Rock and a Hard Place Press
A Lit-Noir Publisher Focusing on Stories of the Desperate...and What They Do Next.
download.png

Issue Seven

Rock and a Hard Place Issue Seven: Winter 2022

Published January 16, 2022
Click here to Purchase

That stand-up sure knows how to bomb.
Delirium tremors and haunted houses might be a bad mix.
The high end gets down and dirty (and bloody).
The cat and the tattooist and the old lady and the missing man.

With this issue, Rock and a Hard Place takes lucky number seven and uses it as a knife straight to the ribs. Feel the luck bleed out in these stories of bad decisions and desperate people.

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Bronx-born and raised, JASON ALLISON (@jasontallison) spent twenty years with the New York City Police Department; twelve as a detective, four as part of a Federal task force. Since retiring in 2018, he has presented to members of the Mystery Writers of America and attendees of Thrillerfest. His short story "Anosmia" was shortlisted for the 2020 Al Blanchard Award.

RUSTY BARNES (@rustybarnes23) is a writer, poet, and editor living in Revere MA but hailing from the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. He's published 14 books including his latest, a collection of linked stories titled Kraj the Enforcer.

JIM GUIGLI began writing after retirement when he entered and won the 2006 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. That one sentence began an ongoing series of stories about a private detective, Bart Lasiter. Jim lives near Sacramento, California with his wife and two Labrador Retrievers.

ESTELLE PHILLIPS (@legalimportant) is a U.K. writer and poet whose work is published in magazines and newspapers, and performed at theatres and festivals.

JAMES McCRONE (@jamesmccrone4) is the author of the Imogen Trager novels—Faithless Elector, Dark Network, and the new Emergency Powers—“taut” and “gripping” political thrillers about a stolen presidency. His story “Numbers Don’t Lie” also recently appeared in the 2020 short-story anthology Low Down Dirty Vote, vol. 2. James has an MFA from the University of Washington. A Pacific Northwest native, he lives in South Philadelphia with his wife and three children. He’s a member of MWA, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, Int’l Thriller Writers, Phila. Dramatists Center and the Sisters in Crime. You can learn more at http://jamesmccrone.com/

NILS GILBERTSON (@NilsGilbertson) is a crime and mystery fiction writer and practicing attorney. A San Francisco Bay Area native, Nils currently lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife. His short stories have appeared in Mystery Weekly Magazine, Rock and a Hard Place, Thriller Magazine, Pulp Modern, and others.

BOBBY MATHEWS (@bamawriter) is a Derringer-nominated short story writer and journalist based in Birmingham, Alabama. His checkered past includes stints as a reporter, editor, PR flack, bartender, paralegal, and investigator. This is his first story in Rock and a Hard Place.

For the last 15+ years, ALI SEAY (@AliSeay11) has written professionally under a pen name. Now she's shaken off her disguise to write as herself in the genre she loves the most. Ali lives in Baltimore with her family. Her greatest desire is to own a vintage Airstream and hit the road. Her novella Go Down Hard was released in 2020 by Grindhouse Press. For more information visit aliseay.com or find her on Instagram @introvert_fitness

DANIEL VLASATY (@DanielVlasaty) lives outside of Chicago with his wife and daughter. He is the author of Stay Ugly, A New and Different Kind of Pain, Only Bones, Amphetamine Psychosis, and The Church of TV as God.

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.

ROB D. SMITH (@RobSmith3) is a common man attempting to write uncommon fiction in Louisville, KY. His work has appeared in Apex Magazine, Shotgun Honey, Thriller Magazine, and other publications. He co-hosts The Abysmal Brutes podcast that explores pop culture storytelling at https://theabysmalbrutes.podbean.com/.

JAMES LILLEY (@jameslilley1411), 34, Father of three. Works as a Casino & Arcade Engineer, is a retired professional boxer and active MMA and Bareknuckle fighter. Has had works published in various publications since he started submitting in August 2020. Was named Versification’s Punk of the Year 2020 and secured a deal for his poetry collection The Blue Hour, which was published in November 2021.

CHRIS HARDING THORNTON (@chrishardingth1), a seventh-generation Nebraskan, holds an MFA from the University of Washington and a PhD from the University of Nebraska, where she has taught literature and writing. She has worked as a quality assurance overseer at a condom factory, a jar-lid screwer at a plastics plant, a closer at Burger King, a record store clerk, an all-ages club manager, and a PR writer. Pickard County Atlas is her first novel.

GREGORY WOLOS’s (@GregoryWolos) work has been published in over one hundred journals and anthologies, such as Glimmer Train, Georgia Review, descant, Florida Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Pinch, Southern Humanities Review, Nashville Review, Baltimore Review, Los Angeles Review, PANK, and Tahoma Literary Review. His stories have earned numerous Pushcart Prize nominations and have won awards sponsored by descant, Solstice, the Rubery Book Awards, Gulf Stream, New South, Emrys Journal, and Gambling the Aisle. Gregory’s full-length collections include Women of Consequence (Regal House Publishing, 2019), Dear Everyone (Duck Lake Books, 2020), and The Thing About Men (forthcoming, Cervena Barva Press). His debut novel, Kika Kong vs. the Dead White Males, will be published by Adelaide Books in 2022. For full lists of his publications and commendations, visit www.gregorywolos.com. Most of Gregory’s stories reflect Kafka’s assertion that a literary work “should be an ice ax to break up the frozen sea inside us.”

CHRISTOPHER WITTY is a former used bookshop owner who devotes his time to family and writing. Since achieving an MA with distinction in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, he takes on occasional proofreading and editing work whilst selling books online to make ends meet. Fearful/angry/disillusioned (delete as applicable) of social media, talentless pop stars and governmental control, he escapes into books, comics and magazines as often as possible, often finding clarity in the words of Kurt Vonnegut, Cormac McCarthy and Bill Hicks. His stories have been published or will be appearing in Northodox Press and Confingo.

MIKE ZIMMERMAN (@zimwrites) has been a writer for 30 years, nonfiction and fiction, averaging about a book a year, most recently the crime novel A Mosquito Over Sunset. You can find him at www.zimwrites.com.

MARK RAPACZ's (@MarkRapacz) stories have appeared in a number of publications, including Plots with Guns, Thuglit, Martian Lit, Tough, Water-Stone Review, East Bay Review, the Hawaii Review and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He has a few crime novels out there from some small presses, but those are likely difficult to track down. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two boys.

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS
(In order of appearance of work)

RICHIE NARVAEZ (@richie_narvaez) is the award-winning author of Roachkiller & Other Stories, Hipster Death Rattle, Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco, and Noiryorican. He lives in the Bronx.

REGAN McGRORY is a second-year MFA candidate in Socially Engaged Studio Art at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia.

ALFRED KENNEALLY is an amateur photographer residing in Hampshire England. Check out his portfolio at https://www.alfredphoto.org.

Additional photos used through Creative Commons licensing from Unsplash.com. Please support these talented creators: