Books | Shorter Fiction | Interviews | Essays, Music, Movies
Writing
Too Beautiful
Mark Pritchard is known for his intelligent, complex, and uncompromisingly graphic explorations of sexual taboos—from incest and drugs to S/M and sex among youth. Too Beautiful, Pritchard's first collection, quickly became a cult favorite when it was first published, praised by erotica greats like Patrick Califia. This expanded edition includes three new stories.
How I Adore You
How I Adore You, Mark Pritchard’s follow-on collection of stories, spans the erotic spectrum, with "riveting first-person views between the legs" (Good Vibrations) of men and women of all sexualities, in all possible combinations and compromising positions.
Make Nice
It's 1960, and Frank Sinatra is at the height of his power and influence in Hollywood. Bobby Blaine, a peripheral member of the Rat Pack, chafes under the singer's egomania and bullying. He tries to land roles without Sinatra's help and encounters only failure, until he is asked to do one last favor: pick up Marilyn Monroe in Reno, where she is having a nervous breakdown trying to finish "The Misfits," and deliver her into the clutches of Sinatra's Mafia pals at the Cal-Neva Lodge. A world of Hollywood double-crosses, political shenanigans, bad Beat poetry, a hapless Broadway producer, and a comedian with a broken heart.
How They Scored
How They Scored mixes speculation about the loss of privacy in the 21st century with a journey through the beds of the bohemians of San Francisco and Austin, Serbian fashion models, Las Vegas wheeler-dealers, and a "landscape artist" whose life work is a hole in the ground in the middle of the desert.
The Secret Diary of a Prisoner in the Creative Writing Gulag
The diary of an unhappy novelist who must teach creative writing classes and workshops to survive. Only one person meets her high expectations -- her cold, severe, Japanese piano teacher, whom it seems she can never please.
A satire of the world depicted in the infamous 2005 Harper’s magazine article. Buy on Lulu
Shorter Fiction
Little Big Death
In the anthology Modern Shorts (Fiction Attic Press)
Tired of life in the ruins of Western society, of living in a cramped dormitory with hundreds of other sad, middle-aged men, I signed up for Superdeath. I went expecting that, like nearly everyone else who takes the drug Shiny,
I would experience ecstasy, super strength, complete transcendence and freedom from guilt and the past, and death, all within 48 hours.
Bullet in the Back
There’s a man up and pacing in the aisle of this plane. Up and down he walks, looking suspiciously at everyone. He looks into the face of the young man with long straight blond hair, he looks at the light‑skinned woman and her dark‑skinned companion, at the athletic‑looking woman seated in front of them, at a little girl sitting by the window, and at the businessman seated in front of her. He walks slowly up and down, watching us, and we all watch him. He is holding a gun.
Silver Horns
Waxwing, issue VII.
Where are you? I asked.
I’m at the airport. My plane landed hours ago. It took forever to get through passport and customs. I still had your number, Nicholas. But even at the airport it’s hard to find a telephone now.
You’re in San Francisco? I asked, since her voice sounded faint, as if she were calling from Ukraine or from a ship travelling to the South Pole. Yes, San Francisco, she said. It was dark when the plane took off, and dark when we landed, and it’s still dark. Does the sun still rise, Nicholas? Does the earth still turn?
Instrument
In the anthology Southern Gothic: New Tales of the South (New Lit Salon Press)
“Come, O Jesus,” she gasped. “Come O Jesus! O Jesus, oh --” and her prayer soared into a flight of tongues as her body vibrated and she jammed Roy’s hand hard against her belly and began to pound against his chest with her fist.
“Oh Jesus,” Roy said faintly, sweating hard, holding her. Did everybody in this church pray by hitting people?
Self Defense
Performed live in San Francisco many times, and also adapted to a comics format in the anthology The Big Feminist But, edited by Shannon O’Leary
Read the whole piece here.
The Grief Counselor
An unpublished story available on the Fictionaut website.
The cops told her the situation: her brother was holding a classroom full of fourth graders and their teacher; he had at least one automatic weapon.
At first she kept repeating “I don't know why he's doing this” as if the cops might think she was mixed up in it somehow. When they managed to convince her that all she needed to do was talk to her brother and tell him to give up, she sighed and looked hopeless.
Woebegone
Published on the short-lived literary website Crony, now offline.
Read the whole piece here.
Movie reviews
I began my post-university life as a movie reviewer! That didn’t last long, unfortunately, but now after more than 40 years I’ve decided to write about movies again.
Interviews
Yiyun Li on “The Vagrants”
SF.metblogs.com
I interviewed Bay Area novelist Yuyun Li about her new novel “The Vagrants” in 2009.
Annalee Newitz on io9.com
SF.metblogs.com
I interviewed San Francisco author and journalist Annalee Newitz in 2008 just as the influential blog io9 was debuting.
Trevor Paglen on “Blank Spots on the Map”
TheRumpus.net
I interviewed geographer and author Trevor Paglen about his book “Blank Spots on the Map.”
Essays
Kathy Acker: a reflection
Published 15 December 1997 on the now-defunct website Other Rooms. A reflection.
What I Learned About Resistance in the Street Patrol
An short essay from late 2016 in response to Trump’s election about my participation in the Street Patrol, an anti-bashing group that I joined in the early 90s.
Music
I’ve written a bunch of songs, which I can’t figure out how to feature on this site yet, and also some church music that is scored.