Silver Birch Press's NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology Available Now

• 
  Back in July, 5-2 alum Catfish McDaris alerted me to a submissions call for poems made by redacting passages from existing noir and hardboiled novels. The first sentence of Robert B. Parker's The Godwulf Manuscript sprung to mind. Lovable literate thug Spenser makes his debut likening a university president's office to "the front parlor of a successful Victorian whorehouse." My poem pays homage to that stinging simile, and to the late Parker, whose eloquence hooked me on hardboiled fiction.
  
  For our help bringing contributors to the anthology, publisher Melanie Villines listed Catfish and me as contributing editors. The 122-page, digest-sized book is on sale now at Amazon.com.


• Also of interest to noir aficionados, Melanie tipped me to L.A. historian Kim Cooper's upcoming first noir novel, The Kept Girl:
  
  

  

  Kim Cooper's The Kept Girl is inspired by a sensational real-life Los Angeles cult murder spree which exploded into the public consciousness when fraud charges were filed against the cult's leaders in 1929.
  
  The victim was the nephew of oil company president Joseph Dabney, Raymond Chandler's boss. In the novel, Chandler, still several years away from publishing his first short story, is one of three amateur detectives who uncover the ghastly truth about the Great Eleven cult over one frenetic week.
  
  Informed by the author's extensive research into the literary, spiritual, criminal and architectural history of Southern California, The Kept Girl is a terrifying noir love story, set against the backdrop of a glittering pre-crash metropolis.

  
  Through December 25, you can help publish The Kept Girl by subscribing to a special edition for $65 (which includes additional perks).


• Looking ahead to Valentine's Day, Silver Birch Press is calling for Valentine's Day erasure poems made by redacting page 214 of the book of your choice. If enough submissions are accepted by December 31, they will be published in an anthology.