Rock and a Hard Place Issue Four: Fall/Winter 2020

Published December 1, 2020
Click Here to Purchase

Meeting cute in a home invasion can’t end well.
Tell yourself dancing is dancing and just do it.
Sometimes the only thing you get to choose in this life is how you check out.
Cue the meth gators.

Rock And A Hard Place is back with Issue Four, the downest and dirtiest chronicle of bad decisions and desperate people yet.

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
(In order of appearance of work)

JANE YOUNG is a Brooklyn-based fiction writer, playwright and poet who revels in exploring the dark side of humanity.  Her plays have been seen Off- and Off Off-Broadway, and her fiction has appeared in Lumina.  When not writing, she is a proud instructor for Writopia Lab, a non-profit organization that helps kids discover the joy of writing.

RUSSELL W. JOHNSON is a North Carolina attorney who got so sick of billable hours he began writing crime fiction. His debut story, "Chung Ling Soo's Greatest Trick," was published by ​​​​​​​​​​​Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and won the Edgar Awards’ Robert L. Fish Memorial prize. Since then he has been published in a number of outlets and been a finalist or nominee for the Pushcart Prize, Claymore Award, and Screencraft's Cinematic Novel Competition.

THOMAS PLUCK 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. You can find him on Twitter as @thomaspluck and on his website at https://www.patreon.com/thomaspluck.

BARBARA DeMARCO-BARRETT wrote the Los Angeles Times bestseller Pen on Fire (Harcourt, re-released by Mars Street Press). Her stories and essays are in USA Noir: Best of the Akashic Noir Series, Shotgun Honey, Crossing Borders, Inlandia, Authors Guild Bulletin, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She hosts Writers on Writing on KUCI-FM.

STEPHEN J. GOLDS was born in London, U.K, but has lived in Japan for most of his adult life. He enjoys spending time with his daughters, reading books, traveling, boxing, and listening to old Soul LPs. His novel Say Goodbye When I’m Gone was released by Red Dog Press in October 2020 and another novel Glamour Girl Gone will be released by Close to the Bone Press in January 2021.

BRUCE HARRIS is retired. He reads, writes, walks, and worries.

N.B. TURNER is a writer living in northern Virginia, remembering and trying to honor his roots in northern Indiana. He’s published fiction in Shotgun Honey, Hoosier Noir, and other outlets, as well as poetry with The Daily Drunk. You can follow him on Twitter at @NathanTurner15.

SUSAN KUCHINSKAS likes to smash genres. She's the author of the science fiction/detective novels Chimera Catalyst and Singularity Syndrome. Her literary, erotic, crime and science fiction have appeared in a variety of journals and zines.

STEFEN STYRSKY’s fiction has appeared in Tough, Switchblade Magazine, and Best Gay Stories 2017, among other places. He's an associate fiction editor for the Tahoma Literary Review. He lives in Washington, D.C.

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.

For the last thirty years JAY BECHTOL has been a social worker helping children, adults and families navigate the world of mental illness, substance misuse and trauma. He has learned that everyone has a story, and more often than not, several stories. He can be found (currently or soon) in Déraciné Magazine, 49 Writers, Twist in Time, The Literary Hatchet, Toasted Cheese, Penumbric and on Twitter @BechtolJay. He can be found in person in Homer, Alaska.

DAN GEORGAKAS is a writer, historian, and activist, and co-editor of Solidarity Forever: An Oral History of the IWW, Encyclopedia of the American Left, and The Immigrant Left in the United States. He is a longtime editor of Cinéaste magazine and has contributed to numerous film anthologies and journals.

JESS MESSIER has been writing stories since the third grade. She has an MFA from the Solstice Creative Writing program at Pine Manor College and is in the process of trying to publish a novel. Her work can be found in Corium Magazine, The Sunlight Press, and The Passed Note. She loves Star Wars, her husband, and her fox terrier mutt, Buster. Her Twitter handle is @jmmessier0320.

WILSON KOEWING is a writer from South Carolina. His work is forthcoming in Gargoyle, Bull: Men's Fiction, Maudlin House and Fiction on the Web.

MICHAEL CHIN was born and raised in Utica, New York and currently lives in Las Vegas with his wife and son. He is the author of three full-length short story collections: You Might Forget the Sky was Ever Blue from Duck Lake Books, Circus Folk from Hoot ‘n’ Waddle, and most recently The Long Way Home from Cowboy Jamboree Press. Chin won the 2017-2018 Jean Leiby Chapbook Award from The Florida Review and Bayou Magazine’s 2014 James Knudsen Prize for Fiction. Find him online at miketchin.com and follow him on Twitter @miketchin.

JASON MYKL SNYMAN is a writer from South Africa. His work has appeared in several lit mags, anthologies, and journals, including New Contrast, Jalada Africa, Straylight, Kalahari Review, Helios Quarterly, The Examined Life Review, Expound, and more. He has been shortlisted for both the Short Story Day Africa and the Bloody Parchment prizes.

CONTRIBUTING VISUAL ARTISTS
(In order of appearance of work)

PETER ROZOVSKY (Cover Photo) lives in Philadelphia, works in New York, and shoots photos everywhere. He created Noir at the Bar and the Detectives Beyond Borders blog, and his writing has appeared in Maxim Jakubowski's Following the Detectives: Real Locations in Crime Fiction, Barry Forshaw's Nordic Noir, Sunshine Noir and elsewhere. His photography has appeared on the cover of crime novels and collections by Domenic Stansberry, Reed Farrel Coleman, Charlie Stella, Ed Gorman and others, and in Down and Out: The Magazine and Retreats From Oblivion: The Journal of NoirCon.

RICHARD RISEMBERG, a known radical immigrant pseudo-intellectual scumbag half-breed, tries to write nice stories, but they don't always turn out that way.

ANDREW NOVAK is a journalist and news editor in Washington, DC. He likes to read. He likes to write. He likes to take pictures with his camera. His work has appeared in Fluland, Shotgun Honey, Out of the Gutter Online, Bizarro Central, CLASH Media, and the Lost Films anthology from Perpetual Motion Machine Press.

DIANE KRAUTHAMER is a freelance photographer based in Washington, DC.

LAURA DIZON, of South Plainfield, NJ, likes to pretend she's an aspiring amateur photographer.