Problematic Press is pleased to announce a couple of recent upgrades.
Regularly, our books have been available to purchase through Amazon, in both print and Kindle editions.
Now, Problematic Press titles are available on Google Books through Google Play, as well, meaning our ebooks are easily available to over 2 billion Android and Chromebook users!
Plus, we’ve upgraded our online shop to provide our titles as .pdf files, so readers can enjoy reading our ebooks from nearly any platform!
Such deeds are worth a series of exclamations!
We believe this is a decent way to level up, at least.
Now, our fiction, non-fiction, and poetry can be accessed by more readers than ever before.
Attendees appreciated the absurdity of it all. A screening of The Epic of the MERCANARY™ invited wonder, awe, and laughs as supporters arrived. The opening act was a poetry “reading” by the enigmatic Snake, I’s, which left the crowd speechless yet smiling. Next, Nicholas Morine’s reading of “Johnny Cobra & the Cerebral Crucible” set the stage for heart-pounding adventure. You can read that story and more of his short fiction that cuts deeply in Steel Sarcophagus. Finally, David Reynolds read excerpts from The Marvelous Saga of the MERCANARY™. Teasing tidbits and side-stepping spoilers, he provided a prophetic preview of his debut novel — this gonzo picaresque tale — A Sells-Word’s Story.
MERCANARY™, a sells-word inspired by a typo, is a metafictional hero who’s been drafted for lit’s sake on land, sea, and air. His mission? Word.
David Reynolds hasn’t won any awards for his creative writing, but his most shocking anecdote has won him more beer than he could possibly ever drink. He lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, where he teaches English at Atlantic Canada’s largest university.
In the words of the author: “This is a gonzo picaresque novel. It’s a work of intermedial metafiction. It’s a cautionary tale. It’s a sob story. It’s a farcical melodrama. It is high art. It adapts a ‘zine of poetry and adventure. It adapts a memeoem, which is literally a new poetic art form that I invented for this. It is the culmination of my life’s work in literature. It’s ballsy and hubristic and vulnerable all at once. The protagonist is an anti-hero. The sidekick is really something else. The odds are against them, but they’re in this to win it. Together, they make things weird. Well, this thing is certainly weird.”
We wish to thank everyone who came to the launch and purchased a book. People like you make this all worthwhile.
The author expresses his deepest thanks to his family and friends for their love and support throughout the writing process.
He thanks everyone who purchased a copy of the original ‘zine
He also thanks everyone who purchased items from his childhood collection of treasures to help fund this print run of books.
Order copies of The Marvelous Saga of the MERCANARY™ as print and Kindle editions here.
It was a beautiful day when Girly Muckle and the Queer Hands stormed into The Battery Cafe.
That’s right!
Bernardine Ann Teráz Stapleton’s Girly Muckle and the Queer Hands has been launched into the æther, where the curious can find her.
Readers joined us there for drinks and treats while the author delivered an enchanting introduction to Girly Muckle and her besties. A delightful time was had by all within earshot.
For readers in St. John’s, NL, we now offer curbside pick-up ordering from our office located downtown. Details can be found at the Square site.
Girly Muckle and the Queer Hands on the ShelfThe author and the artist
Bernardine Ann Teráz Stapleton is an author, a playwright, a performer, and an absolute treasure with the voice of a tempest.
Born in North West River and raised in Marystown, her connections to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador resonate throughout her works.
Her plays are regularly produced across the province, and her previous books include the award-winning They Let Down Baskets (Killick Press), Rants, Riffs and Roars (Creative Book Publishing), and This is the Cat (Creative Book Publishing). Her creative memoir, Love, Life, is forthcoming from Breakwater Books.
Nicole Leona Smith is an emerging visual artist who divides her time between Newfoundland and her home in Cambridge, Ontario. Her illustrations are simply delightful.
Until now, she has been best known for her writing and her work in theatre.
She is also drafting her first novel with support from the Ontario Arts Council.
Problematic Press is an independent publisher based in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Get the latest news about our growing selection of titles at problematicpress.com.
Bernardine Ann Teráz Stapleton’s Girly Muckle and the Queer Hands is here, alive and well and just waiting for you precious and precocious readers to share in her glee.
Perhaps you’ve heard of The Battery – quiet, peaceful, serene. Then there’s Girly Muckle.
Girly knows the folk living in The Battery have plenty of secrets to keep. She has a few of her own. For starters, she’s a selkie.
Now, a selkie isn’t some cutie-pie creature, so you needn’t imagine a princess of the mermaids here. No.
Along with her besties – an adlet and a shapeling – they are the Queer Hands, a band of young punks with big dreams.
But, when a meddling detective threatens to expose their mythical nature to the world, will the Queer Hands even make it out alive?
While this novel takes place in a fantastically imagined Newfoundland, it bears a tale that is sure to please selkies residing anywhere.
Meanwhile, stay tuned for more details to come about the launch of this magical tale.
This is it.
This is lit!
Bernardine Ann Teráz Stapleton and Nicole Leona Smith
Bernardine Ann Teráz Stapleton is an author, a playwright, a performer, and an absolute treasure with the voice of a tempest.
Born in North West River and raised in Marystown, her connections to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador resonate throughout her works.
Her plays are regularly produced across the province, and her previous books include the award-winning They Let Down Baskets (Killick Press), Rants, Riffs and Roars (Creative Book Publishing), and This is the Cat (Creative Book Publishing). Her memoir, Love, Life, is forthcoming from Breakwater Books.
Nicole Leona Smith is an emerging visual artist who divides her time between Newfoundland and her home in Cambridge, Ontario. Her illustrations are simply delightful.
Until now, she has been best known for her writing and her work in theatre.
She is also drafting her first novel with support from the Ontario Arts Council.
Problematic Press is thrilled to reveal that our next publication will be Girly Muckle and the Queer Hands, a novel by Bernardine Ann Teráz Stapleton with illustrations by Nicole Leona Smith.
Girly Muckle and the Queer Hands
There can be much more to a person than what meets the eye, and Girly Muckle can vouch for that.
She’s not like most other teens. She’s a selkie. And her best friends are an adlet and a shapeling.
Together with her besties, these young punks are the Queer Hands.
This is just the beginning.
Bernardine Ann Teráz Stapleton
Bernardine Ann Teráz Stapleton is an author, a playwright, a performer, and an absolute treasure with the voice of a tempest.
Born in North West River and raised in Marystown, her connections to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador resonate throughout her works.
Her plays are regularly produced across the province, and her previous books include the award-winning They Let Down Baskets (Killick Press), Rants, Riffs and Roars (Creative Book Publishing), and This is the Cat (Creative Book Publishing). Her memoir, Love, Life, is forthcoming from Breakwater Books.
Nicole Leona Smith is an emerging visual artist who divides her time between Newfoundland and her home in Cambridge, Ontario. Her illustrations are simply delightful.
Until now, she has been best known for her writing and her work in theatre.
She is also drafting her first novel with support from the Ontario Arts Council.
Problematic Press is pleased to announce we have signed a new partnership with EBSCO Information Services.
Through this new deal, all past and future Problematic Press titles will be easily accessible through libraries all over the globe.
This is because “EBSCO is the leading provider of research databases, e-journals, magazine subscriptions, e-books and discovery service to libraries of all kinds.”
Curious about EBSCO? Learn more from this short video.
Otherwise, at this stage, Problematic Press can think beyond the local markets, knowing our titles can be read all over. This excites us greatly! That’s a fact.
And, if you’re daring to consider the writerly life for yourself, then allow us to alert you to our present CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS.
Problematic Press is a modest operation with limited resources. Our aim is to publish 1-2 books per year going forward.
Our titles are published as paperbacks and ebooks that are distributed through retailers and libraries both online and around the world.
Problematic Press is pleased to make this call for submissions.
Highlighted Details
DEADLINE: Open and ongoing, so submit whenever.
We are interested in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
Final drafts should be 20,000-39,999 words.
Responses will be sent to applicants within two months.
Read the rest of this post thoroughly to get the details.
Find the link to the submission form at the bottom of this post.
We invite pitches from interested authors with titles intended for future publication, generally within the next year or two.
Provided the writing demonstrates exceptional mastery of English, we are open to considering original works from any person residing anywhere within Canada and legally entitled to work and earn income within Canada. However, we very much prefer to work with local creators in the St. John’s region of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. This preference is stated outright.
Understand that any licensing agreement that may result from submitting your pitch represents an investment in you as well as your book. Beyond that, you must maintain a public persona that the publisher is excited to endorse. Liabilities will not be tolerated.
Expect this process to be lengthy, rigorous, and arduous. Our authors and artists thrive when challenged, and they have the dedication and patience required to persevere.
Before and after publication, all authors and artists are encouraged to pursue external funding opportunities, such as federal, provincial, and municipal grants. The timing of such opportunities will have an impact on the timeline of publication. That is understandable, and we are flexible enough to work within such a schedule for our grant-winning authors.
If this sounds thrilling to you, then dare to proceed.
Otherwise, turn back now, saving each of us a lot of time.
Problematic Press embodies the way of the MERCANARY™, our trademark sells-word chimæra.
In that spirit, we are excited to receive pitches for book-length works (20,000 words to 39,999 words in length) in a variety of genres.
The key to a winning pitch is that it is high-quality, daring excitement, but — above all — it must be an achievable goal for each of us, from revising to editing to promotion to publication and to promotion again.
Be realistic.
Do you feel up for it?
Do not pitch a series.
Do you have a completed draft of your manuscript?
No?
Turn back now.
Yes?
You may continue.
Do you still feel up for it?
Good.
This is a test.
You are encouraged to come to this well-prepared.
Consider gaining experience and levelling up before you continue.
If you’re still here, you’re doing well.
MERCANARY™ approves.
What Problematic Press Wants
Problematic Press is only interested in pitches for hitherto unpublished anywhere original works of literature, and we are happy to consider such original works that fall within or near the following areas:
💥 substantial poetry (as in a collection of poems, a lengthy narrative poem, an epic, etc.);
💥 literary short fiction collections;
💥 sci-fi and fantasy short fiction collections;
💥 genre-bending short fiction collections;
💥 literary novellas;
💥 sci-fi and fantasy novellas;
💥 wuxia action novellas;
💥 retro-present novellas;
💥 retro-future novellas;
💥 pulp-styled space operas as novellas;
💥 cyber-noir detective novellas;
💥 kaiju conflict novellas;
💥 fit-to-print erotic novellas;
💥 genre-bending novellas;
💥 and, high seas adventure novellas.
Remember: do not pitch a series. Check yourself before you wreck yourself, right?
Before completing the submission form linked below, take the time to collect your materials and make this the best pitch that you can muster.
Touch up that draft you have there, think about how to best frame your pitch, dream of the writerly life, and then update your resume (or C.V.).
Your courage has brought you this far. If you feel brave enough to take the next step, then follow the link and scroll past the familiar to find The Form of Your Submission.
Either way, Problematic Press appreciates your interest and wishes you the best of luck with your writing adventure!
One of the most fascinating aspects of myths in general is how there are so frequently variations of the “same” stories.
I mean this in a few senses, but, primarily, consider, say, the stories of Heracles and Hercules, and, secondarily, consider Joseph Campbell‘s concept of the monomyth. I’ll introduce the tertiary consideration later.
Similarily, “The Labours of the MERCANARY™” will be a reimagining of – in other words, an adaptation of – “The Epic of the MERCANARY™.”
Further, the Labours shall use the exact memeoems from the Epic, just reordered, remixed, re-cut.
And, the Labours will significantly shape the prose of the novel, “The Marvelous Saga of the MERCANARY™.”
The tertiary sense of variations of myths focuses (perhaps) more on interpretation. Roland Barthes engages the rhetoric of myth in his theories on semiotics (how meaning is made, how communication functions, etc.).
An Occam’s razor explanation: consider how the reader/viewer/listener brings with them a whole set of biases, attitudes, values, beliefs, and more when they encounter any communicated expression, and that set determines how they might interpret any message.
These memeoems are meant to explode meaning; they ought to have great variance in how they are read.
The prose of the novel will be clearer than the memeoems, without a doubt, but readers should still expect a great deal of coy obfuscation, ambiguity, and wordplay.
By the time the novel is in print, this whole project will be a strange intermedial loop of potential interpretations of the work as a whole.
I’d like to tease a few points about this work-in-progress.
These are “The Revelations of the MERCANARY™” …
The nine of cups from which I shall drink up inspiration.
FIRST REVELATION
I am not mad. While this is a project that plays with themes of identity, psyche, dreams, the supernatural, and more, I assure you that I am deliberately navigating this terrain as reasonably as any writer. Bear with me until it’s in print.
However, I am literally writing a method into what otherwise must appear as complete madness. This leads to the SECOND REVELATION (which is rather lengthy).
SECOND REVELATION
Much is already written. The plot is outlined, and maybe 20% of the rough draft is complete. For the remainder of writing the rough draft, I’m taking inspiration from dadaism.
MERCANARY™ began as a ‘zine, became the trademark of PROBLEMATIC PRESS, sought idolization through OPERATION: MERC(H)ANARY™, transitioned to Instagram for the memeoem epic and labours, and will eventually become a sort of gonzo picaresque novel.
Here is where the method enters the madness.
There are 100 slides in the epic (99 + 1 across two highlight reels). Employing a type of cut-up technique, the first 99 memeoems in the epic will find their way into the novel. Additionally, those 99 memeoems will be used to craft the labours.
Each memeoem consists of three fundamental aspects: audio, imagery, and an original poetic line (or the absence of a line to signal a break).
I have numbered each memeoem in the sequence and noted each of these three aspects for every memeoem.
The notes are cut up as slips. The slips are crumpled into balls. The 99 balls of each aspect will be placed into three of my hats, shaken rigorously, and then allotted. Those 297 balls will be evenly distributed to each of the nine “chapters” of the novel, and this lottery will dictate the memeoems that become the Labours.
The audio shall provide the Soundtrack for each of the “chapters” in the rough draft. I shall make and share playlists for each as writing progresses. I will listen to each on repeat as I write the corresponding “chapter.”
The imagery will provide the Cues for each “chapter,” which I will use as prompts for themes or imagery or some other allusion or reference. These will also be mixed into the labours, meaning the memeoems from the epic shall appear in multiple labours. This is myth-making.
The original poems will provide the A’s. A is for Appreciation. The MERCANARY™ epic is a lengthy appreciation memeoem, hence these are the A’s you are looking for. Since I am the author, these will be directly incorporated into the rough draft. Again, this lottery will help form the labours, so expect a lot of multiplicity in the memeoems.
THIRD REVELATION
I seek to challenge myself with this intermedia-writing project, and I am confident that each prompt will make it into the rough draft.
However, I make no promises as to what gets cut while revising and editing. This ought to be at least somewhat coherent by the time it goes to print.
“The Epic of the MERCANARY™” shall be the foundational text from which “The Labours of the MERCANARY™” are derived.
“The Epic of the MERCANARY™” and “The Labours of the MERCANARY™” shall be the foundational texts from which “The Marvelous Saga of the MERCANARY™” is derived.
Upon completion of the novel, this will be a strange intermedial loop of a MERCANARY™ mythos.
