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 ...

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...

You are a writer?That's awesome. I'm not a writer, but I have a great idea for a book. You should take my idea and write it and we can split the insane amount of sales this book will no doubt produce, in half.Here is my idea. I know, I should not share it with you because you might just run off and do it by yourself and leave me with nothing, though the idea is mine and we all know the idea is So much more important than the actual writing of the book. You better not run of...

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?...

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? ...

Can you learn how to be a writer from reading someone's abandoned work?Maybe.David Macpherson writes every day and has published 180 ebook titles. Some of them are quite good. Some do not reach the end.There are a lot of reasons why pieces are not completed. This book has a half dozen unfinished works with an introduction that attempts to explain why it didn't work out.Some of the work is fun. Some of it will help you realize that mistakes happen. This book ...

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...

He is a tattoo artist, though he does not believe there is any art in what he does. He goes from tattoo parlor to tattoo parlor across the country applying poetry on people's skin. The organization he works for pays the people to be the canvas. The poems that are placed on the people will quickly fade, leaving only a memory of what was placed upon them.She is a photographer who goes from city to city taking pictures of walls. The walls her organization wants her to document have st...

Let's get out of here!That's a line that you will hear in movies. A lot.A man stealing a car might say it. Or someone trying to escape from a kaiju. Or a drug-addled lawyer wanting to leave a second rate casino. Or a drug-addled girl from Kansas realizing that the poppies are poisoned. You might hear it from gang leaders to police detectives. The apparition of a dead army friend might say it at group therapy. A skeleton might have fallen to the ground in front of a haunted ...

David Macpherson tried to write a book called The North Pole Hotline and could not get past the two thirds point. Five years later, he was back to writing it. He finished it. It took a lot of effort and thought.This book you are looking at is a companion to that process. It goes through the history of the writing project and why it fell off the road. It goes through the day to day processes David took to finish it once he found a way to move forward.David also talks about o...