First Law of Holes: New and Selected Stories

First Law of Holes: New and Selected Stories

First Law of Holes: New and Selected Stories

A sixteen-year-old transplanted Pennsylvanian navigates sunburn and heartbreak in equal measure while falling in love with a very tan ghost. A girl with drunk scribbles on her shoes searches for fragments of an old flame inside the boy at the mall food court. And a female circus contortionist, daughter of a failed clown, comes to terms with the first law of romantic relationships: Once in a hole, stop digging.

In First Law of Holes, award-winning author Meg Pokrass delivers a stunning selection of stories from the past fourteen years of her flash fiction career, tackling themes of belonging, obsession, messy love and loneliness with her trademark, unconventional storytelling.

“The people in these stories need Meg Pokrass. Their lives are tough but her imagination is the fire-lasso that can save them, save us.”
–Bob Hicok, author of Elegy Owed and Sex & Love

First Law of Holes: New and Selected Stories Cover
Disappearing Debutantes

Disappearing Debutantes

Disappearing Debutantes

A new collection of flash fiction, Disappearing Debutantes by Meg Pokrass and Aimee Parkison is available for pre-order from Outpost 19 now!

In Disappearing Debutantes, disappearing and ever present “female beginners” come-of-age in fantasy and reality. As children, girls, teens, “new adults,” middle-aged women, and old women, they keep having their debuts and going unnoticed. Erased by gender, time, age, and those they most want to see them, neglected females become strange in hopes of being loved, being listened to, being understood, and being seen.

Though society has no interest in allowing them to make a grand entrance on a life they keep trying to live anew, and though the bloom is long off the rose that never fully opened, each disappearing woman refuses to make a graceful exit or to blossom into the perfect flowery fem society wants her to become. Instead, she boldly celebrates her oddly transformative disappearance from a life that didn’t go as planned by exploring a self-charted, self-made, surreal world of love, longing, lust, and lore.

“What’s better than one master of the flash form? Two of them, taking stories where you never thought they could go.”
–Robert Shapard

“Surprising, shocking and stunningly honest, this collection of sharp, witty, sad, funny stories will keep you guessing and marveling at their ingenuity. Strikingly original. ”
–Sean Lusk, author of The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesly

Disappearing Debutantes cover
Kissing the Monster Hunter

Kissing the Monster Hunter

Kissing the Monster Hunter

Kissing the Monster Hunter is a new chapbook about monster hunters, unseen monsters, perpetual dreamers, and the creatures (human and otherwise) who love them. The unmissable prose poems and micros in this collection thrust us into an alternate reality where hope, love, and intimacy, when gone unrecognized, become a mystical force to be reckoned with.

In this wonderful mingling of reportage and dreamscape, Nessie’s appearance becomes a beacon for lovers. Here we have a collection with a ripple effect; one story causes another, widening and deepening the ultimate mystery of ourselves. Who can forget the monster hunter’s baby teeth? The insistence on love at all costs? Reading Pokrass’ work is akin to a Nantucket ride, once you start, there’s no stopping. Darkly comic and wildly original. Brilliant!
– Frankie McMillan, author of The Wandering Nature of Us Girls

Surreal, poetic, and strangely beautiful, only Meg Pokrass can take a monster and make it sexy. She searches deep waters and fishes out our curious beating hearts. Another triumph, this book is a love letter to craft from a master of the short form.
Angela Readman, author of Bunny Girls and Don’t Try This At Home

Kissing the Monster Hunter Cover