Contemporary Authors

• Big Lonesome ( short stories) Mariner Books (Boston, MA), 2017

• Joseph Scapellato - https://www.josephscapellato.com/bio

  Joseph Scapellato
  AUTHOR of "Big Lonesome"
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  biography
  Joseph Scapellato was born in the suburbs of Chicago and earned his MFA in Fiction at New Mexico State University. His fiction has appeared in Kenyon Review Online, Gulf Coast, Post Road, PANK, Unsaid, and other literary magazines, and has been anthologized in Harper Perennial's Forty Stories, Gigantic Books' Gigantic Worlds: An Anthology of Science Flash Fiction, and &NOW's The Best Innovative Writing.

  Joseph is an assistant professor of English in the Creative Writing Program at Bucknell University. His lives in Lewisburg, PA, with his wife, daughter, and dog.
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• Bucknell University - https://www.bucknell.edu/academics/arts-and-sciences-college-of/academic-departments-and-programs/english/creative-writing/faculty-and-staff/joe-scapellato

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  JOE SCAPELLATO
  ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH

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  Educational Background

  MFA, New Mexico State University
  Teaching Interests

  Creative writing: fiction (the short story, the short short story, the novel), screenwriting (film, TV, web series), poetry, creative nonfiction
  Contemporary American literature
  Current Projects and Research Interests

  Big Lonesome, story collection, forthcoming fall 2016 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
  The Made-Up Man, novel, forthcoming spring 2017 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
  Burnham Square, video web series, a collaboration with Clarion New Media
  Selected Publications

  "Horseman Cowboy," North American Review, forthcoming

  "Life Story," Kenyon Review Online

  "Father's Day," Post Road

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• Bucknell University - https://www.bucknell.edu/info-about-attending-bucknell/who-we-are/bucknell-stories/faculty-stories/joseph-scapellato

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  JOSEPH SCAPELLATO
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  Writing a play taught me something about writing fiction. It's artistically nourishing to be omnivorous.

  Joseph Scapellato
  "Process over product" might sound more like a slogan than philosophy, but it's how Professor Joe Scapellato, English, approaches his teaching.

  "Students sometimes put too much pressure on themselves for the first draft to be a shining example of perfection," Scapellato explains. He counters this by emphasizing that better writing comes through revision and multiple drafts, or process over product.

  In addition to creative writing, Scapellato also teaches screenwriting for TV, web series, and short or feature-length films.

  His classes aren't all about the process, though. He talks about publication and his own experiences, which "some students find encouraging and some terrifying," he says. "Still, when students feel it's possible to engage in the professional world, it gets exciting for them."

  Scapellato says a writing career wasn't really a choice for him, since he's been "writing since before I could write," dictating the words to his mother for his comic book-inspired drawings.

  Now, his first short story collection, Big Lonesome, will be published in February 2017. It is a series of stories that grow out of one another — some realistic and others surreal. His next work is a novel, The Made-Up Man.

  In the long term, he wants to produce projects in different forms. For example, Scapellato wrote a play in 2015 that was produced at Bucknell. "Writing a play taught me something about writing fiction. It's artistically nourishing to be omnivorous."

  Scapellato likes central Pennsylvania and Bucknell's students. "It's an incredible community of people from all over the world," he says of the University, plus there is a "robust" creative writing department, where he "can do a lot of cool stuff."

  His most important goal, though, as his students' reader and teacher is "to meet their work on its own terms — to really try to figure out the intention of the work, and respond to that intention. I love reading first drafts of students' work. There are exciting connections that sometimes they are aware of, and sometimes not."

  Posted Oct. 7, 2016

  Learn more about the Department of EnglishLearn more about Professor ScapellatoBrowse our Bucknell stories by subject
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• Necessary Fiction - http://necessaryfiction.com/blog/InterviewJosephScapellato

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  INTERVIEWS · 02/28/2017
  An interview with Joseph Scapellato

  by Jacob Singer
  I met Joseph Scapellato fifteen years ago in Milwaukee, Wisconsin through mutual friends in Marquette University’s theater department. We bonded over fiction and writing. Since then we have kept in touch, meeting up now-and-again to swap manuscripts over coffee or beer, sharing advice and book recommendations. Scapellato now teaches at Bucknell University and has published his work in the Kenyon Review online, Gulf Coast, and The Best Innovative Writing. Big Lonesome (Mariner Books, 2017) is his debut book. In this interview we discuss his progress as a writer, how teaching influences his own writing, and his style in this collection of short stories.

  +

  Would you talk about your evolution as a reader and writer?

  One afternoon when I was a kid, I drew a series of pictures, a one-panel-per-page “comic book.” This was before I knew how to write. I knew that a comic book needed text to be official, captions of some kind, so I drew big blank boxes at the top of every page. Then I asked my endlessly patient mom to write what I dictated in those boxes. She was nice enough to do so.

  In this “comic book,” Spiderman fights armies of aliens. He steals a mean-looking alien laser gun. He blasts hundreds of aliens into bloody halves. I remember this only because my mom still has the stapled-together pages of it. A limited print run.

  This was where I started! And it was followed by lots of reading, lots of writing. As a kid, my favorite thing to read was mythology — Greek, Norse, Egyptian. I couldn’t get enough of it. And I think that my favorite non-mythology books were the ones that were aglow with the same exciting elements that drew me to mythology in the first place: wonder, darkness, humor, surprise, transformation. I was a big Roald Dahl fan, for instance.

  Then I started writing. I wrote a play in fourth grade. I wrote stories and novellas in junior high. I wrote poetry and radio dramas in high school. The writer who’s most influenced me as I’ve gotten older, I think, is Russell Hoban. Especially his first novel, The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz. When I read it in 2005, I was stunned, joyously stunned: he was doing what I’d been trying and trying and trying to do. One of the many things I love about Hoban is his magic way of honoring the mystery of being by honoring the mystery of language. In his best work, these two mysteries become interchangeable. It’s beautiful.

  With that said, I always go back to myth when I need to be recharged. It’s still my favorite thing to read. It sustains me.

  And recently, I’ve been blown away by short story collections, novels, and poetry from Charles Yu, Alexandra Kleeman, Christopher Boucher, Chinelo Okparanta, Claire Vaye Watkins, Derek Palacio, Larry Watson, Manual Gonzales, Clarice Lispector, Douglas Watson, Diane Cook, Amber Sparks, Matt Bell, Laura Van Den Berg, Hassan Blasim, Jennine Capo-Crucet, Rajesh Parameswaran, Karla Kelsey, Dan Chelotti, Zachary Schomberg, JD Schraffenberger, and Lisa Ciccarello.

  How about developing as a fiction writer? What did you learn about writing as an undergraduate? Graduate? Who were your mentors along the way?

  Big Lonesome wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for my undergraduate and graduate professors. I’m indebted to their warmth, intelligence, honesty, and encouragement. As an undergraduate, I couldn’t take a creative writing class until I was a junior, but when I did it was with CJ Hribal. He exploded my mind. He led exciting discussions of craft, assigned rigorous exercises, and gave incredibly helpful feedback. He also told me what an MFA program was. I’d had no idea — it was a description of exactly what I’d been looking for. During my senior year, he helped me apply.

  I also took two classes with Larry Watson: an advanced fiction class and an independent study on writing the novel. He taught me more than I can possibly include in this interview about discipline, form, and language, about unity and wholeness, and about writing from a place of mystery. One time when I walked into his office and he was in the middle of revising his own novel. He asked me to hold on for one second — he saved his novel draft to a jump drive, closed it, and removed the drive. This might sound silly, but I was amazed. In that moment, I saw a novel as a thing that could exist on a computer. It wasn’t just a thing that came out complete on bookstore shelves. It was a thing that you made on your computer, one afternoon at a time.

  Then I went to New Mexico State University, where I had the astounding good fortune to study with Robert Boswell, Antonya Nelson, and Kevin McIlvoy. Their writing and teaching styles are very different from one another. But what they share, in the classroom and on the page, is a respect for humanity, wonder, and hard work. I can’t thank them enough for everything they did for me while I was there, and everything they’ve done (and continue to do) for me since.

  And then there are the many mentors that I didn’t meet in classrooms. They’re too numerous to list here — this is why the acknowledgement page in Big Lonesome goes on forever — but when it comes to this book in particular, I’m deeply grateful to Claire Vaye Watkins, who took the time to tell me to submit the manuscript to agents, and to Derek Palacio, who took the time to write me a generous email when he knew I needed it.

  What has teaching creative writing taught you as a writer?

  At some point, as a teacher, you need to question your received knowledge. You need to figure out why you’re teaching what you’re teaching, as well as why you’re teaching how you’re teaching. Do you have reasons for why you’re doing what you’re doing? And if you do, are the reasons any good?

  As a young teacher, I spent a little too much time teaching what/how I thought I was supposed to teach, instead of teaching what/how I wanted to teach. The best teachers, I think, teach to their strengths. This is a good lesson for any writer to learn. Are you writing the kind of work that you think you should write? Or are you writing the kind of work that you truly and deeply and somewhat mysteriously want to write?

  In the initial section of your debut collection, there is a story called “Horseman Cowboy.” It contains a mythic creature that is half-man and half-horse. I consciously didn’t use the word “mythological” because this figure isn’t related to Pegasus or anything related to established mythologies. Your figure is completely American – especially the America of the West. It is full of bravado. The only thing larger than its penis might be its libido. While it resembles a figure from Jonathan Swift or Francois Rabelais, I imagined this figure in line with John Barth and Richard Brautigan. Would you speak about the inspiration for this figure and what you’re attempting to achieve by playing with the myths and legends of the American West?

  Scapellato: Thanks for these comments! Richard Brautigan is one of my favorite writers. I’m especially in love with his story collection, Revenge of the Lawn. I confess: I wrote “Horseman Cowboy” partly because of Dungeons and Dragons. I sat in on a session with some friends when I was visiting Chicago. I rolled up a centaur cowboy character, named him Giddyup, and entered him into the dungeon. He was a total doof, a folksy faux-country-music star, nothing at all like Horseman Cowboy. But not long after, as I was idling in Chicago traffic on I-55, I put a notebook on the steering wheel and wrote a poem about a centaur cowboy. The poem turned into a story.

  Horseman Cowboy can probably be found on the family tree of the mad-from-drink centaurs of Greek mythology who attempted to rape the bride (and everyone else) at Pirithous’ wedding. (I don’t think he’s related to Chiron, the wise centaur accidentally killed by Herakles. Although maybe he is, and that’s why he’s tortured by the existence of his interiority?) When I wrote “Horseman Cowboy,” though, I wasn’t thinking about the figure of the Greek centaur. I was thinking about what it would be like to be a big naked horse-man in the Wild West. I was thinking about how horses radiate sexuality. And I was thinking about broad American ideas about the West, masculinity, and lonesomeness — broad American ideas that have been given great mythological power through film.

  My hope is that “Horseman Cowboy” is a critique of a certain kind of choked-tight hyper-masculinity. This hyper-masculinity — so central to the way we’re encouraged to think about the West, and so dangerous — is a myth that American believers attempt to embody every day. Look at Donald Trump. Look at how sensitive he is about his small hands. Look at how he took a moment during the Republican debate to talk up his cock size. Look at how he took a moment after an interview to brag about grabbing women by the pussy. Look at how these actions of his, and many others, were and are applauded by millions of American men and women, men and women who will continue to love him not because of what he does (and doesn’t do), but because of what he stands for.

  “Thataway” exists in a similar distorted state. It has an archetypal cowboy wandering into a strip mall to do his laundry — which blends a hyper-masculine figure doing a mundane chore in a dull location. This story is neither genre nor traditional realism. On one hand, it resembles science fiction in the sense that you are building a world. Would you discuss how this story evolved through the revision process and how you settled on your representation of characters and world?

  I think of “Thataway” as a work of magical realism. My aim was for the “magical elements” to be responses to the characters’ predicaments, for the “nonrealistic” developments to be metaphorically, emotionally, and existentially “realistic.” For someone like the hard-luck cowboy, being forced to face the damage you’ve done to yourself (through drug addiction, through memory suppression) might feel like being forced to face a filthy made-out-of-garbage monster-boy.

  This story, like all of the stories in the collection, went through lots and lots and lots of drafts. Early on, it was called “Brown Boy.” And brown boy didn’t even follow the cowboy out of the laundromat — the cowboy was able to get away, in a physical sense. But as I revised — and with the help of my editors — I realized that the story needed to hound the cowboy more, not only through brown boy, but through other routes as well. The ending in the first draft wasn’t honoring what the story seemed to want to be about. Over time the story changed enough to warrant a different title.

  Throughout the book you have chosen to describe characters instead of give them names, for example “the hard-luck cowboy,” “the white-hat cowboy,” and “cowgirl.” Also, backstories are left ignored or material is literately forgotten, as in the story “Small Boy.” The narrative effect is something similar to being nearsighted. Within the range of sight, the world is clear as a bell, but just over yonder the reader is oblivious to the horizon or the past. Would you discuss this technique and how you developed this approach?

  These techniques are common to folktales, myths, and jokes. And for as weird as they might seem, I’d like to argue that they’re representative of our everyday experiences. All of us have had notable encounters with strangers, people whose names we never learn, and when we tell the stories of these encounters, we describe these people through how they look, how they act, or what their profession is: the bartender, the lady in the red dress, the frat boy, the cop.

  We don’t know these strangers’ backgrounds, but just from looking at them, we assume all sorts of things. We consciously and unconsciously come to conclusions. (And of course, we’re strangers to strangers.) In this way, then, I’d like to think that in a story like “Small Boy,” the backstory is present through its absence — that the reader draws his or her own conclusions about who small boy is, where he comes from, and what his life is like, from the bursts of brief glimpses.

  +++

  Joseph Scapellato earned his MFA in Fiction at New Mexico State University. His work appears in North American Review, Kenyon Review Online, Post Road, Unsaid, and other places, and has been anthologized in Gigantic’s Gigantic Worlds and &NOW’s Best Innovative Writing. His debut story collection, Big Lonesome, is forthcoming in February 2017 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and his novel, The Made-Up Man, in Winter 2018 (FSG). Joseph is an assistant professor of English at Bucknell University. He lives in Lewisburg, PA, with his wife, daughter, and dog.
  +

  Jacob Singer’s writing has appeared in Electric Literature, the Collagist, and Colorado Review. He can be found at www.jacobcsinger.com and on Twitter @jacobcsinger.
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• Pank Magazine - https://pankmagazine.com/2012/10/22/this-modern-writer-an-interview-with-vaughn-simons-and-joseph-scapellato/

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  This Modern Writer: An Interview with Vaughan Simons and Joseph Scapellato
  POSTED ON OCTOBER 22, 2012
  The editors of the much-loved online literary magazine > kill author put out twenty issues between June 2009 and August 2012. These editors, who chose to remain anonymous, “wanted writing that took risks: words that surprised us, shocked us and roused us from our slumber.” In the final issue, the editors revealed two things: that there was only ever one wizard-behind-the-curtain, and that his name was Vaughan Simons. Over the course of several emails, the very gracious, thoughtful, and eloquent Simons spoke with me about the pleasures and challenges of editing, literary magazine design, and the uncertain future of publishing.

  1. Was > kill author your first crack at editing a literary magazine? I’d love to hear about your previous relationships with literary magazines, literary blogs, and the publishing world in general.

  No, it wasn’t the first literary magazine I edited. From February 2009 to August 2010 (so yes, for a year it overlapped with > kill author– I clearly have too much time on my hands) I edited Writers’ Bloc. This was a weekly updated literary magazine, though perhaps more accurately described as a blog, on the subject of writing. As I admitted at the time, it was a rather pretentious idea. It sounds even more so now. The whole venture was a little hurriedly and, I’ll confess in retrospect, somewhat amateurishly done. For instance, if I’d planned it more thoroughly I’d quickly have discovered that there was already a very well-established online literary journal with the same name. I’m not disowning it, though: Writers’ Bloc featured some great pieces and a number of notable contributors during its short existence, while the whole experience also taught me a lot about editing a literary magazine which I then put into running > kill author. The reason I eventually stopped Writers’ Bloc was because I was investing much more time in > kill author and getting greater enjoyment out of the latter. To be honest, too, the idea of a site with a raison “writing about writing” was always going to have a limited lifespan. The site is still online – though the aging design is a little broken now.

  Otherwise, apart from spending a few years avidly reading literary blogs, contributing a few guest posts to We Who Are About To Die and, I suppose, hanging around on the fringes of what people were calling the”online literary scene”, Writers’ Bloc and > kill author have been my only experience of publishing.

  2. I’ve witnessed many readers rave about > kill author, so it was no surprise for me when, last year, I saw that your magazine was voted #7 “hottest lit mag” at HTMLGIANT. To what degree do you think that the editorial anonymity- and the mystery this evoked- increased the magazine’s profile?

  To be honest, I completely missed that list when it was published. I’m surprised to see it that placed so high because, rightly or wrongly, I often got the feeling that HTMLGIANT, during the period when it was considered the hub of the online literary scene, didn’t really care much for > kill author. Its team of writers included some of the best-known faces in the literary community and a lot of the coverage pushed that community ideal. I suppose that placed it in diametric opposition to what > kill author was trying to do.

  I don’t kid myself. I absolutely know that the editorial anonymity of > kill author was the USP that initially won the magazine its high profile, just because people were obviously wondering who was running it behind the scenes. When I decided to edit the journal anonymously I thought the idea might garner a little interest, but I honestly didn’t expect it to be quite such a talking point. However, once the magazine was established and readers could see it was publishing great fiction and poetry, the anonymity faded into the background and > kill author continued to be successful on its own merits, which was hugely gratifying.

  3. Other than the content, one of the things I most enjoyed about this magazine was its stunning design. The visual aesthetic and user interface did not seem bound to the print magazine model, > kill author was its own animal, evolved for online living. What were your original design and interface goals? How do you feel about these goals now, looking back?

  I think you summed up one important aspect of the design in the wording of your question: > kill author was proud to be an online entity and didn’t view it as being the second best option after print, which- rightly or wrongly- I felt many online literary journals did at the time. There was also a sense, in many online publications, that the content was the only important aspect, not the look and feel of the site, and as a result some of the designs I saw were completely atrocious and made my retinas bleed. That applied even to some of my favourite literary magazines. I’m so pleased that, three or so years later, both those tendencies have changed for the better.

  I’m rather fortunate when it comes to putting together websites, because the web is my career. I’ve been a web producer, both building and editing sites, for over thirteen years, so I have some knowledge of good web design and typography. I love minimalism, but there’s a common assumption that it can only be achieved via acres of whitespace. I consciously steered away from that. Black backgrounds, of course, are a popular opposite- and one I’ve noted in quite a few literary journals – but while they might scream “We’re so intense” they can also be tiring to read from on a screen for long periods. So I went with what I hope was a calming, yet unusual, grey background.

  The typography for > kill author had to be sans serif (apart from the typewriter style font of the logo) because, while serif fonts are preferable to read on paper, they’re not suited to the web. I also loathe the design fixation, particularly evident on sites related to literary subjects, with trying to make online content look like print. It’s ridiculous, quite honestly, because they’re entirely different beasts and used in completely different ways. As for the interface, well, that’s my background in building websites coming into play again- it’s been drilled into me over years that sites just have to be useable and easily navigable.

  Mike Meginnis wrote a really good post for Uncanny Valley’s blog a couple of years ago, which was all about the design of > kill author and a few other online journals. It’s an excellent, accurate and very observant piece, which still has a lot to teach anyone if they’re putting together a new literary site.

  4. Currently, what are some of your favorite literary magazines?

  In the introduction to the final issue I actually mentioned the literary magazines that really appeal to me and never fail to get my attention.

  LIES/ISLE has fascinated me from the moment it first appeared, for its incredibly inventive design, its themed nature and, of course, its amazingly challenging (and yes, I did say “challenging”) content. DIAGRAM is the same- always surprising, always thought-provoking content backed by an unusual and characterful design.

  ILK Journal is newer, but I’ve loved every issue so far. > kill author published quite a lot of poetry in comparison to many journals, but I was always extremely selective in accepting submissions, perhaps even more so than with prose, because I find the reaction to poetry often comes from a much more emotional level (and that, of course, depends on the reader’s/editor’s own emotional level). ILK‘s chosen poems always have a very good strike rate when I read each issue, and I suppose I read many of them with half a thought that they’re the kind of work that could have also found a home in > kill author.

  Although > kill author pursued a committed online route, I loved the four print issues of Artifice Magazine and I really look forward to seeing where the editorial team go with their plans for the future. I also admired the fact that the magazine had a conscious “manifesto” – something that certainly influenced me when I was coming up with the approach for > kill author. I think many editors shy away from a manifesto in favour of simply saying they want to publish “great work”. Well, everyone wants to publish great work, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a “big idea” behind your choices. In fact, I see it as an immensely positive thing.

  Finally, I can’t leave out PANK. It continues to showcase a wonderful mix of work, from quite conventionally structured stories through to unusual, daring poetry, but what I particularly admire is how the journal has maintained such high standards for so long. That really takes some doing when other publications, like > kill author, come and go.

  5. Did you ever receive emails where readers playfully (or aggressively) attempted to guess your identity? Did such emails flatter, disturb, or bore you?

  There were a few playful, though never aggressive, emails in the first few months of > kill author‘s existence, which I responded to in an equally playful way because they were usually flattering and well meant. On the web, however, I saw some very aggressive conversations about > kill author, the identity of the editors, the ethics of being anonymous, which at times became exceptionally nasty. Thankfully, even those vituperative forum posts and comments disappeared after a year or so when, I hope, it became clear that > kill author was sticking around and continuing to publish good work. Cheekily, I’ll admit that I always found it quite amusing when some of the people who in the past had been the most vocal in criticising > kill author then ended up sending in submissions- though I hasten to add that since I always tried not to look at a writer’s name until after I’d decided on the fate of a particular piece, that didn’t influence my decision.

  6. What were some of the unexpected delights of editing > kill author? I’d love to hear about anything that floored you.

  The biggest delight was always when I read pieces that, as I think I said in some of my editorial on the site, made my jaw drop- usually because of the writing style, the language or the imaginative ideas on display, but sometimes other aspects too. It’s as simple as that, really. To elaborate: I guess it was particularly delightful when such work came from a name I’d never heard of before, or when it was a writer who was clearly trying something very new for them. There were also a few occasions when I received work that, initially, didn’t fit into the style of > kill author but, as I read, the jaw started wobbling and then dropped to the desk. I won’t name specific pieces because it would be unfair to highlight particular writers, but I’ll give you an example: I’m really not keen on stories with very domestic scenarios detailing events within a family, and > kill author received a lot of these. A lot. Especially about childhood. However, there are a few such pieces in the magazine’s archives and though they’re different in subject matter from more “typical” > kill author material, they somehow fit- whether it’s because an aspect of the language, other themes, something else, maybe something that can’t be easily defined. But they fit.

  I loved getting emails from people who weren’t writers, who weren’t looking to submit work in future, saying that they had somehow discovered the site and enjoyed reading an issue. One thing that’s always bothered me about the online literary scene and also, to an extent, small press publishing is that the readership is completely dominated by writers who are also submitting work to the same selection of publications. I understand why that happens, but it can feel a little claustrophobic and as if you’re always preaching to the converted. It was fantastic to discover that > kill author had readers who weren’t part of that scene and didn’t even have any interest in it.

  7. I’ve got to ask: what went into your decision to include “>” in the magazine’s title?

  I love that question- I was asked about the name on many occasions, but never about the “>”.

  As I mentioned earlier, I work on the web. That means I’m obviously a bit of a geek. In the kind of raw computer programming that most of us never see these days because we’ve got glossy operating systems hiding all the complexity, “>” is the prompt to enter an instruction, and “kill” is the term used to instruct a computer to end a process. If you’re a child of the ’80s, as I am, you might also note a reference to those old text adventure games: “> kill author”, “> kill frodo”, “> kill everyone”. The many hours I wasted playing The Hobbit on my ZX Spectrum in 1982 clearly stayed with me.

  8. In the introduction to the final issue, you share some of your reasons for starting the magazine:

  …when this journal launched in the middle of 2009, online literary magazines were in the ascendant. They even came with a “scene” attached (though never > kill author‘s kind of scene, to be honest). Looking around at these publications, I noticed that many of them had editors whose personalities and reputations seemed, at times, to almost overshadow the work they published. I wanted to put the focus back on the content and, as a result, chose anonymity.

  When you look at today’s online literary magazines, what do you make of them? Do you think there’s still a “scene,” and that editors’ personalities and reputations take precedent? Or does it seem to you that greater focus is placed on content?

  Things have changed considerably in the three years since > kill author launched. I think, thankfully, that content has returned to being the greater focus, just as it should be. As for editors’ personalities and reputations- well, maybe it’s just because I’m taking slightly less interest, but I honestly couldn’t tell you the names of more than a couple of literary magazine editors now, whereas in 2009 I could have reeled off a host of names.

  The whole “online literary scene” is something that I’ve always found wearisome, I’m afraid, and I know that’s a very unpopular view that puts me firmly in the minority. Frankly speaking, for all that people inside the bubble of the “lit scene” talk about how supportive it is, I just see writers endlessly back-slapping and telling each other how great they are, how important they are, how the community is the be all and end all. I fully appreciate that I may well be alone in this viewpoint, but writing is a solitary activity most of the time and I tend to think that’s how it should remain.

  Unfortunately, I also realise it’s because of my chosen career- the web and by extension social media- that nowadays there apparently have to be online communities for anything that people do, including writing.

  As to whether there’s still a “scene”, I really couldn’t tell you. My perception would be that it’s dispersed and faded a little, thank heavens, but I guess there are still some people who are unwilling to give it up. If that’s what makes them happy in their writing life and keeps them doing what they love, then good for them, but it was never really my favoured environment and, as a result, it was never really > kill author‘s either.

  9. In the final issue, you also discuss your reasons for ending >kill author‘s run. You mention that “the focus is gradually shifting to e-books and the small/self-publishers,” and you reference the “uncertainty we can’t help feeling about the place of online literary journals in such a quickly shifting landscape.” You note that the current climate might “require a radically different approach to running a literary magazine.” Do you yet have a sense of what this radically different approach might entail? Can you point to any pioneers? And do you think that the literary magazine- at least how we conceive of it now- is an endangered species?

  I wish I did have a sense of what that different approach might entail, because then I might be tempted to get ahead of the rest and do it. But I don’t. I don’t have a clue. Yet. I do think that e-books and the opportunity to self-publish your own e-books has already made a small difference to the nature of publishing, and I think those changes are only going to get more profound in the next couple of years.

  10. Can you talk a little more about the small but growing effect of e-books on the nature of publishing? What is this effect, and what do you think it might lead to?

  I suppose, if I’m brutally honest with myself, I was rather a coward when writing the introduction to the final issue of > kill author. I didn’t feel as if I could say, in such clear terms, that the literary magazine might well be an endangered species, because it would seem ungracious, even rude: “Well, it’s all been great fun, but > kill author is abandoning this ship before it sinks”. I can’t emphasise strongly enough that this absolutely wasn’t the reason I brought > kill author to an end- it was far more personal, because I felt I couldn’t do justice to reading the sheer amount of submissions anymore- but my uncertainty about the future of literary magazines undoubtedly played a part in the decision.

  I appreciate that it may sound harsh, but I don’t think progress is something that should scare us. Yes, it might mean that literary magazines eventually become far fewer in number, though I don’t think they’ll ever die out entirely. Yet would such a decline necessarily be a bad thing if something better came along and existed alongside? I don’t think so. Look at e-books- yes, there are still some who complain that they’re”killing off” traditional hardbacks and paperbacks, but people love their Kindles, Nooks and iPads and they’re reading more books than ever before as a result. Surely that’s a positive development, not a negative one?

  11. Where are you at with your own writing? You’ve spent so much of the last three years devoting your time to the work of others- what sorts of writing projects are you working on these days?

  This is the embarrassing question. Or rather the embarrassing answer. The writing projects I’m working on these days can be summed up in precisely one word: none.

  When I started > kill author I was already writing less- perhaps one of the reasons I wanted to try editing a literary magazine – but in the ensuing three years I’ve stopped entirely. I’m not pretentious enough to call it writer’s block, because that would somehow imply that I thought I was a good enough writer to have a genuine case of writer’s block, but every now and then I try and rediscover the words and just end up staring at a blank white screen for hours. Whether I’ll ever be a writer of fiction (and my usually disastrous attempts at poetry) again, I really don’t know. I hope so, but if not then I certainly want and need to find something to replace that gaping hole in my life.

  Besides, having edited a literary magazine like > kill author for three years, I can absolutely tell you that they’re quite enough people who want to be writers. Probably too many, in fact. One less writer won’t be any great loss.

  12. Any thoughts on what your next editing/publishing project might be?

  Well, I took voluntary redundancy from my job at the start of August, so my first”project” has to be the mundane but utterly necessary task of getting a job. (No, that’s not a pitch for employment- though if there are any interesting publishers reading this who want to take on someone with fantastic web experience and knowledge of e-books, then I’m not ashamed to suggest that you should get in touch. Now. Please.)

  Otherwise, no, I still have no idea of what my next project might be. I thoroughly enjoy editing online magazines, but I don’t want to do one on my own again because by now I would value the opportunity to bounce ideas off other people. I’d actually like to be part of a genuine editorial “team” next time, rather than just me sitting alone at my desk and pretending to be a team. Also, as I said in the closing note of the final issue, whatever my next project might be, I won’t be doing it anonymously. Once is enough for that trick.

  Vaughan Simons lives in London, has a prosthetic limb (but not for fun), and worked as a web producer/editor at the BBC for over fourteen years. He recently took voluntary redundancy and is currently looking for employment (which is only a partial hint that you might like to offer him a well-paid job).

  Joseph Scapellato was born in the suburbs of Chicago and earned his MFA in Fiction at New Mexico State University. His work appears in Unsaid, Post Road, Artifice, Kenyon Review Online, Harper Perennial’s collection Forty Stories, and other places. Joseph is Blog Editor at The Collagist. He can be reached at joseph [dot] scapellato [at] gmail [dot] com.

  This entry was posted in This Modern Writer and tagged >kill author, Joseph Scapellato, lit mags, Vaughan Simons. Bookmark the permalink.

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10/3/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1507059927914 1/2
Print Marked Items
Scapellato, Joseph: BIG LONESOME
Kirkus Reviews.
(Jan. 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text: 
Scapellato, Joseph BIG LONESOME Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Adult Fiction) $13.95 2, 28 ISBN: 978-0-
544-76980-9
Scapellato's first collection of short fiction means to bust the mythologies of the American West.In these 25 stories,
Scapellato moves from the allegorical to the (almost) natural, traversing the territory with a fluid grace. "Cowgirl"
takes its title at face value, describing a young woman, "born of a beef cow," who must navigate a human world that is
completely alien to her. "Do I come from myself? Do I come from outside myself? Do I need to know? Do I need new
questions?" she asks in a litany that might stand as an epigraph for the entire book. What Scapellato does so well here
is what he does throughout these narratives: to take the absurd and make it real. "It was loaded, I was loaded. The
bottle was not the only way but it was the way that was available, my husband's way, the weakest way to make me
strong," he begins "A Mother Buries a Gun in the Desert Again," the saga of a woman trying to save her teenage son.
The truth, of course, is that he can't be saved, any more than anyone here can be--or perhaps it's more accurate to say
that he must save himself. Certainly, that's what happens to the protagonist of "Driving in the Early Dark, Ted Falls
Asleep," which closes with a plaintive inquiry: "I want to live awake?" Living awake, of course, is the best that we can
hope for, which the figures who populate these strange and graceful stories understand. "It was the kind of day that
made you think that thinking about the things that mattered was what mattered," the narrator insists in "One of the
Days I Nearly Died," which unfolds, for the most part, as a single paragraph. "Was where you were what mattered?"
Scapellato's debut is unpredictable, witty, and self-aware while remaining heartfelt in the most unexpected ways.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Scapellato, Joseph: BIG LONESOME." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475357423&it=r&asid=71d8a0abebe4180c8f18b6ae3f7f80f2.
Accessed 3 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475357423

---

10/3/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1507059927914 2/2
Big Lonesome
Publishers Weekly.
263.51 (Dec. 12, 2016): p120.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text: 
Big Lonesome
Joseph Capellato. Mariner, $13.95 trade
paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-544-76980-9
Scapellato's refreshing stories engage at every point and are capped off with perfect endings. Scapellato is an
exceptional surrealist, and he seems to have a firm handle on his own exuberance and quirkiness, his characters
reminiscent of familiar archetypes but served with a twist. His subjects never wander far from cowboys, cowgirls, and
the myths of the cinematic West. His short stories have a lean trajectory and economy. "Immigrants" offers an
idealized mini-biography of a child of immigrants, told from a parent's perspective; the name of the child is left blank
throughout, emphasizing the universality and, perhaps, the triteness of this dream. Other evocative stories--among
them "Western Avenue," "Life Story," "Driving in the Early Dark, Ted Falls Asleep"--are like high-resolution
snapshots, full of vivid detail. The few longer, shaggier stories are fdled with subtitles that break them into episodes
and repetitive hooks that lend structure. "Cowboy Good Stuff's Four True Loves" features a sheriff's daughter (also a
schoolteacher), a Spanish don's daughter, a prostitute, and a radio as well as some sidebar favorites. In "Cowgirl," the
title character slowly comes to understand her own special strangeness. This debut collection is bracing and delightful.
(Feb.)
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Big Lonesome." Publishers Weekly, 12 Dec. 2016, p. 120+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475225029&it=r&asid=76eefbd2201723133cf7bfa9d2cab7dd.
Accessed 3 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475225029

• Lancashire Post
  http://www.lep.co.uk/lifestyle/books/book-review-big-lonesome-by-joseph-scapellato-1-8415771
  Word count: 2568

  Jobs Cars Homes Announcements Advertise My Business Sign In Search LIFESTYLE BOOKS FOOD & DRINK LEISURE GAMING WEDDINGS NOSTALGIA WHAT'S ON EVENTS CARS NEWS CRIME TRANSPORT BUSINESS POLITICS EDUCATION HEALTH ENVIRONMENT OFFBEAT OPINION YOUR SAY CELEBS REGIONAL NATIONAL SPORT FOOTBALL RUGBY UNION CRICKET ATHLETICS BOXING GOLF BASKETBALL SNOOKER BADMINTON HOCKEY SQUASH NATIONAL SPORT WHAT'S ON MUSIC THEATRE COMEDY TV FILM ARTS WRESTLING LIFESTYLE FOOD & DRINK NOSTALGIA EVENTS TRAVEL & LEISURE YOUR WEDDINGS GAMING CARS HOMES YOUR LANCASHIRE CHORLEY FYLDE COAST HEYSHAM KIRKHAM PRESTON LANCASTER LEYLAND MORECAMBE NORTH WEST RIBBLE VALLEY SOUTH RIBBLE WARTON WYRE & GARSTANG Book review: Big Lonesome by Joseph Scapellato Big Lonesome by Joseph Scapellato NICHOLAS LITCHFIELD Email Published: 14:54 Wednesday 01 March 2017 Share this article 0 HAVE YOUR SAY In his bold debut story collection, Joseph Scapellato takes aim at the American frontier’s familiar gun-toting, galloping figures and proceeds to blast 25 blistering holes clean through them. Often amusing, thoughtful and poetic, Big Lonesome is a weird and wildly inventive collection of 25 uniquely imagined short stories focused on the mythologies of the American West and the archetypal nomadic characters who roam the vast, pockmarked, barren landscape. Divided into three sections (Old West, New West and Post West), with some of the longer stories broken up by explanatory titles into mini episodes, the narratives feature a hotchpotch of eccentric cowboy drifters, gunslingers, wilful farm girls, sheriffs, women of ill repute, and even a cowgirl ‘born of a beef cow,’ all vividly dreamed up from the pungent cookfires of Western folklore. In the New West section, the emphasis is on the changing physical and cultural landscape of America. The memory of the Old West has ‘worn vague’ as a result of the rise of cities and growth of immigrant populations, but in the Post West segment we find it still survives. Characters ‘pass like coins’ from place to place, moving through saloons their grandfathers drank in and woods that Native Americans inhabited. On their journey through America, they carry with them stories passed on to them by their forefathers, whose histories and adventures live on from one generation to the next. Arguably, the Old West and its spurs-and-saddle narratives of cowboys ‘alone or lonesomely together’ provide the most unexpected, colourful moments. Characters like the untameable ‘Horseman Cowboy’ with the overactive libido, and the macho ‘Mutt-Face’ with the ‘irascible open-mouthed grin’ who is riddled with insecurity, linger in the memory. There is also a starkly amusing campfire scene where fourteen cowboys stare at a ‘dead man’ their dogs have found in a parched ravine and contemplate the diverse array of people they have brutally killed. Of the fourteen, Redondo’s atrocities stand out above the others, perhaps because his methods seem most novel – he and others have ‘driven a stampede’ into countless ‘scrambling and screaming’ men, women and children. Of all the stories, the absurdly comic ‘Five Episodes of White-Hat Black-Hat’ is perhaps the best of the collection. Here, Scapellato serves up the traditional timeworn stereotypes but deviates from the expected path, presenting instead a more philosophical and introspective cowboy and, ultimately, a bleaker, more melancholy vision of the Wild West. The black-hat cowboy and his gang of outlaws remain the fearsome source of evil we have come to expect from the genre’s best villains. Having ‘shot the sheriff’s ranch hands,’ kidnapped his daughters, rustled his cattle and stolen his cash, they then capture the ‘white-hat cowboy’ sent to bring them to justice. The sensitive, ‘crying’ hero who we see ‘blushing’ while the outlaws defecate into the fire is no hero at all, merely a hopeless, impotent spectator. Tied to a cactus, then stuffed in a sack with his head poking out and slung over a horse, he is unable to do anything other than watch the outlaws set fire to tribal villages, shoot up settlers’ wagons, rob a bank, kidnap and kill ‘five gals,’ and do other cruel and violent deeds on their journey into town. There is a prevailing pessimistic tone to the book – like the mother who buries a gun in the desert in an effort to save her teenage son, many of the characters cannot be saved. And the white-hat cowboy, crushed and defeated, is no more or less a hero than anyone else who aspires to do good. The underlying message, if indeed there is one, may be for us to stop romanticising the past and learn to adapt to the present in order to survive. Amusing and affecting and utterly unique, Scapellato’s absurd reimagining of the roughed-up, Stetson-wearing cowboy who once inhabited the American West will startle and surprise those accustomed to Western fiction. Big Lonesome is an impressive debut story collection by a canny, poetically talented storyteller. (Mariner Books, paperback, £11.00) by Taboola Sponsored Links . Is the GX7 Golf Driver Replacing Traditional Drivers? GX7 GOLF Try Not To Gasp When You See What Dog's Wife Looks Like Now PSYCHICMONDAY Hollywood Actress Tells All: “I Hope My Story Will Help Other Women” ACTIVATEDYOU Doctor's New Discover Makes Foot Calluses "Vanish" DERMALMEDIX SKIN CARE The Razor Deal That Everyone's Talking About DOLLAR SHAVE CLUB Newark, Ohio Drivers Are Stunned By This New Rule CHIMP QUOTE AUTO INSURANCE 18 Stars Who Have Lost It All and Now Work At Normal Jobs WORLDLIFESTYLE Want A Gorgeous Head Of Hair Again? Don't Use This Popular Product JUVETRESS Cards Now Offering 40,000 Point Bonuses NEXTADVISOR My Worst Date: ‘He walked so fast I was left on my own’
  Becky, 23, from Camden, north London works at an arts charity I knew it was going to be a bad date when: he walked up to me and, without even saying hello, he said: ‘Right, let’s go’ and stomped off. It was our: first date We met: through the dating/friendship app Badoo I thought he […]
  Th INEWS Car flipped onto its roof by drunk driver in Preston The driver of a blue vehicle flipped their car in Cottam over the weekend after deciding to drink and drive. by Taboola Sponsored Links Trending on The Web First Pics: See the New Cars Coming for 2018 KELLEY BLUE BOOK #1 Secret To Better Metabolism (Do This Daily) LCR HEALTH Sponsored LinksMore Stories 5 Ways To Improve Your Sushi Delivery Order The Crave by Grubhub 5 Supplements For Faster Muscle Gain Bodybuilding.com Newark: This Meal Service is Cheaper Than Your Local Store Home Chef Newark, Ohio Drivers Surprised By New Rule Quote Wizard Insurance by Taboola Trending Delays after 'severe' road collapse in Preston City Centre Lancashire nurse demands better hospital parking facilities TK Maxx pulls out of Chorley's Market Walk...but M&S close to signing Two arrested after 'stolen' car stung in Preston GRAPHIC CONTENT: Victim 'did nothing to provoke' killer teen More from Lifestyle Police chase ends in crash and arrest at Preston Docks PROJECT UPDATE: Firm sees a Gap in the market at popular retail park M6 motorway at a standstill after vehicle fire Preston’s new boutique hotel to be named after benefactor News The Essential Daily Briefing Bear Grylls accused of breaking Scout rules for appearing at... Oxford 'women's college' criticised for fielding all-male... Borderline Personality Disorder: ‘This is what it looks... Every new Michelin star and Bib Gourmand awarded in the... What The Apprentice is really like - according to Lord Sugar's... Follow Us On Explore News Sport Preston North End What's On Lifestyle More from the Lancashire Evening Post Announcements Buy a Photo Directory Jobs Homes Cars Dating Local Guide Public Notices Mobility Aids Reader Shop Useful Links Contact Us Advertise My Business Advertise a Job Place your Ad Subscribe © 2017 Johnston Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. Terms and Conditions Disclaimer Cookies Policy Jobs Cars Homes Announcements Advertise My Business Sign In Search LIFESTYLE BOOKS FOOD & DRINK LEISURE GAMING WEDDINGS NOSTALGIA WHAT'S ON EVENTS CARS NEWS CRIME TRANSPORT BUSINESS POLITICS EDUCATION HEALTH ENVIRONMENT OFFBEAT OPINION YOUR SAY CELEBS REGIONAL NATIONAL SPORT FOOTBALL RUGBY UNION CRICKET ATHLETICS BOXING GOLF BASKETBALL SNOOKER BADMINTON HOCKEY SQUASH NATIONAL SPORT WHAT'S ON MUSIC THEATRE COMEDY TV FILM ARTS WRESTLING LIFESTYLE FOOD & DRINK NOSTALGIA EVENTS TRAVEL & LEISURE YOUR WEDDINGS GAMING CARS HOMES YOUR LANCASHIRE CHORLEY FYLDE COAST HEYSHAM KIRKHAM PRESTON LANCASTER LEYLAND MORECAMBE NORTH WEST RIBBLE VALLEY SOUTH RIBBLE WARTON WYRE & GARSTANG Book review: Big Lonesome by Joseph Scapellato Big Lonesome by Joseph Scapellato NICHOLAS LITCHFIELD Email Published: 14:54 Wednesday 01 March 2017 Share this article 0 HAVE YOUR SAY In his bold debut story collection, Joseph Scapellato takes aim at the American frontier’s familiar gun-toting, galloping figures and proceeds to blast 25 blistering holes clean through them. Often amusing, thoughtful and poetic, Big Lonesome is a weird and wildly inventive collection of 25 uniquely imagined short stories focused on the mythologies of the American West and the archetypal nomadic characters who roam the vast, pockmarked, barren landscape. Divided into three sections (Old West, New West and Post West), with some of the longer stories broken up by explanatory titles into mini episodes, the narratives feature a hotchpotch of eccentric cowboy drifters, gunslingers, wilful farm girls, sheriffs, women of ill repute, and even a cowgirl ‘born of a beef cow,’ all vividly dreamed up from the pungent cookfires of Western folklore. In the New West section, the emphasis is on the changing physical and cultural landscape of America. The memory of the Old West has ‘worn vague’ as a result of the rise of cities and growth of immigrant populations, but in the Post West segment we find it still survives. Characters ‘pass like coins’ from place to place, moving through saloons their grandfathers drank in and woods that Native Americans inhabited. On their journey through America, they carry with them stories passed on to them by their forefathers, whose histories and adventures live on from one generation to the next. Arguably, the Old West and its spurs-and-saddle narratives of cowboys ‘alone or lonesomely together’ provide the most unexpected, colourful moments. Characters like the untameable ‘Horseman Cowboy’ with the overactive libido, and the macho ‘Mutt-Face’ with the ‘irascible open-mouthed grin’ who is riddled with insecurity, linger in the memory. There is also a starkly amusing campfire scene where fourteen cowboys stare at a ‘dead man’ their dogs have found in a parched ravine and contemplate the diverse array of people they have brutally killed. Of the fourteen, Redondo’s atrocities stand out above the others, perhaps because his methods seem most novel – he and others have ‘driven a stampede’ into countless ‘scrambling and screaming’ men, women and children. Of all the stories, the absurdly comic ‘Five Episodes of White-Hat Black-Hat’ is perhaps the best of the collection. Here, Scapellato serves up the traditional timeworn stereotypes but deviates from the expected path, presenting instead a more philosophical and introspective cowboy and, ultimately, a bleaker, more melancholy vision of the Wild West. The black-hat cowboy and his gang of outlaws remain the fearsome source of evil we have come to expect from the genre’s best villains. Having ‘shot the sheriff’s ranch hands,’ kidnapped his daughters, rustled his cattle and stolen his cash, they then capture the ‘white-hat cowboy’ sent to bring them to justice. The sensitive, ‘crying’ hero who we see ‘blushing’ while the outlaws defecate into the fire is no hero at all, merely a hopeless, impotent spectator. Tied to a cactus, then stuffed in a sack with his head poking out and slung over a horse, he is unable to do anything other than watch the outlaws set fire to tribal villages, shoot up settlers’ wagons, rob a bank, kidnap and kill ‘five gals,’ and do other cruel and violent deeds on their journey into town. There is a prevailing pessimistic tone to the book – like the mother who buries a gun in the desert in an effort to save her teenage son, many of the characters cannot be saved. And the white-hat cowboy, crushed and defeated, is no more or less a hero than anyone else who aspires to do good. The underlying message, if indeed there is one, may be for us to stop romanticising the past and learn to adapt to the present in order to survive. Amusing and affecting and utterly unique, Scapellato’s absurd reimagining of the roughed-up, Stetson-wearing cowboy who once inhabited the American West will startle and surprise those accustomed to Western fiction. Big Lonesome is an impressive debut story collection by a canny, poetically talented storyteller. (Mariner Books, paperback, £11.00) by Taboola Sponsored Links . Is the GX7 Golf Driver Replacing Traditional Drivers? GX7 GOLF Try Not To Gasp When You See What Dog's Wife Looks Like Now PSYCHICMONDAY Hollywood Actress Tells All: “I Hope My Story Will Help Other Women” ACTIVATEDYOU Doctor's New Discover Makes Foot Calluses "Vanish" DERMALMEDIX SKIN CARE The Razor Deal That Everyone's Talking About DOLLAR SHAVE CLUB Newark, Ohio Drivers Are Stunned By This New Rule CHIMP QUOTE AUTO INSURANCE 18 Stars Who Have Lost It All and Now Work At Normal Jobs WORLDLIFESTYLE Want A Gorgeous Head Of Hair Again? Don't Use This Popular Product JUVETRESS Cards Now Offering 40,000 Point Bonuses NEXTADVISOR My Worst Date: ‘He walked so fast I was left on my own’ Becky, 23, from Camden, north London works at an arts charity I knew it was going to be a bad date when: he walked up to me and, without even saying hello, he said: ‘Right, let’s go’ and stomped off. It was our: first date We met: through the dating/friendship app Badoo I thought he […] Th INEWS Car flipped onto its roof by drunk driver in Preston The driver of a blue vehicle flipped their car in Cottam over the weekend after deciding to drink and drive. by Taboola Sponsored Links Trending on The Web First Pics: See the New Cars Coming for 2018 KELLEY BLUE BOOK #1 Secret To Better Metabolism (Do This Daily) LCR HEALTH Sponsored LinksMore Stories 5 Ways To Improve Your Sushi Delivery Order The Crave by Grubhub 5 Supplements For Faster Muscle Gain Bodybuilding.com Newark: This Meal Service is Cheaper Than Your Local Store Home Chef Newark, Ohio Drivers Surprised By New Rule Quote Wizard Insurance by Taboola Trending Delays after 'severe' road collapse in Preston City Centre Lancashire nurse demands better hospital parking facilities TK Maxx pulls out of Chorley's Market Walk...but M&S close to signing Two arrested after 'stolen' car stung in Preston GRAPHIC CONTENT: Victim 'did nothing to provoke' killer teen More from Lifestyle Police chase ends in crash and arrest at Preston Docks PROJECT UPDATE: Firm sees a Gap in the market at popular retail park M6 motorway at a standstill after vehicle fire Preston’s new boutique hotel to be named after benefactor News The Essential Daily Briefing Bear Grylls accused of breaking Scout rules for appearing at... Oxford 'women's college' criticised for fielding all-male... Borderline Personality Disorder: ‘This is what it looks... Every new Michelin star and Bib Gourmand awarded in the... What The Apprentice is really like - according to Lord Sugar's... Follow Us On Explore News Sport Preston North End What's On Lifestyle More from the Lancashire Evening Post Announcements Buy a Photo Directory Jobs Homes Cars Dating Local Guide Public Notices Mobility Aids Reader Shop Useful Links Contact Us Advertise My Business Advertise a Job Place your Ad Subscribe © 2017 Johnston Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. Terms and Conditions Disclaimer Cookies Policy Read more at: http://www.lep.co.uk/lifestyle/books/book-review-big-lonesome-by-joseph-scapellato-1-8415771

  Read more at: http://www.lep.co.uk/lifestyle/books/book-review-big-lonesome-by-joseph-scapellato-1-8415771