CHRIS TARRY reads from his new short story collection HOW TO CARRY BIGFOOT HOME and MARK E. CULL reads from his novel THE KING OF THE SEA MONKEYS

How to Cary Bigfoot Home (Red Hen Press) The King of the Sea Monkeys (Guernica Editions)

 The thirteen stories in Chris Tarry's richly imagined debut, How To Carry Bigfoot Home, lay bare the insurmountable forces that determine who we are and who we become. From an out-of-work dragon-slaying father in "Here Be Dragons" to a family arguing aboard a rocket ship in "Topics in Advanced Rocketry," the stories use fantastic settings, blazing wit, and imaginative circumstances to explore very human truths. The stories work to reconcile the public self with the private heart. To contemplate the monsters we carry home and lay bare for the ones we love the most.

Praise for How to Carry Bigfoot Home:

“Chris Tarry’s stories come at what we might call The Problem of Men as Boys from all possible angles, from a hapless medieval stay-at-home Dad who’s running a con game out of his one-room hovel to a Bigfoot who’s a sad failure as a creative writing teacher. These stories hilariously and poignantly evoke the way, when it comes to relationships, all men are living under a leaky thatched roof with winter on the way, always believing they’re on the edge of a turnaround, even though failure keeps returning like an old friend back in town.” —Jim Shepard, Story Prize–winning author of You Think That’s Bad and Project X 

“What would happen if some mad scientist were able to fuse the otherworldly exuberance of H.P. Lovecraft with the nuanced pathos of John Cheever? The result would be a dazzling, explosive, and inexhaustible new kind of illumination: a writer named Chris Tarry.” —Stefan Merrill Block, author of The Story of Forgetting and The Storm at the Door

. . . 

Mark E. Cull's The King of the Sea Monkeys is a novel in two parts. Because the protagonist suffers from a traumatic brain injury, the first part is fragmented, finding its way in the larger narrative in disorderly pieces. The novel is centered on a young high school teacher living a fairly normal life. This life disintegrates when he is involved in a shooting at a convenience store. He survives but his world is undone. Issues of traumatic brain injury are examined and the existence of God comes into question. We find ourselves asking what the framework of a real life is.

Praise for King of the Sea Monkeys:

The King of the Sea Monkeys unfolds a lot like the creatures of this novel's title. This new world is at first so promising and real and then it is all taken away. The characters in this novel bring me back to life, back to a full appreciation of the wonder of it all. It is a novel about love and innocence and wisdom and surrender, the good kind. Mark Cull has shaped a fitting lesson for us in this era of passivity and neglect. – Percival Everett

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Chris Tarry holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia, and is the author of the story collection, How To Carry Bigfoot Home (Red Hen Press 2015). His fiction has appeared in publications such as The Literary Review, On Spec, The GW Review, PANK, Bull Men’s Fiction, and Monkeybicycle. His non-fiction has appeared in the anthology How to Expect What You’re Not Expecting, Outside In Literary & Travel Magazine, Grain Magazine, and many other places. In 2012, his story “Here Be Dragons” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is also a four-time Juno Award winner (the Canadian Grammy), and one of New York’s most sought-after musicians. He lives in Maplewood, New Jersey with his wife Michelle and two amazing kids, Chloe and Lucas. Visit him at http://christarry.com

Mark E. Cull is a publisher and author who lives in Los Angeles with his wife and Red Hen Press Co-Founder, Kate Gale. Born and raised in Los Angeles, fortune led him to spend nearly two decades in the aerospace and defense industries before a lurking passion for literature finally compelled him to that world, and more specifically the world of publishing. Ready to change the publishing landscape, Mark joined Kate Gale in establishing one of the most respected and eclectic presses in the independent literature publishing sector, Red Hen Press. Mark attended college at Cal State Northridge, majoring in Literature. Since that transition, he has authored a short story collection, One Way Donkey Ride (Asylum Arts, 2002), founded The Los Angeles Review, serves on the advisory board of WriteGirl, and has co-edited three collections of short fiction: Anyone is Possible, Blue Cathedral, and The Crucifix is Down. In addition to the upcoming release of The King of the Sea Monkeys (April, 2015: Guernica Editions), he is currently at work on a novel and seeking a home for two others.