Founded in 1999, Eraserhead Press is an independent publisher of bizarro fiction and cutting-edge horror. Under the leadership of Rose O’Keefe, the press has developed an international cult following for its main line of trade paperbacks and e-books. The press releases new books every month and has published over four hundred titles by 150 different authors including Piers Anthony, Brian Keene, Michael Cisco, Molly Tanzer, Carlton Mellick III, Jeremy Robert Johnson, John Skipp, Edward Lee, J.F. Gonzalez, Laura Lee Bahr, and Wrath James White. The company also publishes under four imprints: Deadite Press, Fungasm Press, Lazy Fascist Press, and The New Bizarro Author Series.
Located in Portland, Oregon, Eraserhead Press is the oldest and largest publisher of bizarro fiction having helped introduce readers to the genre with The Bizarro Starter Kit and The Best Bizarro Fiction of the Decade anthologies. In addition to publishing unique well-crafted books, they have experimented with different business models, from their humble beginning as a DIY zine publisher, to an author collective, a volunteer staff of for-the-love writer/editors, to a full-time publishing house with multiple imprints and international distribution. Eraserhead Press has gained a reputation for their eye-catching covers and compelling titles such as The Haunted Vagina, Help! A Bear Is Eating Me!, Baby’s First Book of Seriously Fucked Up Shit, and Shatnerquake. They are also known for their unique marketing strategies like homebrewing beer in honor of their books to be served at parties, busking on street corners, selling books at film festivals and rock concerts, throwing performance art events and advertising books inside the boxes of local pizzerias. With an eye for keeping things fun, Eraserhead Press values open-mindedness, curiosity, and artistic expression. The company motto is: Take what you do seriously, but never take yourself too seriously.
Over nearly two decades, the press has been successful at attracting readers and writers, outside the mainstream, who get invested not only in the work but in the community associated with it. Readers call the books “addictive” and often comment that they’d given up on reading until encountering these books. Writers have moved to Portland to get more closely involved with the press, fans have tattooed images of the company logo and characters from the books, and half a dozen other small presses internationally have cited Eraserhead Press as an inspiration for their formation. The press also frequently collaborates with international publishers, filmmakers, musicians, and visual artists on adaptations and translations of the works.
Happy June, everyone! We are pleased to announce the release of FORTUNE BOX by Madeleine Swann. I am personally in love with this collection of interconnected stories. It hits all the right notes for me when it comes to weird things happening to seemingly ordinary people. If you like Jan Svankmajer films or Edward Gorey books, this is for you! – Rose O’Keefe, Publisher
No one knows where or what Tower Ltd Surprise Packages is or why it’s sending gifts to complete strangers across The City. All they know is that each package is the best thing that’s ever happened to them…or the worst.
In one box is a packet of seeds that allows you to grow your perfect date. In another there’s a cupcake that causes anyone who eats it to grow eyeballs all over their skin. There’s also a parcel with a mousetrap that turns all your enemies tiny. Or you could receive your autobiography, which when signed, makes your every thought famous. Or maybe even a key to a secret door that leads to another dimension where all your unfinished and abandoned projects exist. But with each package received comes both fortune and misfortune that will surely result in unexpected consequences.
Like a season of episodes from The Twilight Zone or Friday the 13th The Series, comes a collection of dark and humorous stories from the premier British female author of bizarro fiction.
From twin writing duo Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason, better known as The Sisters of Slaughter, comes a bizarro fairytale for adults. It is a gory, fast-paced, magical tale set in a fascinating world of decay. We love this story for its weird world and unlikely hero. Check it out and let us know what you think!
Molarous is a secret kingdom in a land of myth and magic. Its citizens, the Hyperdontians, are a grotesque race of people whose teeth grow outside of their mouths and all over their bodies like beautiful skin-splitting tumors. But lately, the kingdom has been under attack by a vicious plague that devours the toothy subjects of Molarous whole, causing their once pearly-white armor to rot away to nothing. Their queen, Bicuspa, better known as the Tooth Fairy in our world, is desperate for a savior. By a twisted turn of fate, her wish is granted in the form of a dental school drop out by the name of Randy. He seems the unlikeliest of heroes, but can he defeat the tooth demon before it kills everyone in Molarous and steals the soul of every child on earth?
Mix the childhood myth of the Tooth Fairy with the gore and humor of Army of Darkness and you have a grotesque adventure tale that will leave your face aching and your heart spilling open.
Available in paperback and kindle May 1, 2018 BUY NOW!
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This month’s book release has me extra excited. UNLANGUAGE by Michael Cisco is one of the most unique books I have ever read. It is difficult to describe exactly what reading this book will do to your brain. It’s heady, intense and beautiful and it will change the way you think of language. I can’t wait for people to read this one and tell me what they think!
From Michael Cisco, one of the most innovative and subversive writers working today, comes the long-awaited, ground-breaking novel of a suicide survivor trying in vain to write himself back into existence.
Unlanguage is the story of a man transformed by death and by language change. The language, once understood, transforms him, and transforms learning itself. One day, he looks down at the hand resting on his thigh and sees that it’s just an ordinary hand. What had been composed of colored light made solid goes back to being meat and blood. His body reverts to the ordinary sloshing heaviness of a regular body. The exalted vision of his eyes becomes the filmy, blurred vision of the usual kind. He slumps back into his former self. Whirlwinds of shame close on him. With a violent, monkey-like energy he wracks his brains for a way back. Then it occurs to him, he can still write that language. He must write his way back.
Told as a structural guide to impossible grammar, Michael Cisco’s Unlanguage is a brilliant, thought-provoking novel that not only pushes the boundaries of literature but of language itself.
For almost 20 years, Carlton Mellick III has been writing some of the strangest and most compelling novels the bizarro fiction genre has to offer. Described as one of the top 40 science-fiction writers under the age of 40 by The Guardian and “one of the most original novelists working today” by extreme horror legend Edward Lee. In his 56th book, Mellick has created a surreal love story that explores the ugly and beautiful nature of relationships.
Stacking Doll is the story of Benjamin Hammond, a young man who is in love with a Russian nesting doll. But in this world, nesting dolls are not just antique wooden toys. They are a race of people known as Matryoshkans, a subspecies of human who are born with a very peculiar abnormality—they have a collection of smaller people living inside of them.
Benjamin never thought he’d ever fall in love with anyone, let alone a Matryoshkan, but from the moment he met Ynaria he knew she was the only one for him. Although relationships between humans and Matryoshkans are practically unheard of, the two are determined to get married despite objections from their friends and family. After meeting Ynaria’s strict conservative parents, it becomes clear to Benjamin that the only way they will approve of their union is if they undergo The Trial—a matryoshkan wedding tradition where couples lock themselves in a house for several days in order to introduce each other to all of the people living inside of them.
No human has ever gone through The Trial before, so Benjamin has no idea what’s in store for him. He assumes that he’ll love each of Ynaria’s inner selves just as much as he loves her, but as she peels off her layers he realizes that each one is more neurotic and difficult to deal with than the last. And if they’re ever going to be together, Benjamin must fall in love with each and every one of his fiancé’s inner personalities, no matter how strange or disturbing they turn out to be.
From the author of Quicksand House and The Terrible Thing That Happens, comes yet another one-of-a-kind bizarro story that only Wonderland Award-winning cult author Carlton Mellick III could tell.
Wondering where you can meet Eraserhead Press and the bizarro authors we publish? Below is a list of events where you can find us this year. If you are coming to any of these awesome festivals, please comment and let us know. We’d love to hear from you and meet you in person!
Eraserhead Press releases a new bizarro book on the 1st of every month. Here are some new and upcoming releases we are excited about in 2018. All books are available to order/pre-order (click on book cover for link).
We are thrilled to announce the release of this delightful collection of bizarro stories from Andrew Wayne Adams. His unique, absurdist storytelling has captivated us for years, and we are excited to share the best of it with you for the first time in this solo collection.
I have no idea why I’m full of tadpoles and mayonnaise. No idea why this cockroach is psychoanalyzing me. I don’t know what you’re doing with that moose on your shoulder, don’t know why you still don’t love me even after I bought you that pack of gum. I’m not sure where this elevator is going, or how I got on it. Not sure how I didn’t notice the ground beef coming out of every faucet in my new apartment. I have no idea why bagpipes and drums go so well with chainsaw murder. I have no idea what kind of sandwich I want before I commit suicide. I have no idea what I’m doing.
Containing thirty-one stories written over the past ten years, this collection chronicles the total inability of Andrew Wayne Adams to know what he is doing.
Happy New Year! We are kicking off 2018 with our first release of the year, JIMBO YOJIMBO by David W. Barbee. This book captivated our hearts amongst what will be the best year of bizarro books from Eraserhead Press, yet! So start the year off right and get your hands on a copy.
From the author of Bacon Fried Bastard and A Town Called Suckhole, comes a countrified samurai epic in the vein of Squidbillies if directed by Akira Kurosawa.
A flood of frogs drowned the cities and gunked up all the guns. Now an evil restaurant chain called the Buddha Gump Shrimp Company rules a finger-licking shogunate of seafood mutants and murderous redneck swordsmen like Jimbo Yojimbo. Jimbo wants revenge on the Company for killing his family and stitching a cuttlefish to his face. After a daring escape, he will hack his way through hordes of crawdad soldiers, a church of quacking gun nuts on a jihad, and Bushido Budnick, the master chef who rules them all. But with every step he takes, Jimbo Yojimbo’s sweet revenge will surely begin to taste like shit gumbo.
JIMBO YOJIMBO is fast-paced post-apocalyptic redneck samurai tale of love, revenge, and a whole lotta mutant sumbitches.
“Absurdist horror at its best. Gary Shipley had me hooked from beginning to end. Definitely give this one a read.” – Carlton Mellick III, author of Quicksand House
“Horror rarely gets this close to home, spread like anomalous paste – cold, slick and tasty – over the pallid flesh of your nearest and dearest. This is modern family life perfectly rendered into the glue-goo-glow of couch and monitor screen: a sticky rigor vitus of the most banal and inexplicable nuclear necrodomesticity. Weird, absurd, monstrously tragicomic, the story really gets the human nature of horror before oozing somewhere else… Read it and seep.” – Prof. Fred Botting, author of Limits of Horror: Technology, Bodies, Gothic.
Something is horribly wrong with my wife. She doesn’t move anymore. When I try to lift her I can’t. It’s like she’s glued to the floor, or impaled on something. But her body keeps randomly appearing around the house in contorted positions: facedown in the hallway, at the end of our daughter’s bed, and on the ceiling of the main room, her feet, hands and backside flat to the plaster.
There is a cold translucent slime coating her skin. The scent of her is intense and repugnant, and yet I am finding myself increasingly drawn to her. I have a desire to merge with her. The children, too, want to be near her. Sitting on top of her brings them comfort as they stare at their tablets and phones. We stop going to work and to school. We feed from her. We begin to change. And we are not the only ones…
The Unyielding is a darkly surreal tale that details what happens to a family when one of its members becomes an immovable: an entity that while corpse-like is also spatially-inconstant, oddly nutritious, and excessively seductive to surrounding humans. If you’ve ever wondered what philosophical pessimism looks like in the flesh, it looks like this.
Eraserhead Press is pleased to present the New Bizarro Author Series lineup for 2018! We have six new writers to introduce you to this year, selected and edited by Garrett Cook. This is the ninth year of the series which is known for delivering fresh new voices to the Bizarro Fiction audience and this year we’ve given the books a fresh new look as well! We’ve done away with the traditional cover design template and also made them a cute new size. Another change we’ve made is that the books will be released on a bi-monthly basis throughout 2018. Thank you for your continued support of the series, we hope you’ll be as excited about these changes and these new books as we are!
F4 by Larissa Glasser
Release Date: January 15, 2018
A cruise ship on the back of a sleeping kaiju. A transgender bartender trying to come terms with who she is. A rift in dimensions known as The Sway. A cruel captain. A storm of turmoil, insanity and magic is coming together and taking a ship deep into the unknown. What will Carol the bartender learn in this maddening nonplace that changes bodies and minds alike into bizarre terrors? What is the sleeping monster who holds up the ship trying to tell her? What do Carol’s fractured sense of self and a community of internet trolls have to do with the sudden pull of The Sway? Pre-order Now
Polymer by Caleb Wilson
Release Date: March 15, 2018
You’ve seen monster hunts before. You’ve watched as a guy with throwing axes and ninja stars ascends stairs to fight a big furry werewolf with tentacles or a floating head of indeterminate origin. You’ve seen hunters. But you’ve never seen Polymer. Polymer’s got style, Polymer’s got sex appeal, Polymer’s got panache. And you, lucky reader, get to join us right behind the glass in Sickleburg Castle where the battle of the century is about to commence. Who is the man behind the music, the monsters, the guts, the gore and the glory? Get ready for an event like no other. Pre-order Now
Winnie by Katy Quinn
Release Date: May 15, 2018
Winnie and Colt forever. Winnie is Colt’s one and only, Colt is Winnie’s true love. Winnie is Colt’s rifle. There is nothing Winnie wants more than to please Colt and since a rifle is everything the young cowboy’s ever wanted, she certainly does that. But one day Winnie finds that she is not a rifle but in fact a woman. Can Winnie keep the sparks between them ignited, even if she isn’t the gun of his dreams. What happens if she can’t? Pre-order Now
Eviscerator by Farah Rose Smith
Release Date: July 15, 2018
Vex Valis- doctor. Vex Valis- rocker. Vex Valis- iconoclast. You would think Vex Valis has it all but what Vex has is a secret that rots away at her from her very core. Vex is infected with Gut Ghouls and will do anything to be rid of them, even if it means consorting with subterranean worms or blending science and the occult in dangerous and unsavory ways. You may envy Vex’s jet setting Dark Wave scientist lifestyle but you won’t when you see the trials incurred when she catches the attention of a being that rends people and worlds alike, the scrutiny of…The Eviscerator Pre-order Now
Fell Beauties by Leigham Shardlow
Release Date: September 15, 2018
In the last outpost of ugliness in the world, beautiful people are falling from the sky. When Fat Janet is kicked out of the buffet where she has holed up for food and safety, she is forced to confront not only the reality of perfect falling bodies but the attentions of an overzealous plastic surgeon and his followers. She teams up with a mystery man in hopes of getting out of this alive but soon finds that confronting the problem head on is the only option. Can imperfection survive this beautiful disaster?
Crime of the Scene by Shawn Koch
Release Date: November 15, 2018
Art, a detective investigating a crime scene finds that nested inside this crime scene is another, and inside that another. Demons, physical deformity, body switching and endless trials await Art, as he begins to face his own transgressions. Reality grows distant as he soon comes to realize that he has stumbled not only upon the scene of many crimes but of all crimes. Art might just have what it takes to get to the bottom of these but only if he gets to the bottom of himself.
