Recently appearing in the McGill Tribune, by Tribune writer Rachel Melnik:

If you like Fish Piss, then you're in the right place.

Claiming to have been published "irregularly since 1996," Fish Piss is just one of the many independent small press publications circulating throughout Montreal's thriving underground literary scene. Like other independently funded, self-distributed magazines-or zines, as they are more commonly called-Fish Piss publishes works of poetry, prose, art, comics and reviews by up-and-coming local geniuses.

Via Brianna Voight, staff writer for the Athen's Post

What could be better on a chilly February evening than curling up in a cozy chair reading a good book? Instead of reaching for the latest Danielle Steel or John Grisham novel, however, try popping into a local bookstore to discover works by some local literary talent.

Authors in Athens weave tales of intrigue and collections of poetry designed especially to sell in the area bookstores, said local poet Billy Renz.“My writing helps me to understand the world around me and is a way to communicate with others about my life experiences,” Renz said.

Via John Marshall at the Seattle Post Intelligencer

Monica Drake was a corporate clown, although not the usual sort who sits in staff meetings and nods at every utterance of the boss. She was a corporate clown complete with face paint and costume and oversize shoes who was hired by various companies for meetings, social events and grand openings.

 

Many of the Portland resident’s memories of her six months at the lucrative corporate clown trade are as fuzzy as a fright wig, but she still recalls her last gig. It was at the grand opening of a fast-food outlet where too much greasy food mixed with greasepaint prompted Drake to quit, the final curtain for her juggling days and rubber-chicken nights.

 

Or so she thought. Little did Drake know that, years later, the temp job she stumbled into from college studies in dance and theater would be the centerpiece for her much-awaited debut novel.

 

“Clown Girl” (Hawthorne Books, 297 pages, $15.95) is a devilishly quirky look at a downtrodden young clown adrift in the hostile streets of Baloneytown. It is a worthy fictional successor to another Rose   City female writer’s highly original novel with not-dissimilar material -- Katherine Dunn’s “Geek Love,” an instant idiosyncratic classic about freaks in a traveling carnival that was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1989.

Via Doug Holder of and the Sommerville News:

The small or alternative press does not have a small place in literary history. Poets as diverse as Whitman, Frost, Ginsberg or Bukowski, have cut their teeth in the world of little magazines and small presses. The thousands of small presses, defined as press runs of fewer than 5,000 and less than twelve titles per year, have provided a way for the emerging poet to have his or her art find an audience.

Major university libraries like University of Buffalo, Brown University, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison have huge collections that archive many of the booklets, chapbooks, and broadsides which have been produced to date.

From A.J. Hladczuk, the University of Buffalo's The Spectrum Online:

Local poet Aaron Lowinger isn't too highbrow to forego a humorous path here or there.

As his work “Résumé” reads, “I can't wait to get home and take a shower in Gold Bond/I bet I could do this high/They say anybody can be a poet if they just got high.”

Perhaps he's right.

Lowinger, along with poet Mike Basinski, took to the podium Thursday in the back of Rust Belt Books, a quaint, hole-in-the-wall used bookstore located on 202 Main Street. Despite the usual, blustery Buffalo weather, poetry fans settled in and warmed up for the reading.

Aaron Lowinger launched the reading with a musical number, for which he donned a pair of dark sunglasses and picked up an acoustic guitar proclaiming, “this is a song for the people who hate.”