We Are Not Sheep is now available from Black Scat Books!

This delightful collection, first published in 1896, shows the peerless French humorist Alphonse Allais in full pursuit of the ridiculous. You’ll find  a painter who trains bats to act as a parasol, the love life of a one-man band, a plan to make sandals from the skin of the poor, the military use of legless soldiers, the man who couldn’t decide where to put his beard when he slept, and much more: 44 stories, plus four extra stories selected for this edition. Translated, annotated, and introduced by Doug Skinner. Designed by Norman Conquest, and with a frontispiece by Corinne Taunay.

And it’s available on Amazon.

A melancholy poem from Bed Bug.

LORD BEDBUG

Lord Bedbug crawls upon his throne
Of spattered sheets and spotted ticking,
Where he commands the nightly pricking
That makes our vital force his own.

Ah, have you now seen Bedbug plain?
And has he used you for his feeding,
And stuffed his gut with all the bleeding
That trickled from your punctured vein?

Such is our fate. We’re only food,
The special on the midnight menu.
He picks the time; he picks the venue;
Our lot is simply servitude.

We hold no franchise in the deal,
For we’re the sheep, and he’s the shepherd.
Our counterpane is always peppered
With leavings from our master’s meal.

We pay allegiance to our lord,
For he’s the liege, and we’re the vassals.
He takes our couches for his castles;
Our beds are his, and we’re his board.

For the magazine Bed Bug, this variation: a canon on the letters BEDBAG.

Bed Bug: A Magazine of the Arts is now available from Black Scat Books! Here’s the description from its editor, Norman Conquest:

As the world comes to an end, and the bed bug infestation spreads from France throughout Europe, it is time for a journal devoted to infestation, invasion, and chaos.

Featuring works by Alphonse Allais, Tim Anderson, Tom Bradley, Norman Conquest, Farewell Debut, R J Dent, Larry Fondation, Jesse Glass, Boris Glikman, Rhys Hughes, Harold Jaffe, Amy Kurman, Terri Lloyd, John-Ivan Palmer, Jason E. Rolfe, Paul Rosheim, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Doug Skinner, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Corinne Taunay, Catrin Welz-Stein, Tom Whalen, Carol White, and D. Harlan Wilson.

I contributed a translation of a story by Alphonse Allais (“An Excellent Trick”), a poem (“Lord Bedbug”), and a piano piece (“BEDBAG”). And you can find it on Amazon!

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 paints a cockatrice, when a terrifying Werechurch roams the land? And was it really a good idea for August and Collier to start that potato farm, especially given Collier’s troubled past? You’ll find slapstick, vivid characters, fictional physics, and surprising narratives, often filtered through stringent constraints to keep the language lively. If you read only one book this year, read this one over and over again!

It’s designed by Norman Conquest, published by the delightful people at Black Scat Books, and available on Amazon.

A very short story, from my upcoming collection The Potato Farm.

IMPASSE

“I have nothing to say,” he said.
“Who asked you?” she asked.
“I won’t dignify that with a reply,” he replied.
“Then I have nothing more to add,” she added.

Some capitalist theology.

At Derek Pell’s request, I speak briefly about our experiences working with Artificial Intelligence for our book The Man Who Ate His House. Thanks to Mamie Caton for shooting the video, which you can see here.

Kiarna Boyd asked me to narrate her novel Blessed and Cursed Alike, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its publication. I called in Brian Dewan as engineer, and we managed to record the whole book in four days (not in a row). Kiarna has released the first chapter here. More will follow! Sex, violence, magic, and motorcycles as only Kiarna can write it!