The grotesquely beautiful will be convulsive or it will be nothing at all. By that standard, this work by RW Spryszak is certainly something. What that something is will be a function of what the reader brings to the book and is willing to discover in it. You may find that it’s about being haunted by truths and fictions that are entirely unbearable and entirely unavoidable. About the most difficult labyrinths to escape from, the ones in the mind. About whether it’s our monsters and phantoms, or our saints and sacred images, that are the most dangerous. About the unfriendly fascism right around the corner and something even more frightening around the corner after that. About the fear of losing your mind, the fear of the world losing its mind, the fear of inevitable decay. In any case, if this story does not terrify you, you’re not paying attention.

      Max Cafard,

                  author of Lightning Storm Mind: Pre-Ancientist Meditations

Trish Forsberg

RW Spryszak’s recent work has appeared in Peculiar Mormyrid, A-Minor Magazine, and Novelty (UK), among others. His early work is archived in the John M Bennett Avant Writing Collection at the Ohio State University Libraries. He is editor at Thrice Publishing and Thrice Fiction Magazine where he recently produced I Wagered Deep On The Run Of Six Rats To See Which Would Catch The First Fire, a collection of contemporary surrealist and outsider writing for 2018.