This story appears in my collection The Potato Farm. How does one go about painting a cockatrice, anyway? Here’s how it begins: PAINTING THE COCKATRICE I was working on a painting of a cockatrice, and was faced with a dilemma. Its gaze is lethal, which meant that if I painted it well, I would die. […]

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The Potato Farm is now available! This collection of thirty stories is my first book of short fiction since The Snowman Three Doors Down in 2018. What happens when constellations socialize, when Faust and the Devil start drinking, when imaginary friends gain imaginary friends, when Sleeping Beauty and Rip van Winkle trade places, when Duncan […]

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Corinne Taunay’s chapbook Marcel Duchamp: Paris Air in New York, in my translation, is displayed in the window of Les Ateliers du Tayrac in Paris, on the occasion of her show of portraits of artists and writers. It’s small, but you can see it at the bottom of the left window, if you click on […]

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I had the honor of translating Corinne Taunay’s booklet Marcel Duchamp: Paris Air in New York, now available from Black Scat Books on Amazon. Marcel Duchamp‘s exile in New York, in 1915-1917, brought him sudden fame and changed the course of his career. Corinne Taunay’s lively and witty study describes the scandals of Nude Descending […]

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An alphabet for an upcoming issue of the Black Scat Review, devoted to “Crime Wave.” PARTNERS IN CRIME When the Arsonist torched the house the Burglar was rifling, the Counterfeiter in the cellar fled with a sack of phonies, which was swiped by a Drifter desperate to pay off an Extortionist, whose last mark, a […]

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“The Potato Farm” tells the story of August’s foray into potato farming, his often uneasy partnership with Collier, and his intermittent interactions with Bud and Paulette. It’s slated for the next issue of the Black Scat Review. Here’s how it begins: THE POTATO FARM August entered the Camisole Tavern and approached Bud and Paulette, who […]

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Tom Bowden has posted a review of my translation of Charles Cros’s Principles of Cerebral Mechanics, along with an interview with me, over here (it’s the second review in the batch). Get your copy of this fascinating work today, from Wakefield Press!

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Principles of Cerebral Mechanics is now available from Wakefield Press! This is my third translation of Charles Cros (these are the others). Here’s how Wakefield describes it: Though lesser known among the scientific writings of Charles Cros, Principles of Cerebral Mechanics is a visionary work that further establishes the author’s standing as the inventeur maudit […]

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Patents Pending is now available from Black Scat Books, and can be obtained on Amazon! The inimitable Derek Pell and I came up with a book chock-full of new inventions. I’ll let Derek give the pitch: The 41st volume in our seminal Absurdist Texts & Documents series has arrived: PATENTS PENDING by Derek Pell and Doug […]

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Pink and Apple-Green is now available from Black Scat Books! By Alphonse Allais, translated, introduced, and annotated by Doug Skinner! This is the first English translation, and the first annotated edition in any language. It’s 261 pages: 44 stories, plus 5 extra stories. You can get one on Amazon. Alphonse Allais (1854-1905) was France’s greatest […]

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