The Splooge Factory by Pittsburgh poet Christina Springer is now available! This collection of poetry arose from the author's experiences as the fill-in receptionist at an "adult services" massage parlo, and is informed by theories of feminized eroticism and a feminist inquiry of power dynamics. These poems reflect the real stories of the real women who worked in this setting, told with both humor and sensitivity.

Adriana E. Ramírez, 2015 PEN-Fusion Awarding-Winning Author of DEAD BOYS says of this work: "As playful as it is shocking, sexy, and woke, Christina Springer’s The Splooge Factory invites the reader into the daily grind of sex work. And while it takes on race, culture, desire, and power, it also pushes the reader to rethink their own expectations of sex, the body, and the business of wanting."

In The Poetry Question, reviewer Christopher Margolin writes: "Christina Springer’s The Splooge Factory might sound like and be about the price and cost of sex, it’s also about learning the limits of your own power, lessening the breadth of what you’re willing to take, and no longer be stripped of self, pride, sexuality, and so much more."

The author is an Alt.Black artist who uses text, performance, video, and other visual expressions to communicate what the space between molecules in the air wish for you to know. Her work has been published widely in a variety of poetry journals, including Obsidian, Eyedrum Periodically, The Drunken Boat, and Callaloo. She ​was the longest-reigning Pittsburgh Poetry Slam champion.

Find out more here: https://www.frayededgepress.com/splooge-factory.html 

We're pleased to announce the publication of Stealing: A Novel in Dreams, the first work of fiction from renowned James Joyce scholar, Shelly Brivic. This experimental novel explores the interactions of the minds of two Jewish brothers as they  navigate a toxic home environment headed by an emotionally abusive father and an unhappy mother, beginning in 1950s Bronx. Joseph McElroy has called the work "looping, original, anxiously funny…a tangle of yearning & frustration and vivid, bold appetite.”

Writing in the Journal of Modern Literature blog, Janina Levin says, "Stealing can be read as a realistic novel about a dysfunctional family and as a work of experimental fiction in the modernist tradition, elevating the trials of ordinary people into a narrative about freedom and consciousness through art."

Shelly Brivic is an internationally recognized James Joyce scholar and a retired university professor. He has written extensively on Joyce and other modernists from the perspective of Lacanian psychology. His most recent scholarly book is Revolutionary Damnation: Badiou and Irish Fiction from Joyce to Enright, from Syracuse University Press. Stealing: A Novel in Dreams is his first work of fiction.

See all the purchasing options here: https://www.frayededgepress.com/stealing.html 

​Christina Springer's funny, feminist poetry collection, The Splooge Factory, is forthcoming in November, 2018! Check out the cover image for this work, which has been called "As playful as it is shocking, sexy, and woke..." Now available at a special pre-publication price of 20% off!

Christina Springer is an Alt.Black artist who uses text, performance, video, and other visual expressions to communicate what the space between molecules in the air wish for you to know. Her work has been published widely in a variety of poetry journals, including Obsidian, Eyedrum Periodically, The Drunken Boat, and Callaloo. She ​was the longest-reigning Pittsburgh Poetry Slam champion.

For all the details, visit:
https://www.frayededgepress.com/splooge-factory.html 

We're excited to present the cover for Shelly Brivic's experimental novel, Stealing: A Novel in Dreams, due to be published in mid-November, 2018. We think the cover perfectly conveys the complex relationships in this hypnotic family drama. Now available at a special pre-publication sales price of 20% off!

In Stealing, two Jewish brothers growing up in the 1950s Bronx navigate a toxic home environment headed by an emotionally abusive father and an unhappy mother. One brother eventually finds escape through academic achievement and a new life on the west coast, while the other brother remains entangled in the darkness of his existence, his life and mind slowly unraveling. By presenting the conscious and unconscious connections between family members, this experimental novel explores the concept of individuality, the psychological influences of family, and the very nature of reality.

For more information, see:
​ https://www.frayededgepress.com/stealing.html

“Charity begins at home, but it needn't end there—the proper sphere of charity is the world.” 
With these words, newly-graduated nurse Delia Battles embarked on the great adventure of her young life. What is remarkable to the reader is how much of her tale of war, refugees, foreign occupation, and finally, nursing tradition and education, still rings true today.--Denise M. Ferraro, M.S., R.N., F.N.P.-B.C.

Now available as an ebook! Delia Battles Lewis' memoir, A Nurse's Story: Medical Missionary in Korea and Siberia, 1915-1920.  Purchase from Amazon for $3.99 or read for FREE on Kindle Unlimited or in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library.

See all of the ordering options here: https://www.frayededgepress.com/a-nurses-story.html 

Seeking short fiction (10,000 to 20,000 words) with a contemporary urban setting for the Street Smart Series from Frayed Edge Press. 

For this series, we’re looking for manuscripts of 10,000 to 20,000 words – long enough to involve the reader in a good story, but brief enough to be read on a short train journey or long commute. This size manuscript is essentially a “novelette” – a work that is longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella. 

Your story should have a contemporary urban setting, well-drawn characters, and an engaging plot. Action, suspense, and even some sex and violence are great, but not mandatory. Humor is a plus and diverse characters are an expectation. We’re open to various genres as well as cross-over, multi-genre works. Some good models to think about are: hard-boiled detective stories, noir fiction, street lit, and urban fantasy. Elements of mystery, horror, SF, and/or some romance are also fine – but please, no “cozy” mysteries or anything that is primarily romance. Everything published in this series will have a dark underbelly and some grit to it.

See the Frayed Edge Press guidelines for fiction for more information: 
https://www.frayededgepress.com/fiction.html

We're pleased to announce the publication of A Nurse's Story: Medical Missionary in Korea and Siberia, 1915-1920, a memoir by Delia Battles Lewis. This is an unusual story of an early twentieth-century American woman, who left her small town in Ohio to train as a nurse in New York City and then went on an adventure of a lifetime. She found fulfillment in her work as a medical missionary in Korea, training native nurses at the mission hospital in another small town, Haeju. Her life of service there was interrupted by WWI, when she was called to be part of a Red Cross unit on the Eastern Front. She traveled on the Trans-Siberian railroad, encountered fleeing refugees in Harbin, and then worked in a typhus hospital and helped establish a Red Cross hospital in Omsk. At the end of the war, she returned to Korea to work in a hospital in Seoul, just in time to witness the first stirrings of the Korean Independence movement.

​Author Delia Battles Lewis (1888-1959) was an Ohio native who earned her nursing degree at the Presbyterian Hospital's School of Nursing in New York (now the Columbia University School of Nursing). Following her medical mission service in Korea and her Red Cross work during World War I, she returned to Ohio and married William A. Lewis of Ashtabula; they had two children. She later returned to private nursing and remained a staunch advocate for the nursing profession throughout her life.

Welcome to Frayed Edge Press, a new independent publisher located in Philadelphia. Our goal is to publish works that are "a bit on the fringe" -- books that express alternative viewpoints and/or that might find a less welcoming reception in the mainstream press. We will be publishing both fiction and poetry, as well as non-fiction works in history and political science.  We support diverse books and are particularly interested in, but not limited to, works expressing the viewpoints of women, people of color, ethnic and religious minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community. 

Thank you for visiting our website, please sign up for our mailing list (form on the home page), and stay tuned for announcements concerning our forthcoming books, special deals, and other useful information!