Terrible Stories from Kelly McClure

A5, 28 pages (cream and navy).

$6

What qualifies as terrible? Quite a lot of things, I should imagine. The lack of politics taught in Britain’s schools? The internalised gender divide? My colleagues’ insistence on discussing nothing but Love Island for the past two weeks? All are different flavours of terrible.

Kelly McClure’s stories certainly aren’t terrible, which led me to the conclusion that she must be the sort of person whose modesty is so extreme that she would actually take the naming of her anthology as a weird opportunity for self-deprecation. Slightly bemused, I began to read, and then I got it – perhaps it wasn’t the stories that were terrible, but the characters.

A sadistic rancher, an imperfect mother, an extreme introvert. In truth the characters’ personalities are scattered all over the morality spectrum, and it’s difficult to judge whether each of them are good, bad or other.

One of the interesting qualities to McClure’s writing is that her stories feel more like scenes, the reader is placed into the characters’ lives and just as they begin to feel like they know them, they’re whisked into the next story. This anthology seems to be less about providing the reader with entertaining stories, and more about creating a feeling of kinship with the characters (whether that be positive or negative). It’s an interesting read and skilfully written – these six stories will play on your mind for a long, long time.

You can get a copy of Terrible Stories from Kelly McClure via Budget Press here.

Review by J.L. Corbett

I Belong Here - Stories from a woman who is always living

I Belong Here - Stories from a woman who is always living.

20 pages, digest

$3 U.S. (delivered)

Kristin Stadum gives us a friendly collection of first person prose in small bites. The general theme might be travel, or chance encounters with strangers. 

Each page has a text box set in a panel of art. Most pages contain a single vignette, though there are a few that carry over to the next page. The pieces are diverse. Nothing mind blowing, but the writing is crisp, and there is an accumulated appreciation of the voice with each turn of the page. Intimate and pleasantly unexpected.

I would like to see more.

Order

http://www.angelfire.com/ca/bpress/chaps/kristin.html

http://www.budgetpress.net/

My Snow Globe Life #1

My Snow Globe Life #1

20 pages, digest

$3 U.S. (delivered)

This one is by Johnnie B Baker, the proprietor of Budget Press, and is about his obsession with collecting and stealing snow globes, usually from places he visits, (like a Spam factory, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,) and much to the chagrin of his mother.

Of the 150 or so snow globes he's collected over the years, eleven are featured here. Each one comes with an account  of its acquisition.

A very quirky read. I liked it.

http://www.angelfire.com/ca/bpress/chaps/snowglobe1.html

http://www.budgetpress.net/