The TothWorld Podcast

This podcast is dedicated to the memory of my good friend Phil Hines.  Drummer for Dissonance, Phil's life spanned May 30, 1963 through December 25, 2006, and his influence spread far beyond his home town of Flint, Michigan. Also, farewell to James Brown. Adios, my friends.

For those who would like to post a tribute to Phil on the TothWorld Blog, send it in the body of an email message to this address.

Please send the link for this page to all friends of Phil: http://tothnews.libsyn.com/

This week's guest is Dexter Petley, an English novelist living off his wits in a trailer in France.  He's published 3 novels, Little Nineveh with Polygon, Scotland, and Joyride and White Lies with Fourth Estate, London, the latter nominated for the 2005 IMPAC DUBLIN. Short fiction has also appeared in Waterlog Magazine and London Magazine. His translation (with Laure Claesen) from the French of The Fishing Box by Maurice Genevoix was shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize 2006.  See his website here. Also featuring China Rocket, a 2007 resolution, and Tell Me.

Ryan Bird is often lowered by God onto a stage in order to untangle a plot-twist or to extricate a particularly loveable protagonist from a particularly sticky situation. Whether he was actually lowered by God or merely dropped on his head is entirely up for debate. His poems are in the current/upcoming issues of Carousel, dANDelion, filling Station, Misunderstandings, Zeugma and Ripe Magazine.  Visit his website here.  Also featuring Literature Is Dead and Chariot.

This week, TothWorld is visited by writer Magdalen Powers, whose credits include Paragraph, Pangolin Papers, Surgery of Modern Warfare, The Morning News, and 5_Trope. Kevin Sampsell’s Future Tense Books published her latest chapbook, The Heart Is Also a Furnace. Gary Lutz says “[her] crucial, compact prose miniatures provoke and disturb with a seductive wit and a sly, nervy exactitude all her own.?  Visit her website here.  Also featuring Denver, Creeping Fire and Achoo Baby.

Featuring Matthew St. Amand's uplifting religious adventure, a song for the whole family, the story of Jesus, a gift to Permanent Press, and so much more.  Visit Matthew St. Amand's website here.  He recently adapted Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray for the stage.  It will play in Windsor, Ontario at the Capitol Theatre on March 10, 11, 15, 16, and 17, 2007.

This week, listen to Mark Coggins read an excerpt from his new novel Candy from Strangers.  Mark writes the August Riordan series, featuring jazz bass-playing PI Riordan. His books have been nominated for the Shamus and Barry awards and selected for four best of the year lists, including those put together by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Detroit Free Press. Of his new novel, Michael Connelly has said, "Ive been waiting a long time for someone to take a fresh look at the private eye novel. Mark Coggins has done it in Candy from Strangers." Take a look at Mark's work here.  Also featuring the songs Otto's Vacation and In Praise of Mr. Bennett (hint: not William Bennett).  For your amusement, I play bass on the former.  Finally, some special fireworks that mark anything but a celebration.

This week's guest author is Randall Brown, a teacher who lives outside of Philadelphia with his wife Meg, a cabaret singer, and their two children. He is a Pushcart nominee, a fiction editor with SmokeLong Quarterly, and on the editorial board of Philadelphia Stories. He holds an MFA in Fiction Writing from Vermont College and a BA from Tufts University. His stories, poems, and essays have been published widely, with recent work appearing or forthcoming in Clackamas Literary Review, Del Sol Review, Cairn, The Saint Ann's Review, and Connecticut Review.  He is currently working on a short short collection, Mad To Live.  Check out Randall's blog here. Also, the songs Time to Crash, Headway, Having Said That, and Music for Listening to Music in Airports.

Take four minutes and say "thanks" with your host. Join hands, please.

The TothWorld Podcast welcomes Kevin Sampsell, author of many small books, including The Patricia Letters, A Common Pornography, Etiquette For Evil (illustrated by Ivan Brunetti), and Beautiful Blemish (2005 Word Riot Press). His next book, The Suitcase, will be a collection of non-fiction from Chiasmus Press in 2007. He's also the editor The Insomniac Reader (Manic D Press) and the publisher of Future Tense Books. Other Kevin Sampsell stories can be read at Nerve, Elimae, Failbetter*, and Powell's Blog entries. He lives in Portland, Oregon where his day job is working at Powell's Books. He also writes book-related articles for Associated Press and performs in a haiku group called Haiku Inferno. Episode #64 also features two songs, Holy Ghosts and 'Cause We Uh, plus my story Chet's Book of Sins. Finally, a special mystery appearance.

This week, the podcast showcases author Kim Chinquee, whose fiction has appeared in Noon, Denver Quarterly, Conjunctions, Fiction International, Notre Dame Review, The Pushcart Prize 31: Best of the Small Presses, and other journals. She teaches creative writing at Central Michigan University. Access Kim's blog here. Other segments include the song I Can Fly and one Toth story, My Eye.