Throwback Thursday: A Look Back at 2020

The Year That Was

The first version of this blog post was rather sombre; the second a little too cheeky. How does one talk about a year full of fear and loss, toilet paper and hand sanitizer?

In some ways, the world of literature is a lot like the world of 2020: Full of sorrow, but also of unexpected joy. Replete with twists and turns and cliff-hanger endings.

If 2020 has taught me anything, it’s to celebrate whatever we can find to celebrate, to smile whenever we can.

So we are delighted, for our final throwback of the year, to celebrate the authors and artists of Pulp Literature 2020! Visit our bookstore to dive further into the stories and artwork that nourished us all year long.

Issue 25, Winter 2020

With the beautiful red pointe shoe of On Thin Ice, cover artist Ann-Marie Brown offers this issue’s poignant opening act.

• Blood and booze set the stage in ‘Wrap Party’ by featured author AM Dellamonica.
• Frances Rowat explores the itch and scratch of reckoning in ‘The Smell of Antiseptic’, and Graham Robert Scott and Wallace Cleaves consider the weight of legacy in ‘A Parable of Things that Crawl and Fly’.
• Two very different genies awaken for Susan Pieters in ‘Buddha in a Bottle’, and Akem in ‘Shotguns and Jinn’.
• Elusive moments slip away in Rebecca Ruth Gould’s ‘Hands’ and Allison Bannister’s ‘Ghost Room’.
• Hummingbird contest winners Tatjana Mirkov-Popovicki and Chad V Broughman explore loss and longing in ‘Afterlife’ and ‘Featherweight’.
• Poets David Troupes, Matthew Walsh, and Nicholas Alti deftly guide us through landscape, dreamscape, and escape.
• And finally, two fan favourites reappear: Mel Anastasiou’s Frankie Ray arrives in Hollywood in part three of The Extra, and JM Landels gives us a glimpse of the caper gone wrong that sets the wheel of the Allaigna’s Song trilogy in motion.

Order your copy here!

Issue 26, Spring 2021

The stunning Queen of Swords by cover artist Tais Teng guards the gates to this issue’s brave new worlds and words.

• Featured author Matthew Hughes in ‘The Bicolour Spiral’ leaves no bloodstained stone unturned in this space opera of mystery and murder.
• Life itself spirals with being and absence in ‘Watershakers’ by Christi Nogle and ‘The Birthday Party’ by Melisa Gregorio.
• Words whirl and twirl — and crack open secrets — as poets Patti Pangborn and Sarah Summerson explore the hidden spaces of family life.
• Mike Carson, runner-up for the SiWC Storyteller Award, continues the exploration of memory and family in ‘Deep Water’.
• Meanwhile, Rina Piccolo, in ‘Double Flush’, reminds us that being human sometimes just means looking out for number one.
• It’s buyer beware in ‘Life4Sale’, an epistolary tale for the digital age by Raven Short Story Contest winner Michael Donoghue. And threads of desire and longing stitch lives together in ‘Dannemora Sewing Class’ by runner-up MFC Feeley.
• Two historical heroines return as we rejoin Toinette — ‘La Bergere’ — at the gates of seventeenth-century Paris in part two of The Shepherdess by JM Landels, and Frankie Ray and her chum Connie brave the no-less-imposing gates of Monument Studios in part four of Mel Anastasiou’s The Extra.

Abandon the humdrum and enter these realms of wonder and adventure if you dare …

Order your copy here!

Issue 27, Summer 2020

The intoxicating alchemy of Howe Sound Visitors by cover artist Mel Anastasiou blends the ephemeral and the enduring, a heady potion that infuses the stories within these pages …

• Friends and lovers dance and slide through memory in ‘Joran’s Song’ by Dave Gregory and ‘The Lover Snake’ by featured author Tomson Highway.
• Life finds a way in two very different post-apocalyptic worlds as Jakob Drud in ‘Culinary Subjugation’ and Kim Harbridge in ‘Projections’ take us under the dome.
• Young and old experience the shapeshifting powers of perspective in ‘Dead of Summer’ by R Daniel Lester and ‘Linen, Leeks, and Blood’ by Kris Sayer.
• And success comes down to the powers of persuasion in ‘The Lion’ by Hannah van Didden and ‘Captain Hero was a Feminist’ by NRM Roshak.
• Emblematic of our genre-crossing ways, Pulp short-story alumni Erin Kirsh and Peter Norman return, this time with their words woven into poetry.
• Kate Felix claims the sweet top prize for this year’s Bumblebee Flash Fiction Contest with ‘Shayna’s Eulogy’. And runner-up Kim Martins with ‘Let’s Start with the Horse’ and Mitchell Toews with ‘Piece of My Heart’ keep the delectable delights flowing.
• The accolades continue as we bring you ‘He Who Can Open All Doors’ by Crystal Bourque, Honourable Mention for the 2019 Surrey International Writers’ Conference Storyteller Award.
• In Mel Anastasiou’s ‘Frankie Ray Stands Alone’, Frankie is poised for her big Hollywood chance. And Allaigna’s career takes a sudden leap in the new novella by JM Landels, Allaigna’s Song: Oburakor.

Find a secluded spot and escape into these worlds and words of wonder …

Order your copy here!

Issue 28, Autumn 2020

Our journey begins under the watchful gaze of The Faery Godmother by cover artist Ashley Rose Goentoro.

• Step into the mists of mystery with the genre-blending ghost story ‘Man with Golden Helmet’ by featured author Renée Sarojini Saklikar.
• Dawn Lo in ‘Little Snowflake Girls’ and Weiwei Xu in ‘Chimaera’ introduce us to young people exploring meaningful questions of identity and belonging.
• Memories pile up and tumble away in ‘Moons of Saturn’ by James Dorr, ‘Practising the Art of Forgetting’ by Soramimi Hanarejima, and ‘Starry Nights’ by David Milne.
• And AJ Lee, in ‘What Kind of Story’, and Magpie winners Charlene Kwiatkowski, Maria Ford, and Cara Waterfall delight with their bewitching words.
• Explore solutions to two very different puzzles with Susan Pieters in ‘Hoax’ and SiWC contest winner Cameron MacDonald in ‘Mourgadze’.
• Finally, on journeys of their own, fan favourites Frankie Ray and Toinette return, taking two very different leaps of faith in ‘The Sleuth with the Platinum Hair’ by Mel Anastasiou and Toinette in ‘The Shepherdess: Versailles’ by JM Landels.

Order your copy here!

Allaigna’s Song: Aria

We released one novel this year — the long-awaited sequel to Allaigna’s Song: Overture by JM Landels in April. Due to pandemic stresses we chose to delay The Extra by Mel Anastasiou until 2021, but that means you’ll have three novels to look forward to from Pulp Literature Press next year. In the meantime, you can catch up with Allaigna in Aria and be ready for the release of Chorale in 2021 as well.

Order your copy here!

The Year Ahead

Well, if you’ve made it with us this far into the post — and into the year — thank you. Thank you, dear reader, for supporting Pulp Literature and the small press biz. For continuing to turn to the written word for inspiration and sustenance. For knowing that even the darkest days might just have room for a little light.

The stories, poems, and artwork lined up for 2021 do reflect the year from which we are emerging. There’s turmoil and tragedy, but also plenty of room for levity and joy. (Think mortality and reincarnation meet scatology and cheesy pizzas!) To get a sneak peek and hear some of these stories in the author’s own voices, do join us on Saturday for our Issue 29 launch.

We can’t wait to see what other literary delights await us in 2021. Join us. It’s going to be … yes, that’s it: It is going to be. See you there!

From all of us at Pulp Literature, we wish you a safe and happy New Year!