Short stories and memoirs told in the usual unforgettably shocking manner previously seen in Little Men also published by Hard Press. These tales from the seamier side of life draw the reader into a nihilistic world that smacks of Bukowski's, but with a brash eroticism and a cheerful cynicism that is unmistakably Kevin Killian's.

"Kevin Killian writes like a bent angel who wants to inflict pleasure and delection. His confections dissolve into sensation on the tongue. Pleasure and safety are opposites, and these jumpy stories turn on the moment when our hero sees the broader perspective-of someone who wants to damage him"

"The palpability of Kevin Killian's storytelling is perfect even if, as we bask in the paradoxical charisma of it, the good guys have gone and stolen the jewelry for no reason."

Kevin Killian, born 1952, is a poet, novelist, critic and playwright. He has written a novel, Shy (1989), a book of memoirs, Bedrooms Have Windows (1989), and three chapbooks, Desiree (1986), Santa (1995), and The Kink of Chris Komater (1999). In the last few years he has published: a new novel, Arctic Summer (1997), and a book of stories, Little Men (1996), which won the PEN Oakland award for fiction. His first book of poetry, Argento Series, appeared in the autumn of 1997.

With Lew Ellingham, Killian has written many essays and articles on the life and work of the American poet Jack Spicer [1925-65] and co-edited Spicer's posthumous books The Train of Thought and The Tower of Babel (both 1994). Their biography of Spicer, Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance was published by Wesleyan University Press in 1998. He is writing a new novel Spreadeagle, and a sequel to his memoirs called Bachelors Get Lonely. With Dodie Bellamy he has edited 92 issues of the SF-based writing/art zine they call Mirage #4/Period[ical].

Grants and Awards

• Washington Prize, 1998, for best poem published in The Washington Review in 1998 (Perche Quelle Strane...)
• San Francisco Bay Guardian Outstanding Local Discovery Award in Literature, 1998
• California Arts Council, Award for Poetry, 1997
• Little Men, winner, Josephine Miles Award, PEN/Oakland, 1997
• The Fund for Poetry, 1996
• The Fund for Poetry, 1995
• California Arts Council, Award for Fiction, 1991
• Shy, nominee for Best Novel, Lambda Literary Awards, 1990