Rock and a Hard Place Issue Eight: Summer 2022
Published August 24, 2022
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When your girlfriend is selling your used condoms, rethink the relationship.
High school is until death do us part.
Clowns! That's all we're gonna say.
Could anything be worse than looking like Ben Affleck? Well, yeah.
Issue Eight of Rock And A Hard Place chose its own theme. We've been seeing that happening. This time it's prison. Confinement. That trapped feeling. Knowing you have no choice.
What could be more noir than that?
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
MIKE McHONE’s (@mike_mchone) work has appeared in Ellery Queen, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Mystery Weekly Magazine, Mystery Tribune, Guilty Crime Magazine, Punk Noir, the AV Club, the Detroit News, and is forthcoming in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. In 2021 his short story “Lesson of the Lamp” appeared in Under the Thumb: Stories of Police Oppression, edited by S.A. Cosby. Although he lives in Detroit, anyone can pay him a visit at www.mikemchone.com
JENNIFER STARK’s (@JenEgan72) writing has appeared in Bull: Men's Fiction. She is currently at work on a novel about 18th century criminals forced to immigrate to Louisiana. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Southern Illinois University.
AISLINN KELLY-LYTH (@LawAislinn) is a London-based lawyer who took up creating writing during the pandemic. Her short story “Refuge” was Highly Commended in the Costa Short Story Awards 2020, and her piece “Keeping Distance” was published in Idler.
STEPHEN J. GOLDS (@SteveGone58) was born in North London, U.K, but has lived in Japan for most of his adult life. He writes primarily in the noir and dirty realism genres and is the co-editor of Punk Noir Magazine. He enjoys spending time with his daughters, reading books, traveling the world, boxing, and listening to old Soul LPs. His books are Say Goodbye When I’m Gone, I’ll Pray When I’m Dying, Always the Dead, Poems for Ghosts in Empty Tenement Windows I Thought I Saw Once and the story and poetry collection Love Like Bleeding Out With an Empty Gun in Your Hand.
MARC WATKINS (@Marc__Watkins) lives in Oxford, Mississippi. His words have appeared in the Pushcart Prize, Litmag, StoryQuarterly, Boulevard, Slice Magazine, and Third Coast. His crime writing was featured in France with 13e Note Editions and he has written about rural crime for Criminal Element and Transfuge. His website: marcwatkins.org/about/
Born and raised in the Bronx, JASON ALLISON (@Jasonallison) was a homicide detective for the New York City Police Department. His fiction has been featured in the lit-noir journal Rock and a Hard Place and shortlisted for the Al Blanchard award. He has consulted for numerous authors and presented to members of the Mystery Writers of America and attendees of ThrillerFest. He can be reached at jason-allison.com.
SCOTT VON DOVIAK (@vondoviak) is a Derringer Award-nominated writer whose short fiction has appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, Mystery Tribune, and Shotgun Honey, among others. His novel Charlesgate Confidential (Hard Case Crime) was named one of the top 10 crime novels of 2018 by Tom Nolan of The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of three nonfiction books on film and television, including Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema. He lives in Austin, TX.
B. W. CARTER spends his days administering child welfare programs from the confines of a tiny monochrome cubicle. He spends his nights in a slightly larger, slightly more colorful cubicle, waterboarding word counts with demented glee. He’s been published at Mystery Tribune, The Yard: Crime Blog, Flash Fiction Magazine, Tales to Terrify, and The Drabble, among others.
ROBERT P. OTTONE (@robertottone) is the author of the horror collection Her Infernal Name & Other Nightmares (an honorable mention in The Best Horror of the Year Volume 13) as well as the young adult dystopian-cosmic horror trilogy The Rise. His short stories have appeared in various anthologies as well as online. He’s also the publisher and owner of Spooky House Press. Robert is an English as a New Language teacher, as well as a teacher of English Language Arts. He can be found online at SpookyHousePress.com. He delights in the creepy and views bagels solely as a cream cheese delivery device.
JOHN BOVIO (@john_bovio) is a writer, artist, and chef. His work has appeared in various publications and galleries around the world. He lives in Oakland, California.
EDDIE McNAMARA (@EddieMcNamara) is the author of the forthcoming novel Graveyard Stompers (Gutter Books, early 2023). He wrote Toss Your Own Salad: The Meatless Cookbook (St. Martin’s). His work has appeared in Penthouse, Vice, Thuglit, Shotgun Honey, All Due Respect, Switchblade, J. Journal, and a bunch of other places.
ANTHEA PRETORIUS holds a Master’s degree in Publishing. At the University of Pretoria, she produces a range of brochures, marketing materials and other information products. She is the Editor of the JuniorTukkie Magazine and the JT Newsletters. Her first poetry collection, Haiku from the Tip of Africa, was published by Naledi in 2019. Stanzas has published three of Anthea’s poems: “Did you see?” appeared in Stanzas in 2018; “Please wash me, Mama,” appeared in Edition 20 of Stanzas in July 2020. “The Light in Cucumber,” will appear in the forthcoming 2022 edition. Her creative writing appears in various anthologies and magazines. Two of her poems were published in the 2017 AVBOB National Poetry Competition. This was followed by a South African television series entitled, I Wish I’d Said (Ek Wou Nog Sê), which was broadcast on DSTV VIA Channel 147 from 28 August to 30 October 2018.
MARK JONATHAN HARRIS is a Los Angeles writer/filmmaker who has written both adult and children's fiction and produced numerous documentary films, including three which have won Oscars. One of his latest films is Foster which he wrote and directed and was nominated for Best Feature Documentary Screenplay by the Writers Guild of America. He also teaches filmmaking at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, where he is a Distinguished Professor.
ANDY BOYLE (@andymboyle) is a Chicago-based journalist whose work has appeared in Esquire, NBC News, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and more. Raised and educated in Nebraska, his work was cited in the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News. He's also the author of two non-fiction books through Penguin Random House.
MIKE ZIMMERMAN (@zimwrites) sold his first short story to Gorezone magazine in 1989. He is a 2022 National Magazine Award finalist and author of the crime novels A Mosquito Over Sunset and Where the Sun Don't Shine. His story "Metabolize to Freedom" appeared in Rock and a Hard Place, Issue 7. Find him at www.zimwrites.com.
HECTOR ACOSTA (@Hexican) is an Edgar-nominated author whose short stories have appeared in Shotgun Honey, Tough and the Best American Mystery and Suspense anthology. He's written Hardway, a wrestling inspired novella and lives in Texas with his wife, pets and more plastic robots than a man his age should have.
LINDA B. ADAMS (@lindabwriter) is a member of the Horror Writers Association and holds a B.S. and an M.A. in English. She has written numerous short stories and is at work on her sixth novel. She used to live in Texas, where many of her stories are set. She currently lives in Northern New York, where she works in an academic library when she's not putting fictional characters in difficult and unsettling situations.
CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS
(In order of appearance of work)
BRUCE HARRIS writes crime and mystery stories. His work has appeared in Mystery Magazine, Rock and a Hard Place, and Guilty Crime Story Magazine among others. His baseball murder mystery, Death in the Dugout, is published by Demain Publishing and available on Amazon. He also writes extensively about Sherlock Holmes. His latest book, It’s Not Always 1895 – A Sherlock Holmes Chronology is available on Amazon.
CHUCK KRAMER (@chuckkramer6167) has freelanced as a photographer for Windy City Times and Nightspots Magazine since 2005. His pictures have also appeared in InChicago and Show magazines and he's shot book covers, album covers, and author portraits for many Chicago artists. The Dominguez Art Gallery in Pilsen presented his fine art photos of poets reading at the weekly Weeds Open Mic in 2016. In March 2019 his show “Faces: Out and Proud” was featured at Chicago’s Center on Halsted. In the fall of 2019, “Vistas and Visages” was at the Bezazian Library in Uptown and his photo “Reflections” appeared in the Microcosmic show in Highland Park, IL. His study of New Orleans street musicians appeared in Knack magazine in 2019. Other photos were recently published in the Chicago Quarterly Review and the online e-zine The Muses Gallery.
KAREN BOISSONNEAULT-GAUTHIER (@KBG_Tweets) is an Indigenous artist/photographer creating cover images for Synkroniciti, Pine Cone Review, Feeel Magazine, Dyst, Arachne Press, Wild Musette, Gigantic Sequins, The Unmooring, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Gateway Review, Doubleback Review, and many more. Walking her Siberian Husky named Kiowa under an aurora borealis is forever a dream. Visit www.kcbgphoto.com for all her endeavors.
ALLISON RENNER (@AllisonRWrites; she/her) is a writer, editor, and photographer living in Memphis, Tennessee. Her fiction has appeared in or is forthcoming from Misery Tourism, the Daily Drunk, Six Sentences, Rejection Letters, Atlas and Alice, and others. She can be found online at allisonrennerwrites.com.
CHRIS KOEHN (@chriskoehn) is a former journalist hiding out in an old church just north of the Canada/Montana Border. His writing and photography has appeared in Canadian newspapers and many curious corners of the web.
JAY BECHTOL (@BechtolJay) likes to write, so he does. He occasionally takes pictures, too. Examples of both can be found at www.jaybechtol.com