Books published by Pretendgeniuspress

the search for an outdoor blanket turns an ordinary day into something different but still ordinary. or maybe not. bandits, birds, a woman, a man, a brother, a blanket, and just a few more words to get to 200.

This story collection carries us like an outgoing tide, on a wave retreating from the underworld of 21st century London to a Dublin hinterland in the 1970''s and beyond, to the time of coalmen, tenements, and bicycles.They''re all here, the charmers, the snakes, the innocent, the complaisant, the guilt-ridden and the guilty, the Brothers, the whores, the poor and the young, the invulnerable, the jailed and the dead, the green and the truant, the music box and the p.a, the skaters, the crooners and the pink neon sign that blinks all night, "Keys, Keys, Keys..."

Lashonda searches her memories for her missing sister. Where did she go? Is she in memory 1? Or memory 23? All of them? Or none? Is she really searching her memories? What is she doing? What? Who is asking these questions?

The poem is a world on its own that reflects the depth of human universality. By nature, it moves the reader to inner reaches of their own feelings and identity. In his latest collection, Elias Miller takes the reader on ten years of his journey, condensing his reality into poetic points of insight, emotion, and thought, and presenting them with a continued love of sound and rhythm. He explores themes characteristic of middle-age as well as the search for meaning in an increasingly materialistic society. His is the darker voice of Generation X, of latch-key kids raised on TV, embodying the absence of guidance in an ever-changing world, post-truth, post-faith, post-understanding, resulting in a brand of feelings-based solipsism. These poems reflect the dark spots of his mind now open to daylight. Read them out loud for the full experience.

A poem about a man, a woman, a woman, a woman, a man, a man, a woman, a woman, a woman, a woman, a dream, a tree, a river, a woman, plastics, a turtle, architecture, a dream, a tree, a river, a dress.

Winner of The 6 Cities Sun Times Best Book of the Year to Read Over Someone Else's Shoulder Prize.

Tennis, haiku, quotes, pictures, footnotes. Learn how to play championship world-class tennis and read haiku at the same time. It doesn't make sense until it does. You'll understand in the middle of your next important conversation.

3 lives the same/different life and super powers for ordinary people

"How am I supposed to read a book if I don't already know what it's about? Or at least have some idea about what to think of it before I read it. Will it be the "book of the year"? Will it be "the one book to put on my reading list"? Will it be the "can't put-down read of the summer"? Or the book that "changes the game" for literature? Has it even been nominated for any awards? I mean-what is it? How am I supposed to read it if I don't know what it is." --Unlikely Blonde "One of the unsung great prose stylists of our time." -- Someone Named Mark

Sensual and atmospheric, embattled and defiant, in the throes of turbulent events and viewing from a distance, these stories are windows that open onto the men, women and children of our twenty-first century world. The people portrayed do not seek our pity nor our love but with each turn of a page, we may feel that we want to reach out to them to say, I know, I know, I know - you are not alone. Short stories by Jo Barker Scott, Joan Brennan, Gina Challen, Nick Holdstock, CG Menon, Dan Powell, Angela Sherlock, Megan Taylor, Medina Tenour Whiteman, Lindsay Waller-Wilkinson.

This collection brings together poetry by writers currently living in America, Britain, Ireland, Italy and New Zealand. They have little in common other than finding themselves here, in this book, and in the early part of the 21st century, with something to say. Contributors: Raewyn Alexander, Alex Barr, Lynn Blackadder, Sean Brijbasi, Susan Campbell, David Cooke, Tim Craven, Mikey Delgado, Vanessa Gebbie, Kim Göransson, James Browning Kepple, Charles Lambert, Laura Lee, Andrew Mayne, Geraldine Mills, Stephen Moran, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Richard Peabody, Lynsey Rose, Judi Sutherland, Lee Webber. The title is taken from a poem by Alex Barr.

Charlie Fell sells baseball cards with seemingly hallucinogenic properties out of his bedroom, takes road trips to places he loves (New York City) and loathes (Southern California), and trips over a series of romantic entanglements. When the young writer releases his first novel, his life begins to unravel as the fallout from his published inner-monologues drive him back inside his already frail mind.

The best of the Willesden Herald international new short stories competition 2012. The winning stories are set as far afield as Canada, China, Iran as well as Britain and Ireland. Contributors: Dermot Duffy, Virginia Gilbert, Nick Holdstock, Charles Lambert, Geraldine Mills, Eliza Robertson, Francis Scappaticci, Jo Barker Scott, Mary O'Shea, YJ Zhu.

Brijbasi is the poet of irrecoverables. The shadowy figures of his skeletal world have no faces and they would not accept epiphanies. They do accept absurdities and they revel in contradictions. Brijbasi carries this to a degree that naturalizes absurdities and contradictions. The result is less fiction than a display of the mechanics of fiction that focuses on the bare minimum of expected content. This austerity, however witty it often is, brings the reader to considerations of what reality might be like if we look at it closely and if it is, in fact, real.

"A Gordian knot of thoughts. It cleared out cobwebs I didn't even know I had, and left a business card." -Phillip Westowe Literal Austerity Journal "It's a neurological buzz. A synapse dance. The book is like a long maniac monologue that falls trippingly from the tongue. Very unique" -Cassie Lynn Independent Pens

Old tongues blend with new actions as the modern hipsinisters vie to create a new language of the literary lost. At the center is Charlie Fell, a twentysomething who can't make up his mind on his medium, his lovers, and his position in life.

An explanation of the title of this work provides the best introduction: The Baltimore Years. J. Tyler Blue never uses these words in this particular order in any of his works and indeed some might consider the words pleonastic (whatever that means), but the title hints of Baltimore and of Years. And also of The. In The Baltimore Years we find that Blue brushes the dust from Charm City and immerses himself in it. He never lets the dust settle, however, but freezes it in time around him with haunting and silent prose that allows him to explore his world as a lost astronaut floating amongst the stars might.

"Reading this book will enable you to sit still for extended periods of time while your fruit paints you," writes author Brijbasi. "It is recommended you wear your least favorite hat while reading this. Even if you don't read this yourself (for men) lending this book to women is an almost guaranteed way to make them fall in love with you; (for women) If you're not already in love with yourself, find out why."

Dancing the Maze by Kenneth Dawson is the first collection of the author's writings and an odd mix of verse, prose, and travel journalism. The author considers his writing a continuing work in progress as he explores his life, the nation's recent history and the state of the world as he finds it