Category: Black Dog Press
30 Years of Black Dog Press

“Electric Castles”—Cover Art
A peek at the cover of my next release through Black Dog Press, ELECTRIC CASTLES: A BOOK OF URBAN LEGENDS.
Chris Kent performed his usual design magic and special thanks to Gabriele Marras, who supplied the original photo.
My odd little imprint has always focussed on releasing the best and most beautiful books, but this cover surpasses anything we’ve come up with before. As you can probably tell, we’re mighty pleased with it.
The proof has been printed and is already winging its way toward my mailbox and the ePub and Kindle versions should be available later today.
Place your order with me if you’d like an autographed copy, otherwise buy ELECTRIC CASTLES at your favorite independent bookstore.
Support indie publishers and booksellers!
Black Dog Press, the catalog
This catalog of my books is incomplete (you can find all my titles here), but it illustrates just what beautiful volumes my odd little imprint produces.
See anything you like?
Author Photo
Coming soon from Black Dog Press
A post that is looooonng overdue.
But, as I’ve said before, if I’m not blogging I’m undoubtedly at work on some project that is utterly consuming me.
In this case, it’s actually three projects.
I should explain.
Last year I was supposed to release a collection of short stories with urban settings called Electric Castles. But that one sort of got over-taken and set aside when I wrote and released an e-book of topical and controversial non-fiction material titled Mouth: Rants and Routines.
I’ve gone back to work on editing the stories in Electric Castles...but I’ve also been assembling a collection of new poetry as well as making additions to Notebook, a compilation of thoughts, reflections and meditations I’ve been gathering for nearly ten years.
The order of publication is: Electric Castles in June-July, 2020, Notebook in 2021 and the poetry collection in 2022 (I have a tentative title for that one, just not willing to share it yet).
Putting the finishing touches on Electric Castles has been time consuming and intense (my approach to editing obsessive and exhausting), especially the last tale in the book, a 50-page, 12,000+ word novelette. Still pondering a cover and hoping to nail that down soon. A couple of possibilities, including some of my own visual efforts.
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I realized recently that it’s now been a decade since I rebooted my Black Dog Press imprint. It sort of went into hiatus after the release of The Reality Machine in 1997. PS Publishing (U.K.) published my book Righteous Blood in 2002 and I retained some hope that finally I would be able to find presses out there that would provide a venue for my writing.
That turned out to be wishful thinking and by 2008, I’d had enough. I wrote up a venomous press release and sent it out to a couple of writing forums, announcing I was tired of playing the game, submitting work and waiting sometimes YEARS for editors/publishers to grace me with a response. Fuck that and fuck them. Basta!
Shortly thereafter, I started this blog and began posting big chunks of material, short stories and novel excerpts that thousands of people read and downloaded.
But I still wanted print versions of my books and that meant familiarizing myself with POD (print on demand) technology (and terminology) and in 2010, I published my first Black Dog Press offering in 13 years, my occult thriller So Dark the Night.
I was back, with a vengeance. Since then, I’ve produced a dozen titles, doing my best to satisfy my small but vocal cadre of readers.
The indie world is the place for me and I have permanently (I think) set aside any notion of commercial success or mainstream acceptance.
I hope those of you who are familiar with my oeuvre will continue to support this eccentric venture of mine and that new readers will drop in and discover an author who defies expectations and subverts preconceptions, creating wholly original and provocative titles for those who love challenging, literate books, short stories or poetry.
Welcome to Black Dog Press.
Pull up a chair, make yourself at home.
There’s a lot to see here and we’ve got all the time in the world.
MOUTH: RANTS & ROUTINES (e-Pub and Kindle now available)
Mouth: Rants and Routines is now available in a couple of digital formats, which should make it easy for you to download and read the book on just about any phone, tablet or computer.
You’ll find the Kindle version over at Amazon (click here), and for those who don’t wish to give that multinational behemoth any of your hard-earned money, you can also zip over to Smashwords and find the ePub version there (click here).
I’ve priced the book at $2.99 (U.S.) which, I think, is fair, certainly a helluva a lot cheaper than what traditional publishers charge for their offerings (any e-book going for over seven or eight bucks is a rip-off as far as I’m concerned).
Read the excerpts I’ve made available or listen to the recording I made of some of the material (more are forthcoming) and then decide for yourself if this is your cup of poison. Fans of Ricky Gervais, Bill Hicks or George Carlin will love my book. On the other hand, if those dudes hold no appeal to you…er…
If you do enjoy Mouth, for God’s sake make sure you leave positive feedback on Amazon or wherever you downloaded it, help spread the word and create some buzz for a unique project (and a tiny, independent press).
And, of course, drop me a line here, telling me how the book affected you and if it was an enjoyable (or not) reading experience.
I look forward to hearing from you, one way or the other.
“Mouth”: The Table of Contents
My new book Mouth: Rants and Routines contains over 40 broadsides on a variety of subjects near and drear to my heart.
I’m posting the Table of Contents below, just to illustrate the breadth and diversity of the subject matter.
In the meantime, I urge you to pop over to a site that has recently posted one of the most personal essays from Mouth, a warts-and-all overview of my three-decade long writing career, with the promising title “Man of Constant Failure”. Click here to read it.
I also posted one of my favorite bits, a takedown of stupid comic book movies and the critics who laud them, over at my film site, Cinema Arete. Click here to read it.
And don’t forget the live performance of some of the essays from Mouth I recorded in my living room before a very appreciative audience. I loaded it on to Bandcamp for free listening. Click here to tune in.
And now, the aforementioned Table of Contents. The roll call of infamy:
Introduction
Disgraceland (I)
The Attractions of Misanthropy
White Riot
Phone Sex
This movie sucks (and so do you)
Paris is Burning
Coming Soon to Your Hometown
I’ve Seen the Future, Baby, and It’s Boring
God, A Concept
Self-Loathing
Bad At Sex
Agents of Control
Profanity
Who are you? (I)
Good, Honest Hatred
Family
Friends
Kissing
Chicken Little
Disgraceland (II)
Man to Man
Christians & Taliban
Foot in Mouth Disease
Who are you? (II)
First Impressions
Uncommon Fears
Questions
Stupid People: A Case For Eugenics?
I Don’t Care
Kill Yourself
Trades People
Get Out Your Hankies
Gun Crazy
Dreamer
Who are you? (III)
Single People
Man of Constant Failure
People Who Take Signs to Public Events
Between the Idea and the Reality
In Praise of Book Burning
Killing Alexander
Anger Management
MADM
I Hate White People
Love
Distress Call
Disgraceland (Coda)
Acknowledgements
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Mouth: Rants & Routines is currently being prepped for publication as an e-book/Kindle and will be available for sale and downloading by the last week of May.
Check back here in the coming days for further updates.
“Algebra of Inequality”: Listen to the audio versions
Below you’ll find a 4-5 minute audio clip I created around some poems from my latest Black Dog Press release, The Algebra of Inequality.
I added some background music tracks for dramatic effect and I think this performance is an excellent teaser for the book.
If you want to hear audio renditions of more poems from the collection, recorded back in 2016 at the ancient amphitheater of Epidaurus, go to my “Other Media” page and scroll down a bit; you’ll find it.
This blog is approaching its 500th post and, of course, I have something special planned to mark the occasion.
Watch this space.
Five hundred posts, eleven years of maintaining Beautiful Desolation…that’s a lot of time (and words and music and rants).
Couldn’t do it without you, folks, your support, your public responses and private messages.
Enjoy this snippet—there’s much, much more to come:
THE ALGEBRA OF INEQUALITY is in the house…and a reminder of an upcoming event
My personal sales copies of The Algebra of Inequality have arrived and I’ve been signing like a madman, getting my orders out, packaging up review copies, etc. Folks are buying multiple copies, gifts for friends and family, perhaps encouraged that this selection of poetry isn’t as dark and brooding as previous efforts.
Wanted to post the flier Sherron designed to send out to booksellers and libraries. If this doesn’t draw some interest, I dunno what will:
And one last reminder that the Free Flow Dance Company will be performing a number of new works, based on some music I sent them earlier this year. Director Jackie Latendresse promises an evening of sublime entertainment, set to some of the oddest, er, “melodies” you’re likely to hear.
The show is in Saskatoon on Saturday night (June 16th) and doors open at 7:30. Ticket info, etc. can be found in a previous post, just scroll down and you’ll find it…