Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

Exangel

ALA, EAP, and MONSTERS.

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I was off to the ALA–the American Library Association’s annual conference–this last weekend, and what a change from the last ALA I attended back in 2010. That last was right when the economy had taken its steep nosedive, and of course the first fundings to be cut were the ones for libraries. Back then, everyone wandered around looking shellshocked and dazed, and I remember anxiously pressing books on librarians who didn’t seem sure they were going to be librarians much longer.

But this ALA was hopping. It was hopping, and vibrant, and buzzing, and clearly on the move.There were so many YOUNG librarians, and librarian wannabes just out of graduate school absolutely giddy with delight at the idea of their coming career. Especially librarians for children and teens.  I was on a panel Saturday morning directed at just these librarians: CROSSING OVER: TEEN BOOKS FOR EVERYONE  (the only small press there), emceed by the book-loving Barbara Hoffert, a Library Journal editor, and I talked about how I think EAP was actually formed in my experiences with my favorite neighborhood library when I was a child. It was the Richmond District branch in San Francisco, which had a children’s library downstairs, door facing west, and the adult library upstairs, door facing east. To get from one to the other, you had to race up and down a grassy hill. I remember lugging books from one library up to the other to get books THERE. And all of my History of Arcadia books, and all of EAP books, really, are nothing more than an attempt to build a secret spiral staircase inside from the children’s library to the adult, so any reader can move back and forth at their ease.

Gerry Donaghy, the new books purchasing supervisor at Powell’s books (and all ’round cool person) said it best. He said EAP books are ‘for the precocious inner child in everybody.’

Well, we hope so.

There is a lot in this Summer 2013: MONSTERS issue of the magazine for precocious inner children of all ages, too. Check out Timothy J. Myers’ version of a particularly evil one: this monster takes all the joy of living out of your heart, makes you hate your life and your family, makes you yearn for something you can’t have. No, it’s not television. It’s The Draug, THE FISHERMAN AND THE DRAUG. And our favorite young EAP writer who we’re watching grow with real joy (the Draug not having gotten to us yet), is Kelsy Liu, so read her beyond creepy tale, CRAWL.

And it’s gardening time. Resident EAP gardening expert Debbie Naples questions just what exactly are MONSTERS IN THE GARDEN?

Welcome back (and special welcome to any librarians out there, too!).

A Medium-Sized Disaster and Calamari Steaks.

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It took a medium-sized disaster to teach me how to really cook calamari. So our kitchen flooded when we were away (don’t ask), and we’ve been living out of suitcases in various houses and motels, the dogs and me and the Beloved Husband, while the contractors and the insurance company put us back together (thank […]

Monsters in the Garden (a collection).

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by Debbie Naples   If Godzilla stepped in your garden you would know it, the enormous foot print would be a dead giveaway: “wow” you would think a “a monster was in my garden.” Depending on the size of your garden he might have squashed whole thing…  Still if a bratty kid treads through your […]

Worlds on Him Like Pearls on a String.

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by Charles Kraszewski   Stepladders have sprouted all over middle America and Mr. Jones, who bears a name both legitimate and taxonomic, is busy tempting fate and insurance policy by strangling his split-level in festive Christmas lights. “Well, hello there!” booms his tympanous baritone as if from the depths of a Mercury Theatre Production. His […]

Coexisting with Monsters in the Countryside.

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by Brian Griffith If even our cities are growing wilder, the rural villages, farms, and ranches tend to be further down that path. And as the lines between settled and wild areas break down, the realms of people, domestic animals, and wild ones increasingly interpenetrate. Of course this merging of human and animal domains is […]

Bunny’s Brain.

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by Marie Davis and Margaret Hultz   This year fall had come too gently, causing Bunny to have a loving memory of Sara. That was it—Bunny was highly allergic to good thoughts. Unconsciously bending down to haplessly pick up the first scrap of litter, Bunny was clueless that she had—as so many times before—been abducted […]

Holding Up Half the Sky.

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by Alexandra Kitty I Kreisbuch Gipfel 302.785 The Cyclet Introduction: In more prosperous regions in Asia, some Sphere 8-12 members, all male, have insisted that their full position in the event of their death, be passed on to their eldest son. This transfer of power may be problematic if the higher Spherists do not plan […]

WISE.

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by David D. Horowitz   “He seemed like a nice boy, although he kept to himself. But I didn’t think he’d do this…” No, the assistant principal did not know the student planned to change his name from “William” to “Killiam,” nor that he’d bought two pistols and several rounds of ammunition at a gun show […]

Turning Android (okay, Smartphone) Like Everyone Else.

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by Mathew Klickstein Why is it that I’m spending my Saturday morning filled with equal parts excitation and dread? It is because it is this Saturday – today, in a few hours – that I will step into the Verizon store and finally join the hordes that have transitioned from classic feature phone to super smartphone. This […]

The Fisherman and the Draug.

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by Tim J. Myers There was once a fisherman living with his wife and children on a small rocky island just off the coast of Norway.  On a bit of high ground in the lee of a great jutting rock, he and his wife had built a snug little house with their own hands, its […]