Ryan Werner‘s started up “Our Band Could Be Your Lit,” wherein he’ll write 100 stories under 700 words based on songs suggested by readers.  You can follow him on Twitter, too.  I’ve sent in mine.  Have you sent in yours?

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “That sounds kinda, sorta similar to yt sumner‘s ‘You and Me’ project.”  Well, Ryan thought so, too.  He freely admits she inspired his site.  More to the point, have you sent yt your damn postcard yet?  She’s still not at 100.  Check the details and then fucking do it.

Speaking of authors who want you to send them stuff, Victor David Giron‘s Curbside Splendor wants your submissions!  He’s looking for literary fiction and poetry based in contemporary urban settings.  You can find updates on Facebook, too.  They’re only a few pieces in, but so far so good.

And then there’s Stephen Schwegler. He and I got bored and wrote a ridiculous story entitled “Screw the Universe” over e-mail. Now we’re shamelessly sharing it with the world. Thanks, internet!

So what’s everyone else doing?  Got a website or a project you need a hand with?  Feel free to leave a link in the comments or e-mail info@jerseydevilpress.com with whatever you’ve got.

Sharing is caring, friends, and we care.  We care so hard.

*cover art subject to being less blurry

After a couple of weeks of dicking around behind the scenes, it’s our pleasure to formally announce the 2010 Jersey Devil Press Anthology!

The 2010 Anthology showcases the best of what we’ve published so far, as well as six — count ‘em, six! — new stories, all of which epitomize what we here at Jersey Devil Press are about. Stories rife with Jersey attitude, dark humor, and zombies, and werebears, and unicorns, oh my! It’s a veritable bacchanal of genre-straddling, clown-fearing, taco-hunting, world-ending prose!

The 2010 Anthology is set for release on Tuesday, July 27th, and will be available in paperback and a variety of digital editions.

Featuring work by:

Andrew Frankel
Ansley Moon
Bruce J. Berger
Christina Murphy
Danger_Slater
Daniel McDermott
Gavin Broom
Jenny Ortiz
Jonathan Plombon
Jonathan H. Roberts
Kate Delany
Kevin Brown
Louis Wittig
M. R. Lang
Mike Sweeney
Ryan Werner
Stephen Schwegler
yt sumner
Z. Z. Boone

Pre-orders begin next week!

Also wanted to mention that Stephen Schwegler is giving away a copy of his book Perhaps. to one lucky reader. You can tell this is all him because, nice guy that he is, he’s not even making you jump through hoops for it. You can check out the details here.

And while we’re talking about contests, go check out Bananafish’s first Short Story Competition. The winner gets money AND a t-shirt.

OK, now, time to rock out the May issue. Make sure you catch up on April’s while you still can!

Well, OK, yeah, you can catch up on all the issues all the time, but let’s at least pretend there’s some urgency here.

Wishes & Fishes
by Eirik Gumeny

Once upon a time there was a monkey. But this was no ordinary monkey. This was a magic, wish-granting monkey. Unfortunately for the monkey, though, this wish granting came at a price: He had to be listening to country music for the wish to come true.

The monkey hated country music.

He tried to like it, he really did. He wasn’t a stupid monkey, he knew that liking country music would be in his best interests. But there were songs about tractors. Tractors! The monkey just couldn’t do it.

One night, while drowning his sorrows in cheddar biscuits at Red Lobster, the monkey met a girl monkey. They got to talking and everything was great, until a Garth Brooks song came on over the PA system. The monkey immediately became annoyed.

“What’s wrong?” asked the girl monkey.

“I hate country music,” replied the monkey.

“It’s not THAT bad.”

“I know,” continued the monkey, “and it gives me the power to grant wishes, but…”

“You can grant wishes when you hear country music?”

“Yeah.”

“How is that a problem?”

“I really, REALLY hate country music.”

“Why don’t you just wish for the power to grant wishes WITHOUT having to hear country music?”

The monkeys lived happily ever after.

You can buy a paperback or a signed copy, or, if you’re more digitally inclined, or simply a tree-hugger, you can also get a copy for your Kindle or other e-reader.

If for some reason blindly buying a book solely on the word of the publisher isn’t your thing, you can go ahead and read two of the stories from the collection before you give us your hard-earned — or stolen or found or won, we’re not picky — money: “Jesus Was Broke” is here and “Decisions” can be found here.

Read them and love them. Then own them. Then read them again. Then tell other people to read them. The world will be a better place for it.

Or read “Jesus Was Broke” first and then do it!

Either way, do it!

Time’s a-runnin’ out!

Perhaps., by Stephen Schwegler, is available for pre-order.

Order it now! Time is running out! Pre-orders are only open until the end of February! Then you’re going to have to wait two weeks and regular order it! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO YOURSELF?!

Perhaps. is available as a classic paperback and in the extra fancy “author signed” edition.

All pre-orders will be personally packaged with love and good intentions and will ship on March 15th.

You can find an excerpt from the collection, the short story “Jesus Was Broke,” here. Read it, love it, buy it. In whatever order you want.

Perhaps., by Stephen Schwegler, is now available for pre-order.



Yes, you read that right, Perhaps. is now available for pre-order. In our store.
Perhaps. is due in all your usual retail establishments on March 15th, 2010, but we, being the wonderful people we are, have decided to open up pre-orders for it for the month of February.

You can order it as a classic paperback or in the extra fancy “author signed” edition. I can’t promise you that Steve’s handwriting will be legible, but I can promise that the ink will be free of blood. He was against that for some reason.

All pre-orders will be personally packaged with love and good intentions and will ship on March 15th.

You can find an excerpt from the collection, the short story “Jesus Was Broke,” here. Read it, love it, buy it. In whatever order you want.

And when you’re done, don’t forget to check out Issue Five! Free and online, just the way Mama used to make it.

“All right. What the fuck happened in here?”

Jamie’s sister, Morgan, ran into the living room.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“You don’t think anything in here is odd? Anything sticking out as weird?”

“No.”

“The fucking hot dogs!”

“Oh, those.”

“Why are they hanging from the ceiling?”

“I was trying to get in touch with my masculine side.”

“And you thought this was going to do it?”

“Pretty much,” said Morgan. “Any better ideas?”

“How about stop showering, watch the game and a porno at the same time while drinking a beer and scratching yourself.”

“Hmm, that does sound easier.”

“Just don’t do it when I’m home.”

“Okay.”

“And why is there relish on the floor?”

“The room didn’t flow.”

“Didn’t flow? What the fuck are you talking about? Do you know how hard that’s going to be to clean?”

“I needed something to contrast the chili.”

“Chili?”

Jamie turned around. Next to the couch was a three-foot mound of chili.

“Why not just use ketchup?” she asked. “Relish smells so much worse.”

“That wouldn’t work,” said Morgan. “How else would I have contrasted the cheese? I couldn’t use ketchup for both.”

“Enough. Shut up. I’m going to the mall. When I get back I want this shit cleaned up. Febreze the fuck out of this place, too.”

“Fine.”



An hour and a half later, Jamie came home to see a “For Sale” sign on the front lawn. She stormed inside.

“Why is the house for sale?”

“I figured that selling it would be easier than cleaning it.”

“How the hell are you going to sell this place with hot dogs stuck to the ceiling?”

“Maybe someone will think it’s art.”

“And Jesus will come and give me a puppy.”

“Could happen.”

“No, it couldn’t.”

“You never know.”

“For the last time, clean this place and take that goddamn ‘For Sale’ sign off the lawn. I’m taking a nap. You better be done when I wake up. If not, I’m calling mom.”



Jamie woke up two hours later. She took a deep breath and inhaled nothing but hot dogs. She walked through the house; every room now looked like the living room.

“Morgan! What the fuck did you do?”

“I thought this would be easier than cleaning. It was also a lot more fun.”

“I am so going to kill you.”

The doorbell rang.

“Did you invite someone over?” asked Jamie.

“No.”

Morgan opened the front door and saw a man standing outside. He walked in and began looking around.

“Can I help you with something?” Jamie asked.

“Quiet,” the man said. “I’m soaking it all in.”

He walked through every room and returned to the front door where Morgan was still standing.

“I love it.”

“You love what?” Morgan asked.

“The house,” replied the man, “it’s brilliant. How much do you want for it?”

“You want to buy our house?”

“Yes.”

“No,” said Jamie. “It’s not for sale.”

“Don’t pay attention to her,” Morgan said. “Let’s go into the kitchen and draw up a contract.”

The two went into the kitchen, ignoring Jamie’s continuing requests to get out. They came back fifteen minutes later, the man with a makeshift deed and Morgan with a briefcase.

“You didn’t.”

“I did,” Morgan said. “I sold the house to Mr. Larsen for six thousand dollars.”

“And he had the cash?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah,” Morgan said, holding up the briefcase.

“I’d hate to interrupt you two,” Mr. Larsen said, “but I’d like to be alone in my new house.”

“But all of our stuff is here,” Jamie protested.

“I sold all of that too,” explained Morgan. “It was all part of the deal.”

“What?”

“Mr. Larsen said that he needed it all for the piece to work.”

“The house isn’t art. It’s our home.”

“Mr. Larsen thinks it’s art.”

“I don’t care what Mr. Larsen thinks. Mom is going to kill you and then I’m going to kill you again.”

“Isn’t that lovely?” said Mr. Larsen. “Girls, if you don’t mind. Please leave.”



On the curb in front of what was formerly their house, Jamie turned to Morgan and said, “You’re so dead.”

Morgan didn’t respond. They sat there, silent, looking off into the middle of the street.
A man dressed in white walked up behind the girls.

“You girls all right?” he asked.

“No,” replied Jamie, still staring out into space.

“What’s wrong?”

“My idiot sister sold our house and all of our possessions for six thousand bucks.”

“Wow, that sucks.”

“Yeah,” said Jamie, briefly turning to look at the man before returning her gaze to the street, “I know.”

Jamie quickly turned all the way around for another look at the man.

“Jesus fucking Christ!”

“In the flesh,” Jesus said.

Both sisters stood up and said, “No way!”

“Way.”

The two girls just stood there, blinking in unison.

“You guys seem a little down. And with your house and stuff being gone, who could blame you? Here’s what I’m gonna do…”

Jesus reached behind his back, closed his eyes, said, “Abracadabra,” and brought his hands back around to the front, now holding a box.

“Take it,” he said, ”this might help with your problem.”

Jamie lifted the lid.

“A puppy?”

“Yeah, everyone loves puppies,” Jesus said.

Jamie began sneezing violently.

“She’s allergic,” Morgan said.

“Oh, sorry,” said Jesus. “I, um, have… to… hey, what’s that over there?”

Jesus pointed across the street and, when the girls turned to look, made a break for it. The girls turned back around to see a small cloud of dust where Jesus had been standing.

“Son… of… a… BITCH…” said Jamie, still sneezing.

“I’ll get him,” Morgan said.

She reached down, picked up a rock, and hurled it at Jesus, hitting him in the back of the head.

“Shit, Morgan. You knocked him out.”

“Oops.”

“Go see if he has any money.”

“Hello, my name is Jerry and my friend here would like to talk to you about Perhaps. by Stephen Schwegler. Go ahead, Santa.”

“Squeak.”

“Nice. Would you like to tell us a few of your favorite lines from this book?”

“Squeak.”

“Yeah, those are pretty great. For those of you who are not fluent in chipmunk:

‘And besides, Heaven has E-Z Pass.’

‘Lay a body out, chop it up and store it in Tupperware.’

‘Must provide own uniform.’

‘The room didn’t flow.’

‘Moo.’

‘Not now, I need to call a locksmith.’

‘See I was healing these lepers, said the wrong thing and, poof, here I am.’

‘Eat one and I’ll let you go.’

‘That’s because you’re trying to open it with your feet.’

‘I think he referred to him as a “deranged crack head.”‘

Wait, that last one wasn’t about me, right?”

“Squeak.”

“OK, good.”