Jackie Corley Writer, indie publisher, vagabond

Daniel Green wrote a pretty lengthy post on The Suburban Swindle:

“One might say that the ‘radical exclusion’ manifest in these stories goes beyond the implicit narrowing of focus to be found in all short stories and extends to the exclusion of any extraneous plot devices and gestures at character ‘depth’ that inhibit immediacy of expression. Of course, one could also suggest that the sparseness in plot and character only reinforces the essential realism of the stories, since the kinds of lives they portray are themselves likely to be rather short on ‘plot’ and psychologically afflicted in generally similar ways. But whether form most often influences content or content determines form, the result in this collection is a kind of fiction in which the form of expression doesn’t merely point us to its subject but is dynamically a part of it in a way that I, for one, find impressive…

“I wouldn’t say that The Suburban Swindle is a flawless book–sometimes the familiarity of the material does subsume the liveliness of the writing–but it introduces a writer whose approach both to her subject and to the literary presentation it requires certainly makes me curious about what her future work might be like.”

Read the entire post.

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Katherine Woodfine reviewed The Suburban Swindle for bookmunch. Here are some highlights:

‘…there is no doubt that ultimately the most powerful voices are those of the (often anonymous) female narrators - young women who may see themselves as just “some guy’s girlfriend” yet who are nevertheless sharp-eyed, unflinching observers. Though they share the tangible sense of uncertainty and confusion which runs through these stories, their narrative voices are able to offer us flashing instances of clear-sightedness, perhaps best seen in “Persons of Bondage” in which the narrator has a sudden sense of “the scene curved fresh in front of eyes that were holy and were mine.”

‘It is in these thoughtfully judged moments that Corley offers us, finally, the hints of hope and redemption that give these stories their kick.

‘Any Cop?: Whilst it may be raw in places, The Suburban Swindle fizzes over with an irrepressible energy and possibility, hinting at promising things to come.’

Read the full review here.

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Also, Steve Himmer wrote this on his blog the other day:

‘It’s the voice of Dashiell Hammett’s hardboiled detective, standing around on a stakeout and waiting for something to happen. Corley’s characters are often caught waiting for stagnant lives to change, as dependent upon that change being external as detectives are. They’re like detectives staking themselves out and finding nothing to watch, no more able to change their own lives than The Continental Op can make a suspect appear at the moment he most wants one to.’

Read the blog post here.

Posted under Blogging, The Suburban Swindle

Who: Marty Beckerman, Nick Antosca and Jackie Corley

When: Wednesday, October 22 @ 7 p.m.

Where: Bluestockings
172 Allen Street, New York, NY

About: Jackie Corley (The Suburban Swindle), Nick Antosca (Fires, Midnight Picnic) and Marty Beckerman (Generation S.L.U.T., Dumbocracy) read from their new books of cutting-edge fiction and political satire.

More info: Bluestockings event page
Facebook event page

Posted under The Suburban Swindle

You can pre-order my book on Amazon.com here.

But pre-ordering directly from my publisher means So New gets more of a cut, so please support small press and order direct from them.

Posted under The Suburban Swindle

I’ll be reading with Tony O’Neill at the Morningside Bookshop in the next couple weeks. Here’s the info:

Who: Tony O’Neill & Jackie Corley
Where: Morningside Bookshop
2915 Broadway, New York, NY
When: Thursday, October 16 @ 7 p.m.

Tony O’Neill’s books include Digging the Vein, Seizure Wet Dreams, Songs from the Shooting Gallery, and the New York Times bestselling Hero of the Underground. His essays, poems, and short stories have appeared extensively online and in print. He is a survivor of heroin addiction, crack abuse, rehab, fatherhood, and stints in the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Kenickie, and Marc Almond’s band. He lives in New York with his wife and daughter. His novel, Down and Out on Murder Mile, comes out Oct. 28 from Harper Perennial.

Jackie Corley was born in 1982. She co-founded Word Riot, an online literary magazine and small press, in 2002. Her writing has appeared online and in various print anthologies. The Suburban Swindle, a short story collection, comes out Oct. 15 from New Publishing.

Here’s the event page on Facebook.

Posted under The Suburban Swindle

Laura Di Giovine reviewed David Gianatasio’s short story collection, Mind Games, for New Pages:

“David Gianatasio’s Mind Games messes with your head, but in the best way possible. A follow-up to 2006’s Swift Kicks, this brief collection of stories grabs you by the jugular. A mutiny of fervent voices bursts from the page, and each story is clever, bold, and off-the-charts surreal.
…
“Hilarious, irreverent, anxious, and at times unexpectedly poignant, Mind Games is full of compelling characters and outrageous contradictions. It also has something for everyone – sexed-up infomercials, sci-fi plot lines, stalker romance, and indecipherable riddles. Fans of witty experimental fiction will eagerly await Gianatasio’s next installment.”

Check out the entire review.

Posted under Books, Word Riot