Happy book release day, folks! All editions of Parish, Parish are now available for purchase or download. If you live in Chicago, I’ll even bike deliver a copy of the book to you for free (for real).

groundsmanpublishing.com/snagacopy

Parish, Parish hits the shelves tomorrow. Don’t miss this chance to snag a unique, limited-run handmade edition of the book! Some background:

» Almost four years ago, I went to New Orleans to write a few stories for the weekly I was working for. I was fresh outta college, and at the time, it was a big assignment. Everestish, even.

While in NOLA, I wrote stories, and I wrote them with energy. One about Katrina’s aftermath, one about a libertarian presidential hopeful, another about environmental desolation within city limits. Videos were made, photos aplenty were taken, a podcast was created.

Alas, nothin’ was ever published. The editor was laid off shortly after I returned to Kansas with my material. Thus, editing purgatory, forever ‘n ever. Bummer. The stories were like little daffodils lounging in sidewalk cracks.

Figured I’d rewrite it all.

Now, it exists as a lyric essay. I call it “Parish, Parish.” It’s a creative nonfiction that blends journalistic prose with daydream imagery and inner turmoil. I’m set to have 100 handmade copies of the book completed by March 10, stitching the pages into covers adorned with sponge-painted acrylic lettering. »

If you’re in Chicago and you’d like a copy for yourself or for consignment, email:
hello [at] groundsmanpublishing [dot] com

If you live elsewhere in this great ‘ol US of the A’s.
groundsmanpublishing.com/snagacopy

The book will be available at Uncharted Books, Quimby’s, 826 Chicago starting next week.

You are beautiful, you are the landscape.

All the best,
Groundsman Publishing

Kingery, Daniel. Libertarian. Stalwart. Whitmanesque in clairvoyance, and in facial hair, too. I tried to keep my focus as I felt the gravity of Zoe’s eyes locked on me from across the table.

“We’re bound to obey what our officials want us to do whether we agree with it or not,” he said. “They’ve flipped the coin on us, and we need to flip it back.”

With his fingers he brushed his beard, an eight-inch facial foray that stretched into the unknown. Iowa native, former marine, handyman extraordinaire; my greatest regret is not giving him my vote. The electoral climate was far too biased to let him win in 2008, granted. Obama’s so-called grassroots campaigns trumped Daniel’s own grassroots efforts by far. But then again, most of Daniel’s funds came from his laundromat in Wilcox, Arizona. Other campaign contributions often came from laborious tasks, like tire work.

He preached at the table: get rid of congress, they’re treasonous liars. Hear! Hear! from the crowd.

Daniel, you would’ve been the sixth president with a full beard — the first with full-on facial fur in 115 years. A modern-day Rutherford Hayes.

— Parish, Parish

Majestic, haunting, serene, devastating. Julie’s voice evokes sentiments of summer’s cicadas, of the ocean’s lapping waves, of waking up from an afternoon nap in a swirl of beautiful confusion. She’ll be playing at the Parish, Parish release and reading on March 10 at Uncharted Books.

“Young Wife” by Julie Marie Byrne.