 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Epic Rites Press was established in 2008 by Wolfgang Carstens. It has since grown to include the artistic energies of Rob Plath, David McLean, Karl Koweski and Pablo Vision - all of whom maintain virtual offices here at epicrites.org.
Operating out of Alberta, Canada, Epic Rites Press is committed to supporting artists whose medium is blood. Every Epic Rites Press publication is professionally printed on high grade paper and represents quality from it's skin down to it's guts.
The first entry in the series is frostbitten by UK author Mark Walton. Mark does not merely write with blood, he wields his pen like a scalpel - marbling away fat and dead tissue with economy and precision. frostbitten is not merely a collection of poetry, it's the literary equivalent of open heart massage. More information can be found at www.frostbittenpoetry.com. This book is selling like ice creams in hell, get a first edition copy while there are still some left.
The second entry in the series is hellbound by David McLean, a Welsh writer who lives in Sweden for some reason known only to him. David, infamous for leading his readers deep into the shadowy woods of the human psyche and leaving them for dead, offers a tight collection of poetry centered around Clive Barker's popular Hellraiser movie franchise. In delving deep into the Hellraiser mythology David does not merely interpret it, he reinvents it - making it distinctly his own. His distinctive thesis is that Pinhead rocks, and is always right about everything he says.
Forthcoming in series:
crunked by Jack Henry
untitled by James Darman
The first entry in the series is the broken and the damned by Jason "Juice" Hardung - a powerful and angrily compassionate reflection on the desolate and inhuman society where the author lives. If his readers don't live there, in a world full of junkies and the damaged, maybe they should consider visiting Juice's world, and witnessing the regenerative power of these words to maybe not exactly heal the reader, but at least reconcile her to life. It's not Hardung's first collection but it marks a new maturity and depth to his vision.
The second entry in the series is black strip by Suzy Devere - a no-holds barred approach to the alphabet that cuts through the lies, illusions and bullshit to expose the raw nerve that lurks like a dangerous creature beneath the surface. Devere is a writer with great promise and this book is likely to be the first of many.
The third entry is knives spirits and noise by Puma Perl - the second chapbook by Puma Perl after the very successful Belinda and her friends. This new chap will show the world the strength and clarity of Perl's writing as she dissects our mundane environment, and shows an uncanny clarity in describing her New York, herself, and her people in a way that admits and analyzes all the weaknesses, but never shows these dissected weaknesses as despicable. Puma Perl goes to new strengths in this great collection, after the huge success of her first chapbook.
The fourth entry is words make no sense by Luic Cuauhthemoc Berriozabal - an extraordinary new chapbook by a writer with an incredible depth of compassion and humanity. He describes the world of the lost outsider, here mainly the mentally ill, in a way that overflows with empathic understanding for the strange relationship to animality that exists at the heart of his poetic vision, and the magical realism that flowers when things fall apart. This is a strange and beautiful book, of which Epic Rites is very proud.
Comprised of nine monstrous limbs - corresponding to the major themes found in Rob's poetry, with each limb composed of 25 tight, interconnected poems that build, sustain and explore each theme, a bellyful of anarchy is an absolute monster that will jump from your bookshelf and kick the shit out of every other book in your library. More information is available at http://www.robertplath.com.
Forthcoming creatures include:
blood and greasespaint by American author Karl Koweski
laughing at funerals by poet and Swedish resident David McLean
crudely mistaken for life by Canadian poet Wolfgang Carstens
Everyone here at Epic Rites is confident that our absolutely all of our books are ones that anybody would want to buy. In fact we're so confident that you'll want to own all of them, we're making you a subscription offer.
For an annual fee of $30 USD, members of The Lucky Bastards Club will receive Epic Rites Press print publications, merchandise & promotional items at wholesale cost, enjoy a 10% discount on every item inside the Epic Rites Store, as well as earning Lucky Bastard Points on every item purchased – which can be spent as real cash in store. More information about this exciting promotional offer is available at http://www.abyssgazesalso.com.
Click the banner to enter the Epic Rites Press store.
Enter the Epic Rites Press Store to browse Epic Rites Press publications, merchandise and promotional items.
Epic Rites Netzines are edited by David McLean and Wolfgang Carstens.
Click the banner to go directly to The Epic Rites Journal.
The Epic Rites Journal is published by bi-yearly. In it's present incarnation every issue features 12 poems by 12 authors. There has been rumors, however, that the third issue may be the last online issue and that The Epic Rites Journal will continue as a print publication.
Click the banner to go directly to Lines Written With a Razor.
Lines publishes poems and prose poems that are written with blood, passion, and feeling. Not poems about things you haven't done, or even seen done, but they have to appear genuinely felt and raw. The word "blood" need not appear.
Lines Written With a Razor, published on a rolling basis, showcases the best underground authors today.
Click on the banner to go directly to The Thin Edge of Staring.
Thin edge publishes poems and prose poems about the creative process, or the poet's motivation for writing.
Click on the banner to go directly to The Exuberant Ashtray.
Edited by Epic Rites madman in residence Rob Plath, The Exuberant Ashtray publishes the best and the brightest underground authors.
Epic Rites Press does not currently accept unsolicited manuscript submissions. In order to be considered for entry into either the workers in blood chapbook series, the bad blood chapbook series and/or as a feature book publication, your work must first appear in an Epic Rites Netzine.
The epic rites journal does not accept submissions & publication therein is at the sole discretion of the editors. We contact you if we are interested.
For submissions to the thin edge of staring and lines written w/ a razor we are always on the look out for raw passionate material, written with blood, for lines, and for work that explores the creative process for the thin edge. McLean edits these and will not read prose, he actively dislikes the graphic arts, so no pictures, and, please, no academic garbage. Send 3 - 5 samples of your best work embedded into the body of an email to regnruta@gmail.com, No attachments. Reprints are fine as long as they are good. Simultaneous submissions are fine too, but McLean usually answers within minutes if he is awake and sober.
Submissions to The Exhuberant Ashtray are presently closed. Anyone wishing to submit work for consideration should read the guidelines here.
Click on the banner to go directly to the Epic Rites Radio Network.
Hosting a bi-monthly poetry reading series every 2nd Friday at 1pm GMT, the Epic Rites Radio Network delivers the best underground poetry anywhere on the internet. Archived guests include Mark Walton, David Oprava, Melanie Browne, Puma Perl, Lara Konesky, Jason Hardung and RD Armstrong. Forthcoming guests include Erek Smith, Rob Plath, John Yamrus and Doug Draime. Sticking by it's "no mercy no rules" mandate the Epic Rites Radio Network is poetry delivered as it was meant - balls deep, bone deep, in your face with teeth bared.
in addition to working w/ epic authors, David edits netzines, lines written w/ a razor & the thin edge of staring. he also handles submissions for the epic rites radio network poetry reading series. click on David's picture to enter his office.
There's a new chapbook out from rain over Bouville that can be bought for only $2.89 from lulu or downloaded as pdf entirely free. With cover art by Pablo Vision, it's a good buy or even better freebie. Rain over Bouville say of it "David Mclean’s anarchic, pitch-black poetry snatches the philosophies and theologies of history out of the air like mosquitoes or bad smells and subjects them to a twenty-first century frisk. From the micro to the macro, no sacred cow is safe..."
For nothing (pdf) or $2.95 and postage (paper) you can download or order David McLean's Rain over Bouville chapbook of dead snakes from Lulu here. They have other books there too, as you will see from their page. Read it anyway, it's free to read, if you want to tear it up there's a token fee.
there is night and times
full of life and goldfish,
the fluid scent
like love in a smoky bowl
and sorrow drops from us
like scales from a dead snake
like flames in a desert
like home
there is night and bowls
of light, there are smells
who are heaven, and fish of gold,
they swim best alone
copyright © 2009 David McLean
Pablo Vision is the trading name of notorious misanthropic humanist Pablo Recidivision. His blogspot is infrequently updated with links to published writing, reviews, visual art, film, and stories about him. It consists mainly in obscenity and blasphemy.
his artwork (dis)graces the covers of a number of books by other writers. some of these books are available from epic rites press. sometimes people are mad enough to perform readings of his work. he’s usually pretty fucking pleased about that: the great religion (read by wolfgang carstens). click on Pablo Vision’s enigmatic picture to enter his office, and see what the fucker is ranting about now. click on the picture because he is giving you the finger, and this is your way of giving the finger back.
Cheeses of Nazareth stocks the most eclectic selection of cheese from around the holy land. We also provide bespoke solutions to any pornographic requirements that you may have – recent projects include “Double Entry – Fetish Accountants From Beyond The Grave” (s&m, debit & credit) and “The Three Billy Goats Snuff” (goat on goat, alt death).
KeBabylon offers you a taste sensation to go - skewered lamb of god, a choice of fifteen relishes, gourmet salad, fresh pita bread and the opportunity to take away your dreams, and our aspirations. KeBabylon also offers lactation training, with discounts for corporate bookings.
Both outlets aim to provide quality food at reasonable prices, but - more than this - we wish to cater for what we feel are the real needs of our customers.
© Pablo Vision 2007
resident madman, Rob Plath, playing Dr. Frankenstein, is ready to attach electrodes to the neck of his creature, a bellyful of anarchy. soon the monster will be unleashed upon the world. click on Rob's picture to enter his office.
meat threads
jugular vein
for a necktie
lungs
for lapels
a heart
for a carnation
colon
for
cummerbund
this human suit
that never
goes out
of style
one day you'll
strip down to
yr skeleton
& you'll try on
something
else
for size
a pine
box
w/nails
for buttons
death is
waiting w/
a tape measure
in the
final
dressing room
so dance
in
yr
meat threads
while
you got
'em
you son-of-a-bitch
© Rob Plath 2009
Click on Karl to enter his virtual office.
Click on the butterfly to find out what sort of mischief Wolfgang has gotten himself into lately.
madness is like cancer.
it begins w/ a single
healthy cell
that mutates
& spreads
to every organ in yr body
until all that remains
is cancerous tissue.
put another way
suppose an unwanted thought
crept into yr brain one day;
a horrible thought
that refused to leave.
suppose you found yrself
dwelling upon
this horrible thought
more & more
until it drove
every other thought
from yr brain.
suppose you awoke
& realized
that the horrible thought
was the only thought
left in yr brain;
that everything
that defined who you were
& what you stood for
had vanished;
leaving nothing
but madness
w/in a rotting husk
barely discernable
as human.
© Wolfgang Carstens 2009
Click on the banner to go directly to the Epic Rites Community.
Wolf Carstens - epicritespress@gmail.com
David McLean - regnruta@gmail.com
Rob Plath - rsplath@fastmail.fm
Pablo Vision -
240 - 222 Baseline Road
Suite #206
epic rites press
Sherwood Park, Alberta
T8H 1S8
"because all our fingers are middle ones"™
all epic rites press publications are proudly printed in Canada.
