Please feel free to take a look at our available titles that you can purchase in hard copy:
Brain Juice, by Litmocracy founder Dave Scotese: A collection of short stories intended to expand your mind and the minds of those with whom you share them.
Excerpt: “Your flushed face glows with a sheen of perspiration as you take another step up a dirt path. Up ahead is the top of a mountain and beyond its edge you see a blue cloudless sky. Reaching this peak, you notice the hot wind barely cooling your slowly drying skin. You approach the edge where the ground meets the sky, but stop short of a deep abyss. You look into it from thousands of feet up, seeing a solid dark green below. As you lean out to see the face of the cliff, trusting your toes to keep you from toppling, you are filled with an exhilarating sense of vertigo which grows stronger as you slide your eyes further and further down the cliff’s face. A sudden gust of wind plucks you from the edge and you are falling, too stunned to scream, fighting to suck in the hot air as it rushes upwards all around you. You watch the light brown wall race by, dotted here and there with a spot of green.”
You can purchase this book here.
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Midnight In America, By Don Eminizer: Every generation’s literature is fueled one way or another by its music. Classic lit grew in an era dominated by classic music, the golden era of the twenties had jazz, and the beats had jazz and rock. My generation had grunge… dispirited, listless, laconic grunge. Welcome to Midnight in America, the story of John Sterling. This is a tragedy from the back of a tour bus. John is a lost suburban orphan exploring existence itself, grabbing the world by the tail and then throwing it all away. Tearing into the darkness of alienation pushed by a crazed creative energy and will to succeed. Join his detached vision of the all consumptive world of rock, lit only by the faint glow of fame and fortune. Feel the high of performing and the euphoria of success accompanied by the hangover called addiction.
Excerpt: The clock crawled backwards as my jaw locked. “Watch ‘em thunk,” Tom squealed, pointing to the TV. Two football players slammed into each other, one in red, one in green.
BAM… That’s it bitches… They splattered to the ground, Eagle on Redskin with a hamburger smeared on some bloody commercial in the middle.
“You’re right,” I mumbled, “Godawful right.” He howled with laughter. In the next room, two of Sandy’s friends sat cross-legged throwing shoes at the wall. I watched the trails from shoes arc in the distance, they went ‘thunk’ into the wall like a Redskin eating fake turf. My head was raging, chasing itself in spirals like a shark trying to devour its own bloody tail. Sandy rose to her feet, a lost angel, live stinking bait on a plain hook in the mid-day sun, festering and alluring all at once.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded yes, just because. Things were definitely weird. Hours stretched into minutes. Seconds melted into eternity. A green guy streaked into the forbidden end zone throwing the pigskin to the ground, dancing over it as though he had taught it a lesson. “Whoop!” Tom screeched. He jumped up and ran into the other room, stealing a shoe from the shoe toss game, bolting into the bathroom. I sat there, plastered to my skull, tripping my balls off. My cigarette was a stick of chalk. I wrote messages with it in trails on the air, exchanging barbs in smoky tongues with hidden and largely imagined adversaries. The goldfish in the bowl on the TV wanted me to swim into video images. CHURP=Churop=chrp… Eating my own consciousness in little tasty flakes… So you got buggered by your uncle, so you got burried under the stairs at 4 with the spiders and crickets and smell of city piss until mom came home, SO YOU’RE GAWD AWLMIGHTY LEADING VOIGINS TO THE PROMIsssssssssssssed land and… The fish wanted to pluck me from my comfortable seat on the edge of reality and sprinkle me into Dawson’s Creek like I was Tetra flakes. Not cool Peter.
“Dawson… Jen… Girl with Black hair whose name everyone forgets… Come eat your John… YUMYUM YUM YUMMMMMM. Come on… It’s ssssssssuppah time!”
Then there was that blonde girl in a suntan lotion commercial smiling at me from the television, reminding me that I still had seeds lying around somewhere. The poet’s almanac said it was almost time to plant them bitches. I was one step away from 100 miles past the point of no return, laced to my own soul. “Heyyy youuu,” Tom reappeared, a flashlight beneath his chin. A sinister, pale light consumed his swirling muskrat face. “Lets dilate those bony eyes,” he taunted, shining the light in my face. I should have been wired, restless and jumpy like everyone else, but gravity tugged on every cell in my body. “I gotta’ go,” I mumbled. I rose and then slumped back in the chair. The last thing I remember was laughter, and my bony eyes staring at the ceiling as it peeled away to reveal the vast blackness beyond.
You can purchase this book here.
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Literal Translations, By Various Members: An anthology of short stories, poems and art work by Litmocracy members.
You can purchase any issue here.