Wire Mothers (2024)

cover art by Bri Chapman

Short Stories, Whiskey Tit

A woman begins to eat books when food can’t satisfy. A reporter discovers that sympathy for the devil might be misplaced. A grandmother organizes her crimes into neat checklists. These five stories, written by one of indie lit’s most versatile authors, explore bad vibes, bad choices, and bad parenting.

Release date May 12, 2024

Preorder at Whiskey Tit or Asterism.

(Either is fine; Asterism is a small press distributor, while Whiskey Tit is the press itself. Neither offers me more or less money in royalties.)


Junk Film (2023)

Essays/Criticism, Castle Bridge Media

Entire libraries of criticism study good art. Who studies bad art?

Junk Film’s eleven essays explore the failures of specific works created between the 1940s and the 2010s. Each demonstrates a different kind of failure, from mixing incompatible genres (Cop Rock) to stacking a screenplay with sociopaths (Staying Alive). The book uses a few basic theses about bad film and television to unpack these failures. Importantly, it shows what students of film can learn from bad movies: how to make art that works via watching art that doesn’t.

Junk Film bridges film scholarship and pop culture criticism with wit and warmth. Includes new work as well as essays published by Vague Visages, the Millions, Bright Lights Film Journal, and in book form by PS Publishing.

Release date May 2, 2023

Publishers Weekly Review!!

Review from Flick Attack!

Spotlight in The Economist!!

Interview with me at the Pitch!

Available from Castle Bridge Media or Amazon in paperback or ebook. Order now!

To order a signed copy directly from me, click here, send me $17 and your mailing address, and I’ll drop it in the mail ASAP.


Plan 9 from Outer Space (2021)

Criticism, Electric Dreamhouse Press

Ed Wood’s 1959 magnum opus, Plan 9 from Outer Space, has long been called the Citizen Kane of bad movies. Why do people keep watching it year after year, even though it’s widely known to be bad art? Is bad art worthwhile? What can we learn about making good art from this supreme example of cinematic ineptitude?

Released in November 2021

Available from PS Publishing in hardback or ebook; also available from Amazon.com

Podcast interviews with Castle Talk, B-Movie Mania, The Dana Gould Hour

The Big Idea on John Scalzi’s Whatever


Ceremonials (2020)

Experimental novella, 130 pp, Kernpunkt Press

Ceremonials is a twelve-part lyric novella inspired by Florence + the Machine’s 2011 album of the same name. It’s the story of two girls, Amelia and Corisande, who fall in love at a boarding school. Corisande dies suddenly on the eve of graduation, but Amelia cannot shake her ghost. A narrative about obsession, the Minotaur, and the veil between life and death, Ceremonials is a poem in prose, a keening in words, and a song etched in ink.

Release date February 11, 2020


After Gardens (2019)

Women’s fiction, 30 pp, the Wild Rose Press (ebook only)

For Maya, a weekend at a hot springs with her boisterous friend Rhondey is just what she needs to move forward after her divorce. For Rhondey, it’s an opportunity to help Maya cut loose a little, shed some of her inhibitions. Maya doesn’t see the need to shed anything, and she’s not looking for a teacher. But the more Maya clings to her privacy, the more difficult it is for her to recognize her true teachers…and the right moment to step free.

This book is no longer available.

Aphorisms on Surrealism (2017)

Self-made zine containing 12 aphorisms

Sold out, unless any copies remain at the Pop-Hop in Highland Park