Horsh Toke

The Penknife Press

By Keith Pille

A word of advice to writers out there: do not get involved with the Penknife Press. Not only are they are a bunch of spamming sons of bitches who get their kicks sending lengthy solicitations full of shitty prose to anyone running a website that has anything to do with books (open submissions policies don’t apply to spam, jackholes); worse than that, they're just not very likely to be good judges of the value of your work.

Consider this festering piece of crap, from which they see fit to email excerpts a couple of times a week (and this after repeated “UNSUBSCRIBE-- NO, I’M SERIOUS, YOU COCKKNOCKER” emails):

The Last and Final King-- Book 1, Chapter 1
by Obi

Life is a f***. In and out, in and out, over and over again. Like a sine wave. Like a wave good-bye. It feels good to push it in, but the feeling doesn’t last. It fades like the sound of a plucked guitar string, or a train whistle breezing by the station. Good-bye! You have to pull it out just so you can push it back in, just so the feeling will be intense again. And there you are again as the feeling fades, and you want it to last forever, so you pull it out again. Your rear end is bobbing in the air, and to what end? The feeling that fades and keeps you bobbing? Is this what forgetting history is like? What about your own personal history?

In and out, in and out, over and over again.

I want to forget, but I can’t. The blood, the fire. Was it right?

Even if it was, should I have done it? There is no right or wrong, remember? There is no good or evil. Ida forgot, because she couldn’t forget. It drove her crazy, what the two of us did. It cost her the baby. It woke her up at night crying. She wanted to talk about it but she couldn’t, because talking about it meant jail or worse. The tears she cried were drops of her soul. Each time she cried, a little piece of herself spilled out and got wiped away. Eventually, there was nothing left. She stopped crying, and she was all gone. Mopped away in countless tissues and handkerchiefs. Evaporated into the air. Blown from her nose in one quick burst, hocked up and spit on the ground, leaving only the salty shell, skinny, hollow-eyed, staring into space. In and out, in and out, over and over again. F*** it.

Their second-favorite title to spam about is called Essays from Church. Go figure.