Rock and a Hard Place Issue Five: Winter/Spring 2021
Published March 11, 2021
Click here to Purchase
Gangs, guns and tomatoes—what could go wrong?
Yeah, turn your back on that gray-haired woman in the old Lincoln.
Dumpstering a life is never just a job, especially when the owner is watching.
Rock And A Hard Place shifts into fifth gear, and the people have never been more desperate or the decisions worse. In issue five of Rock And A Hard Place you’ll find crime and much more. Wherever making the rent or a day of sobriety counts as a win, and wins and losses never even out, that’s our territory, and yours.
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
(In order of appearance of work)
DEB MERINO (@DebMerino) enjoys serial killer documentaries, dogs, gardening, and a fine pinot noir. One day her Google searches will earn her a spot on the FBI’s watch list. Her love for animals is reflected in her stories and you would be hard-pressed to find a plot or setting without a dog or cat. But don't be fooled, most of her stories are not warm and fuzzy. She is completing her third stand-alone suspense novel. Her work has been recognized as an Ink & Insights Top 10 Master Finalist and a Pacific Northwest Writers' Association Finalist.
CLAUDE LALUMIÈRE (@cldllmr or claudepages.info) is the author of more than 100 stories. His books include Objects of Worship (2009) and Venera Dreams: A Weird Entertainment, which was a selection of the Great Books Marquee at Word on the Street Toronto 2017. He has edited fourteen anthologies, including The Exile Book of New Canadian Noir (2015). Originally from Montreal, he now lives in Ottawa.
TRAVIS WADE BEATY (@TravisWBeaty) grew up in Northern Indiana, spent a good deal of his twenties in Los Angeles, and now resides in Washington DC. While he’s had a great many jobs, his favorites have included acting, teaching, and being a stay-at-home dad to two girls and three cats.
C.A. COLE (@C2jayt) lives in Colorado where she blogs about trees. In 2016 she was awarded the fiction prize from Dogwood: A Journal of Poetry and Prose. Her work has appeared around the net and in print in places such as Smokelong Quarterly, litbreak, and Gargoyle.
JOHN JOSEPH RYAN writes unusual tales, verse noir, and crime fiction. His work has appeared in River Styx, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Akashic Books' Mondays Are Murder and Fri-SciFi series, Flash Fiction Offensive, Shotgun Honey, Suspense Magazine, and in anthologies such as Noir Riot and Grievous Bodily Harm. John’s collaborative noir short, “Hothouse by the River,” was produced in association with the University of Iowa Center for the Book. His debut novel, A Bullet Apiece, was published in 2015 and became a bestseller for Amphorae Publishing Group. A teacher and Lincolnphile, he was co-contributor to a chapter on Lincoln and Walt Whitman in the textbook Teaching Lincoln: Legacies and Classroom Strategies. He lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with his wife, two pandemically-displaced adult children, and two half-tamed hound dogs.
R.D. SULLIVAN (@RDSullyWrites or govneh.com) is a writer of fiction, comedy and letters to the editor. She lives in Northern California with her family and four solidly mediocre dogs, where she runs a subcontracting business. Her work has been featured at Fireside Fiction Magazine, Shotgun Honey, and Tough, as well as appearing in various anthologies, including Killing Malmon, Murder-A-Go-Go’s and the Hamthology. She is also proud and ashamed of her most recent novella, Hotties and Bazingas and the Murder Cult Murders.
RICHARD RISEMBERG (@CrowTreeBooks), a known radical immigrant pseudo-intellectual scumbag halfbreed, tries to write nice stories, but they don't always turn out that way.
THOMAS PLUCK (@thomaspluck or patreon.com/thomaspluck) is the author of the Jay Desmarteaux crime thriller Bad Boy Boogie, which was nominated for an Anthony award, Blade of Dishonor, which MysteryPeople called "The Raiders of the Lost Ark of pulp paperbacks," and over fifty short stories, published everywhere from anthologies edited by Lawrence Block to The Utne Reader.
ADRIAN LUDENS's (@AdrianLudens) short fiction has been published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and several dozen anthologies. A Murder of Storytellers LLC published his short story collection, Ant Farm Necropolis. Favorite anthology appearances include Blood Lite III: Aftertaste (Pocket Books), The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper Stories (Running Press), Gothic Fantasy Science Fiction Short Stories (Flame Tree Publishing), and The Beauty of Death (Independent Legions), among others. He just started a horror podcast called Gunner's Graveyard. Adrian is an announcer for a rock radio station and roams the Black Hills of South Dakota.
An actor and writer, JEFF MASCHI has performed on countless stages throughout the Metropolitan area. He is a founding member of the Raconteur Radio and Alliance theatre companies, and has performed with several NYC-based companies, including Bon Bock, Creative Voices, and Ten-Grand-and-a-Burger. Jeff has also appeared in award-winning short films made with Off Stage Films, a film production company affiliated with the New Jersey Film School. As a writer, Jeff has been a featured performer at the Trenton Avant Garde Festival, the long-gone Palmyra Tea Room, the legendary Proletkult Poetry Circus, the beloved Court Tavern, the KGB Bar, and of course, the Poets Wednesday series at the Barron Arts Center.
Born in North Carolina, weaned on beer and oysters, BRAXTON YOUNTS (@braxtonyounts) lived in the heart of Appalachia. After that he roamed the cold streets of America, Europe and Japan, chasing elusive dreams, writing a little, things mostly for himself, and trying to forget something very sad that happened long ago. Connotation Press, The Gambler Magazine, Funhouse Magazine, and Newtown Literary have recently featured his creative nonfiction on their websites. In 2016, Braxton earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from The New School. Today he's a single dad living in Seattle.
DON STOLL (@DonStoll3) is a Pushcart-nominated writer whose fiction has appeared recently in MENISCUS, TWISTED VINE, THE GALWAY REVIEW, and EROTIC REVIEW. In 2008, Don and his wife founded their nonprofit (karimufoundation.org) to bring new schools, clean water, and medical clinics to three contiguous Tanzanian villages.
TIM P. WALKER (@walkertimp) is a proud denizen of rock 'n' wrestling capital of the world. His works can be found in Out of the Gutter, Pulp Modern, RHP, a couple of anthologies, and the late great Baltimore City Paper.
JAMES D.F. HANNAH (@JamesDFHannah) is a Shamus Award-winning writer from Louisville, KY. His Henry Malone series has been nominated for two Shamus awards, and his novel BEHIND THE WALL OF SLEEP was named Best Paperback P.I. novel of 2019. His short fiction has appeared in Shotgun Honey, Crossed Genres magazine, and the Shepherd University Anthology of Appalachian Writers.
MICHAEL J. MOORE's (@MichaelJMoore20) books include the bestselling post-apocalyptic novel After the Change, which is used as curriculum at the University of Washington, Highway Twenty which was published by HellBound Books and appeared on the Preliminary Ballot for the 2019 Bram Stoker Award, and the psychological thriller Secret Harbor. His short fiction has received awards, has appeared in various anthologies, journals, newspapers and magazines and has been adapted for theater and performed in the City of Seattle.
BILL DAVIDSON (@bill_davidson57 or billdavidsonwriting.com) is a Scottish writer of speculative fiction. In the past four years he has placed over fifty short stories with good publications around the world including Ellen Datlow’s highly regarded Best Horror of the Year and large distribution magazines. His first collection will be released in late 2020 on Dark Lane Books.
CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS
(In order of appearance of work)
RON SANTEE (Cover Photo) is a singer, musician, and songwriter, originally hailing from New Jersey, but now from all over. Of the cover photo, he says: “The roadhouse ranch has been a nostalgic trip I didn’t know I needed. I discovered a part of me that my mother left out; she’s from Nashville and I never understood why this strange music made so much sense to me . . . staying at Shawn’s place out in Pioneertown really reset my mind for songwriting. It made the silence become loud . . . it made me realize that ghosts and spirits in the air should not be ignored.”
J. ROHR (@JackBlankHSH) is a Chicago native with a taste for history and wandering the city at odd hours. In order to deal with the more corrosive aspects of everyday life he runs the site www.honestyisnotcontagious.com and makes music in the band Beerfinger.
A transplanted southerner, JERRY BLOOMFIELD (@JerryBloomfield) now lives on the east coast of Canada. When not writing or gaming, he likes to wander the shores and woods with camera in hand.
S.J. ROZAN (@SJRozan or www.sjrozan.net) is a native of the Bronx. She's the author of 17 books and more than 80 short stories, and has won the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Japanese Maltese Falcon, and many other awards. She teaches and can't wait for this pandemic to be over so she can get back to traveling.