review devoted to "quality cheap thrills."
I also adapted Walpurgis Night for radio, and it was produced on March 13 as part of "The Olde Tyme Radio Hour" out of New Orleans (WAMF, 90.3 fm). Downloaded as a podcast, the play is here around the 33:50 mark. This is the second of my radio plays produced this year by the "Radio Hour;" the first, a version of my 10-minute play, Roadkill, was produced on Feb. 20 and it, too, was subsequently downloaded as a podcast, here around the 8:20 mark.
As part of my "Ever-the-Bridesmaid Annals," this message was received in May for my entry into Palooka Press's novella contest: "AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE LIFE OF THE SCREENWRITER, HENRY FRANK was such a joy to read and was one of the most unique and interesting chapbooks. Your manuscript was one of a handful of finalists in the contest, but I regret to inform you that it was not chosen as the winner. I hope knowing your manuscript came this far gives you a sense of pride in your wonderful work." In addition, my poem "Before the Parade" was one of two "Honorable Mentions" in the 2019 Guild Literary Complex's Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mike Competition. The door to the UK opened a slight bit for my dramatic presentations, as two of my short plays were "long-listed" for upcoming festivals: You for the British Theatre Challenge produced by Sky Blue Theatre (London), and Roadkill for Pint-Sized Plays, a festival to be performed in six pubs in Tenby, Wales.
2018
My play, The Wedding, was chosen for the 2018 "Redeye 10s International Play Festival" where a group of 6 short plays for young actors and audiences are performed on the same day by multiple theater groups. This year's festival was produced on October 27 at high-school theaters in Brownsville, KY; Nipomo and Paloma, CA; and Rheinland-Pfelz, Germany.
My short story "Ghosts" was published in the inaugural issue (Summer 2018) of Chaleur under the theme of "Letters to My Unfinished Love." Copies of this literary and arts magazine are available at a discount here. A second story, “Dr. Grene Gives Advice,” was published in the June 29 issue of Ascent. This is also my second publication in Ascent, the first, "The Well of English Defiled," having been published almost 35 years ago, in the Fall 1984 issue.
My annotated translation of Paris à Table: 1846 was chosen by Bon Appétit as one of their 8 recommended "Non-Cookbook Food Books to Read This Summer." It was also named by Book Riot as one of 2018's "20 Best Food Books." In addition, it was featured as an "eye-opening chronicle of French dining" in Florence Fabricant's New York Times food column (June 25), "A Glimpse into Parisian Dining Life," and it has received positive reviews in New Criterion and French History among others. The book, published in April by Oxford University Press, is the first translation of this classic gastronomic text (and the first to retain the Bertall drawings from the original edition) . Print and Kindle copies are available from Amazon.
My short "collage-play," Vietnam Zippos, was produced in Sydney, Australia as part of the “2018 Short+Sweet Festival—Sydney” where it reached the Wildcard Finals at the end of March and the Gala Final in April. The previous year, the play had also reached the Gala Final in the “2017 Short+Sweet Festival—Auckland (NZ);" It was chosen for productions for “2017 Short+Sweet Festival—Hollywood” and “2017 Short+Sweet Festival—South India” (Chennai, India). and short-listed for the festival in Kolkata, India. It has had two earlier American productions as well, both in Chicago, one by Blank Page Theatre for “Conditions of the Human Heart” (2013), and the other by American Blues Theater for “Ripped-From-the-Headlines: Election Edition” (2012).
"Ciao, Fulvio," my impressionistic essay of a day in Rome is part of the April 7, 2018 issue of A Narrative Map, on the popular travel site wanderlust-journal.com.
2017
My one-act play "The Wedding” was produced at Camino Real Playhouse (San Juan Capistrano, CA) for the “ShowOff! Playwriting Festival” (Dir. Jack Coppock), two weekends in January 2017. Earlier performances of the play include productions by Black Box Theatre (Colorado Springs, CO) for the “Fives Playwriting Festival” (2014), by Chicago's Second City for “Best of the Tens” (2012), and by Chicago Dramatists for the “Saturday Series” (10-minute Workshop; 2012). The play has also been a recipient of the First Prize for the Fall 2014 Helen Jean Play Contest and selected as a finalist for the 2017 Edgefest, Birdhouse Theater, Milledgeville, GA.
The War for Christmas received its inaugural production by New American Folk Theatre (Chicago, IL) for the “The Scared Sh#!tless Festival” in October.
Three of my translations of stories by the Italian horror writer Nicola Lombardi appeared in 2017. "Little Kastle" was published in the Nov. 28 issue of The Offing, a digital publication of the Los Angeles Review of Books, and it can be read here.
"Even the Stars Fall” was published in The Beauty of Death: Vol. 2, Death by Water, ed. Alessandro Manzetti and Jodi Renée Lester (Independent Legions Publishing, 2017), and received the "Editors' Choice Award." The anthology was also nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Best Horror Anthology. In addition, "The Pale Witches of Autumn” appeared in The Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror: Vol.II, 2017, (Altair Australia, 2017), edited by Robert N. Stephenson, with a host of international horror and science fiction writers.
Readings included "Featured Author" at The Book Cellar and Sulzer Public Library for TallGrass Writers Guild and at Cabaret on the Lake for Three Cat Productions.
2016
Several of my translations of Nicola Lombardi's horror stories were published in 2016. “The Right Choice” appeared in the Fall/Winter issue of Allegory, and “The Boy in the Trunk” in Deadman's Tome (Oct. 3, 2016). In addition , "Professor Aligi's Puppets” was published in The Beauty of Death ed. Alessandro Manzetti (Independent Legions Publ. 2016); here is the video trailer. The anthology itself was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award.
And, one of my own stories--"Migrations”--appeared in the Spring 2016 Front Range Review.
Several of my short plays were produced in 2016. "Roadkill” was produced by Fine Arts Assoc. of Lake County (Willoughby, OH) for the “The Originals: 20th Annual One Act Festival” (Dir. Ann Hedger). "It’s Not Over ‘til the Bald Soprano Sings” was produced by Gemco Players (Emerald, Queensland, Australia) for the "Take Ten Festival” (Dir. Joy McLeary). "The Canal” was recorded by Whiskey Rebellion Theatre for the program “The Whiskey Radio Hour: Episode 12” at the Black Rock Pub (Dir. Egla Kishta). A table reading was held by The Dandelion Theatre for “The Make Ready Series” at Galway Arms Pub (Chicago, IL) for "Roadkill" and for "Thinking Outside the Skinner Box.".
I appeared several times as a Featured Writer under the auspices of TallGrass Writers Guild: at Sulzer Public Library, The Book Cellar twice, Beverly (IL) Planning Assoc., and the New Indie Lit Fest (Columbia College).
2015
Christmas in Vegas was a part of the inaugural dramatic festival “Holiday Stories,” produced by Three Cat Productions (Dir. Jason Smith) during four weekends in December and January at Berger Park Coach House, Chicago, IL. In addition, my play Reunion had three productions in 2015: by LowellArts (dir. Sue Bradford) for “Playbytes by Playwrights” (Lowell, MI) in October; by Fourth Street Theater (dir. Glenn Hering) for “6x10 PlayFestival” (Chesterton, IN) in August; and by Paw Paw Village Players (dir. Edmund Werden) for “One Acts Festival XVIII” (Paw Paw, MI) in February, where it was chosen as "Best in Show."
The first of my translations of the Italian horror writer Nicola Lombardi appeared in 2015: "Sand Castles” in Play Things & Past Times, ed. Steve J. Shaw (KnightWatch Press. 2015); "Tests of Courage" in Disturbed Digest (#10), September 2015 (video adaptation, "I Killer," available here); and "Hungry Shadows” in Disturbed Digest (#9).
My own story, " Braverman and the Dancer from Soul City,” is also available in the TV Issue (2015) of Chicago Literati
My poem "Poetic Fallacies" appeared in issue 4 of the annual Thought Notebook: A Literary and Visual Art Journal. In addition, my poem "Insomnia" was in the Fall/Winter 2014 issue of The Comstock Review. This is my second appearance in Comstock, one of the more venerable poetry reviews around, having been in existence since 1986.
Five of my poems were selected by The Poetry Storehouse. To read or to listen to an audio presentation of the five -- "Mimosa," "Performances," "Why We Buy Paintings," "Nightmare," "How Is a Poem Lost?" -- click here: The Poetry Storehouse
A staged reading of my full-length play, Caliban, was produced by Three Cat Productions as part of their 2015 "Chicago New Work Festival" on Feb. 7 at the Berger Park Coach House in Chicago. The reading was directed by Elyse Dolan, and featured Charlie Davis (Ferdinand), Matt Lloyd (Caliban), Paul Russell (Gonzalo), Lisa Scott (Miranda), Andrew Seller (Ariel), and Dave Skvarla (Prospero).
I noticed that three of my earlier essays, published in the 90s in the Chicago Reader and elsewhere, are now available as part of the Reader's public archive. They are "Ten Dreams of Softball" (more of a prose poem than an essay), "Elsewhere: Strangers in Vegas," (a character study of some Vegas fauna, reprinted in the Seattle Weekly and Nevada Magazine), and "Why They Call It the Second City," (a historical and cultural study of A.J. Liebling's controversial 1952 book, Chicago: The Second City).
I appeared several times as a Featured Writer for TallGrass Writers Guild at Sulzer Public Library,The Book Cellar, the New Indie Lit Fest (Columbia College), and Powell’s. In addition, I participated again in “Summer Shorts” in Humboldt Park and was a featured Storyteller for “Death and Pretzels Presents: What’s the Story?” at The Charnel House.
2014
My story "Not Many Trees Out There on Peachtree Street" appeared in the special "Chicago Issue" of Chicago Quarterly Review (Vol 17, 2014). Among the other contributors were Harry Mark Petrakis, Rosellen Brown, Jack Fuller, Sharon Solwitz, Joe Meno, Gina Frangello, and Christine Sneed. This particular story is dedicated to the memory of Curt Johnson. I joined other contributors in May to read extracts from the story at Hamlin Garland's old hideout, the Cliff Dwellers Club. Two additional stories of mine appeared in 2014: “Sketches Preliminary to the Portrait of an Art Dealer” was published in the summer Midwestern Gothic (vol. 14, Summer 2014).
A staged reading of my full-length play, A Short History of the Mob in America, was produced by Three Cat Productions as part of their 2014 "Next Draft" series. Scott Ozaroski played the role of Ben Siegel, with Joe Lugosch as Meyer Lansky, Ryan Lambert as Lucky Luciano, Kayla Zamboni as Virginia Hill.
“Reading Aloud to My Cat," an essay that should be of greatest interest to all those who have participated in creative writing programs, appears in the inaugural issue (Spring 2014) of Qu: A Literary Magazine, a publication of the MFA writing program of Queens University, Charlotte, NC.
My radio play, "The Tears of San Lorenzo," adapted from the story Vengono per Te by Nicola Lombardi, was one of the ten finalists for Stage Fright 2014, a production of the London Horror Festival.
I joined other contributors to The Mountain, Outrider Press’s 2014 anthology (published in conjunction with the TallGrass Writers Guild) at Sulzer Library and at the Beverly Branch of the Chicago Public Library to read my poem "The Lament of an Ancient Shepherd of Laius."
On August 16, I was on the program "Summer Shorts," joining a group of artists, writers, and filmakers in Humboldt Park to celebrate alternative space for experiencing the arts. There I read my short prose piece "Ten Dreams of Softball" (published in the Chicago Reader some years back and then syndicated).
I was the Assistant Artistic Director for the inaugural "Art Meets Science at the Theater" program, produced at Chicago Dramatists on July 11, 12, and 13 by Barbara J. Wells. Among the 16 plays produced were three of my 10-minute plays--Exit 34, 28ºC, and Reunion--performed by a troupe of actors consisting of Mishu Hilmy, Peter Hook, Jessica Conger, Wesley Schilling, and Brenton Abram-Copenhaver, and directed by Derek Garza with the assistance of Jason Boat.
My essay "One Reason James Baldwin Probably Never Subscribed to Parents’ Magazine" appeared in the inaugural issue of Between the Lines, a publication of Holy Names University. The piece is the recipient of the first Anthony Award, given to "revolutionary works of nonfiction prose devoted to social change."
My poem "Noah's Brontosauri" was published in the anthology {Ex}tinguished & {Ex}tinct: An Anthology of Things That No Longer {Ex}ist, available from Twelve Winters Press (http://twelvewinters.com/poetry-titles/. In addition, my poem "Mimosa" appeared in the Summer 2014 issue of Slant and my poem "My Father's Store, 1985" appeared in the Summer 2014 issue of Third Wednesday.
In 2013
My story "The Bucik Brothers Build the Eighth Wonder of the World" was published in the September 2013 issue of bluestem.
Along with the editor Edward Morin, I performed a dramatic reading from Before There Is Nowhere to Stand at the Friends Meeting House (Ann Arbor, MI) and at the bookstore Book Beat (Oak Park MI). The book, containing works by, among others, Alicia Ostriker, Naomi Shihab Nye, Mahmoud Darwish, Samuel Hazo and is available here: http://www.losthorsepress.org/778/.
My one-act play, "Security, Inc.," was part of Theatre One Production's "Slice of Life: New Works Play Festival," at the Alley Theatre, Middleboro MA. This was my second play to appear in the festival, which featured "Easter Sunday" in 2011.
And, also on YouTube:
“The Year the Padres Won the Pennant” (a story depicting the disastrous effect on a marriage of the Chicago Cubs meltdown in 1984) is available in Suicidally Beautiful: A Collection of Sports Stories (Mint Hill Books). My rendition of the story at the March 6 Tuesday Funk reading can be seen on YouTube here.
