Contents: 45 brief stories. None are deep. None are wise. Some are funny.. Some just thing they are funny. The only thing the stories have in common is that they were inspired by the titles to 45 books by Joyce Carol Oates. The stories are not inspired by the books. They just took her titles and did their own thing. You will like these stories. You will not like these stories. You will read this description and wonder why anyone would waste their time with this book. Or you can buy this bo...

People weep at the movies. If an old guy goes to a movie by himself, there is a chance he will be crying by the end. No matter what kind of movie it is, he will be crying.David Macpherson is that old guy crying at everything.In this personal essay, he attempts to understand the joy and art of crying at the movies.What movies do you cry at?Should men hide their tears away, because crying at a movie is a such a girl thing to do?Or is it universal?...

The universe is a woolly place.The universe is made of felt.The Big Bang was a soft though consistent annoyance.Dogs chase after runaway planets.When planets collide, it is okay because everything is felt.Neptunians are always cold and really just want to wear something cozy.And that's the thing. We want to be cozy.This issue of The Ekphrasis Take-Out is a cohesive collection of felt and the universe.This zine will be made of ...

Cyborg 2087 was a 1966 movie with Miichael Rennie.It is not the most well known of science fiction movies.That does not mean it isn't good, just that it isn't recognized.One of the things it is known for is its similarity to the plot of Terminator 2.David has decided to write this short book in 72 hours. He will watch Cyborg 2087 and express what it is about.He will dive into issues of plagariesm and the act of borrowing someone else's ideas....

David Macpherson writes every day. He does not write a lot every day, but small amounts go pretty far.For this year, he kept a written record of what he was writing and how it was going along. He get to see the story ideas that floundered and those that made it to the end. You will read the frustration of projects that are not coming together. You will also read of the summer where everything he worked on was completed and he was happy with all of it.It is a year in the lif...

There was a website about monsters. It was all about monsters.Sounds fun. But don't bother looking for it. It's gone.The internet is like that.The website is gone but we have the FAQ page. And in honor of anyone who remembers that there used to be a monster website that didn't completely suck, we are publishing this relic of an older internet.The FAQ is a strange thing. Does it really answer the questions everyone asks, or is it more random than that?

Who did you idolize as a kid? Who did you see as a hero?David Macpherson has asked that question to himself and assembled 100 heroes of his from before he was 13. When you are a kid, you are the most open to having a hero.Each hero gets a little essay describing why they mattered. Some of these are funny and absurd. Some are moving. There are a good deal of comic book and television heroes, but some of these were real. All too real.What David Macpherson has given yo...

When you finish writing a book project, you have to ask the important question, "Did I learn anything from this?" It's not to fix the book you just finished. It is asked to get ready for the next book and the book after that.David Macpherson writes very short books. His books are 50 to 80 pages. That gives him a lot of chances to think about what he could learn. This book includes the book projects from 2024. There are nearly 25 small books that he wrote.What did he learn? ...

Where is Fancy Bread?There was a seminar on how to write the best book copy and one of the main rules is to get the potential reader's attention by a quick and pertinent question. Ask a question. Grab them. Drag them along to the rest of the ad copy.And this question is the best one yet. Where is Fancy Bread? Not only is it the title of the book, it is everything in the book. Every chapter is another time where Fancy Bread is visiting some location. He is also dressed to th...

David wrote two similar memoirs in the form of lists. One was all the monsters he loved before he was 13. The second memoir was all the heroes he loved before he became a teen.This collects both 100 Monsters and 100 Heroes. What makes a hero you love? What makes a monster you love? Can they be the same character?These two little books were meant to be together.And now they are

Who is Raft Girl?She is a young girl who is on the ocean having adventures while evading the mean Agent Hard Tack. She is aided by her friends, Raft who is a raft, and Bucket who is a bucket that can hold many things inside and Rudder, who is a rudder, but also so many other things.They have so much fun, but sometimes the ocean arises to stop them from having a good time. Like this adventure, the mischievous Mermaid Children pester them and steal Raft for their nefarious pu...

There are Gods for so many things.There are Gods for Writing.If you are a writer then you pray to at least one of the many Gods of Writing. There are the ones of getting an agent. The God of Following Trends. The Gods of Writing First Drafts and Multiple Drafts. There is the God of the Slush Pile.There is a God for all of your time as a writer.You need to believe. You need to worship. You need to know your deities.And the best way to do that is to re...