BLACK BILE PRESS ANNOUNCES THE PUBLICATION OF TWO NEW FICTION CHAPBOOKS

Folly
Stories by Bill Brown
ISBN 0-9680097-8-6 * 40 pages, pb * 5.5 X 8.5 * $8.00 Cdn *
November 2003
&
Spray Job
Stories by Harold Hoefle
ISBN 0-9680097-7-8 * 36 pages, pb * 5.5 X 8.5 * $8.00 Cdn *
November 2003

Each book has been published in a limited edition of signed and numbered copies that are only available directly from Black Bile Press.

Bill Brown's Folly marks the stunning debut of a strong new voice in Canadian fiction. In the collection's title story, Brown portrays a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality amidst the hostile environs of a 1950s Ottawa suburb. "Lucky Stars" takes the reader inside the mind of a rural housewife struggling with the unravelling and eventual demise of her marriage. "Vernissage" is a beautifully crafted tale of a wolf in sheep's clothing and neighbourly malevolence. The collection's final story - "Green Liquid Soap" - is chock full of yearning, suspicion, violence, gay sex, predatory behaviour and the startling ability of a character's past to upset their present. Brown's prose never relents - it hits and sticks and leaves an indelible impression. This is powerful, clear writing for readers who like their CanLit anything but sugar-coated.

BILL BROWN's first published short story, "Ratchet & Bear," appeared in Boheme Press's Grunt and Groan: The New Fiction Anthology of Work and Sex. Bill has also reviewed books for Front&Centre, where another of his stories is scheduled to appear. He is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers. His most coveted prize, John, was won eighteen years ago. The two live in Ottawa, where Bill writes full-time. Folly is his first book. Spray Job introduces the short fiction of one of Canada's rising literary stars. Harold Hoefle's fiction achieves the nearly impossible: it seamlessly blends an international flavour devoid of pretence with a clear eye for what's going on around the corner, at the end of street, or down at the neighbourhood pub in just about any Canadian community. The first story, "Cutting," examines the clash of generations in a sleepy Toronto suburb. "Czechs" - a story imbued with humour and pathos - looks at dislocated immigrant experience in Canada. Hoefle brings the do-gooding Canadian abroad to his knees in Central America in "Flaco Was Here." The final tale - "Spray Job" - again uses humour but also centres on the lure of adventure and the need to belong to something meaningful, even if that something is counterfeit, as its fulcrum. Hoefle's voice is one that will be heard from again. Catch his work early as he ascends.

HAROLD HOEFLE's short fiction has appeared in Canadian journals and anthologies. His manuscript Cutting won an Honourable Mention for the 2003 David Adams Richards Award, sponsored by the Writers' Federation of New Brunswick. Harold teaches literature at John Abbott College in Montreal. Spray Job is his first book.

To order, please send $8.00 per title or $15.00 for both books
(please make cheque payable to "M. Firth") to:

Matthew Firth
Black Bile Press
573 Gainsborough Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario
K2A 2Y6
CANADA

Queries: firth@istar.ca
**International orders, please query first for the price in your
currency.