The Rib From Which I Remake The World

“A smart, deep, black magic carnie noir existential bloodbath” from the acclaimed author of Boon (Gemma Files, Shirley Jackson Award–winning author). In the shadow of World War II, the barren, dusty streets of Litchfield, Arkansas, are even quieter than usual, leaving hotel detective George “Jojo” Walker with too much time to struggle with his own personal demons. But everything changes when a traveling picture show comes to town. The film’s purveyors check into the hotel where Jojo works and set up a special midnight screening at the local theater. The curtain rises on a surreal carnival of dark magic and waking nightmares, starring Jojo and the residents of Litchfield, as madness, murder, and mayhem threaten to engulf them all . . . “A stunner of a story . . . Flat-out brilliant . . . Unfolds like petals of an exotic and scandalous black flower—each one gently opening to give the reader a distressing revelation . . . Powerful ideas, wrapped in a dark mantle of horror.” —My Haunted Library “If you like pulpy noir with a dose of existentialism mixed with some utterly bizarre horror, this book is for you.” —Fangoria “Genre mash-ups like this one are difficult to execute, but Kurtz navigates it deftly, with writing so visceral and evocative it feels less like reading a book and more like watching a film in real time.” —Literary Hub “While it echoes with the shadowy threatening of Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes and the religious dread of Hjortsberg’s Falling Angel, the clearest voice here is Kurtz’s own cry into the existential abyss.” —Bracken MacLeod, author of Mountain Home

John Gallo is a professional hitman with a history that's spattered in blood and littered with bodies. Known in the criminal underworld as Rooster, Gallo is an assassin suffering from mental illness and constantly battling the black dog of depression that stalks him. When able to crawl out of his downward spiral and throw himself into the job, he's a proficient, stealthy and unforgiving killer. A relentless wheeler-dealer in the game of death. But now he finds there's a price on his head. A vendetta that could have been placed by anyone in the gangland underground. And everyone wants to collect. From two-bit street punks to the highest echelons of organized crime. The Mafia. Yakuza. Russians. Chinese. Every crime syndicate that's ever been on the bullet-end of his gun is now taking aim at him, intent on ending the reign of the Rooster. After making a fast break from New York with a young actress rescued from certain death at the hands of the Chinese mob, Rooster is on the run and headed to his native Boston and promised refuge with his on-again, off-again criminal associate Grace. He quickly learns Beantown's dark underbelly is only interested in welcoming Rooster home so thugs and gangsters can line up to seize the prize that is his head. Determined to solve the mystery of who wants him dead and exact his own revenge, Rooster uncovers a deadly plot with tendrils that stretch across the country, revealing a conspiracy designed to achieve the ultimate retribution. From the author of The Isle and Mister White, and proudly presented by Grey Matter Press, the multiple Bram Stoker Award-nominated independent publisher. Grey Matter Press: Where Dark Thoughts Thrive

EXPOSE THE DARKEST OF SECRETS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD A deadly menace threatens a remote island community and every man, woman and child is in peril. Sent to the isle to collect the remains of a dead fugitive, US Marshal Virgil Bone is trapped by torrential storms. As the body count rises the community unravels, and Bone is thrust into the role of investigator. Aided by a local woman and the town pariah, he uncovers the island’s macabre past and its horrifying connection to the killings. Some curses are best believed. Sometimes the past is best left buried. And some will kill to keep it so. Praise for The Isle "With The Isle, John Foster makes a twenty-first century contribution to the tradition of the New England Gothic, taking his lawman protagonist off the coast of the mainland United States to visit a small island in the North Atlantic whose inhabitants might have settled there from one of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Puritan fantasies. Himself riven by guilt over past misdeeds, U.S. Marshall Bone encounters a community on whom the sins of their ancestors continue to exert a very terrible and a very real force. Fast-moving, gripping, it's a tale straight from Old Man Atlantic's barnacled treasure chest." — John Langan, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Fisherman "Brooding and claustrophobic, one hell of a scary ride. You won't soon forget your visit to The Isle." — Tom Deady, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Haven “Dripping with claustrophobic malice, crawling with dread and otherness, The Isle is a journey into places best left alone. A chilling, disturbing, compelling tale.” — Alan Baxter, award-winning author of Devouring Dark and Manifest Recall “John Foster masterfully weaves New England folk horror into a hard-boiled murder mystery to form a wholly original and gripping novel that will keep you guessing as the dread builds like a tide rolling over the rocky shore. Strange rituals, hidden histories, and dangerous paranoia intersect on The Isle in ways that turn northeastern peculiarity into something uniquely horrific and thoroughly engrossing to read.” — Ed Kurtz, author of The Rib from Which I Remake the World and Nausea "If you’re the kind of person who seeks out hidden places with awful histories, then this book is for you. You’ll feel the damp and the chill, you’ll hear the shrieks and the inhuman mutter, you’ll see those children and their awful games. Read it in a safe place." — Karen Heuler, author of The Inner City Proudly presented by Grey Matter Press, the multiple Bram Stoker Award-nominated independent publisher. Grey Matter Press: Where Dark Thoughts Thrive

Ten stories of America’s tortured frontier past from the acclaimed author of A Wind of Knives and the Boon trilogy. A drifter gives everything he has to love a woman a cruel world won’t let exist. A family battles hunger and grief against the worst possible odds—themselves. Madness and monstrosities descend upon a group of hopeful pilgrims traveling the westward trails. Ghosts both figurative and all-too-real haunt the men and women of the hostile west from within and without. And a couple of familiar figures—Edward Splettstoesser and Boonsri Angchuan—return one last time from the world of Boon in a pair of solo adventures. “With Horseblood, we see the full spectrum of Ed’s talent on parade.” —Terrence McCauley, from his Introduction

Since the night he made an ill-advised decision to commit a pair of revenge killings, Nick has made his living as a professional murderer. Early on, he dispensed with guilt or emotion. But after a routine hit gets messy, Nick gets sick and the conscience he thought he’d killed, along with dozens of other marks, comes creeping back into his brain. Now Nick’s profession and life are on the line, and he has begun stalking a perfectly innocent couple to see if he can snuff them out without the slightest hint of remorse … or if the humanity he worked so hard to suppress is making up for lost time. A dark noir novel about human connection and repentance, Nausea is the story of a sociopathic killer in a war with himself, a war in which the lives of an uninvolved couple hang in the balance.

This volume expands understandings of crafting practices, which in the past was the major relational interaction between the social agency of materials, technology, and people, in co-creating an emergent ever-changing world. The chapters discuss different ways that crafting in the present is useful in understanding crafting experiences and methods in the past, including experiments to reproduce ancient excavated objects, historical accounts of crafting methods and experiences, craft revivals, and teaching historical crafts at museums and schools. Crafting in the World is unique in the diversity of its theoretical and multidisciplinary approaches to researching crafting, not just as a set of techniques for producing functional objects, but as social practices and technical choices embodying cultural ideas, knowledge, and multiple interwoven social networks. Crafting expresses and constitutes mental schemas, identities, ideologies, and cultures. The multiple meanings and significances of crafting are explored from a great variety of disciplinary perspectives, including anthropology, archaeology, sociology, education, psychology, women’s studies, and ethnic studies. This book provides a deep temporal range and a global geographical scope, with case studies ranging from Europe, Africa, and Asia to the Americas and a global internet website for selling home crafted items.

Originally published in German as Bleed: Ausgeblutet by Voodoo Press, 2016.