Shadow Queene by Kate Ristau (Not A Pipe Publishing 2020) While Áine returns to the light, Hennessey falls into shadow. Just when her dreams are about to come true, Hennessey’s … Continue reading Review: Shadow Queene
Author: kareneisenbreywriter
Square Pig in a Round Hole-May 9, 2020
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times nightlife listings for abundant source material!
SQUARE PIG IN A ROUND HOLE PANDEMIC EDITION #8
Even in the Before Time, I was rarely one to go out to a crowded bar. Unless I was playing–then I was there early and stayed through the last song. I miss live music. I miss group singing. I hope they come back in a safe way. Fortunately, band names are durable and I have a ready supply from over nine years of weekly blogs. If you are able, please buy these bands’ music and merch while we wait for a better day.
(January 9, 2016) Unexpected and poetic. It takes quite a spook to haunt anything as bright and shiny as summer.
(February 21, 2015) Dark poetry in two words. I like that edge can imply a border or a blade, and it makes sense either way.
(March 16, 2013) The writer in me is drawn to the implication of narrative.
(April 25, 2015) Create your ideal world, right here, right now. The realm of God is at hand.
(February 27, 2016) Blows the mind. I think quantum physics must be involved.
One last thing before you go: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, The Storypunk Report, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, upcoming events, and other goodies, including “Wizard in the Mosh Pit,” an exclusive short story just for subscribers. Click the link to check out the first six issues and subscribe here for future issues. (Or just follow the blog for your weekly dose of band names.)
Review: Someone to Watch Over
Someone to Watch Over by William Schreiber (Not A Pipe Publishing 2020)
Winner of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association Rising Star Award!
When Lennie returns home to the Great Smoky Mountains, she’s devastated to learn from her brother, John, that their father has died. For her, it’s too late for love to conquer all—her estranged dad was the key to discovering the fate of a child she gave up when she was a teen.
Desperate, she sets out with skeptical John to find a rumored guardakin angel in the Appalachian Mountains who can connect deceased parents with their children.
Love builds and sustains families across generations. But can it conquer the divide between life and death? Lennie’s answer hinges on a daring leap of faith for a second chance with the child she never knew.
My review:
Siblings, parents, and children all have a shot at a second chance in this story of a dysfunctional family road-trip to connection. This book began life as a screenplay and would be gorgeous on the big screen. The characters and Southern settings are grounded and real—even the ghosts. Someone to Watch Over flirts with the supernatural, but in a grace-filled rather than spooky way.
Bohemian free spirit Eleanor (Lennie) Riley has hit the skids. Her past is filled with trauma and heartbreak, which she has dealt with by running away and reinventing herself. Now she has returned to her hometown, hoping to work up the nerve to reconcile with her father. Dad’s death spoils that plan but puts Lennie back in the orbit of her tightly wound big brother John, a successful engineer with a beautiful family and all the comforts … and his own unanswered questions about their blue-collar father. Just as Lennie is setting out to find a “guardikin angel” to reconnect her with her late father, John decides to recreate a long-ago family vacation to Cape Canaveral and demands that Lennie lend him her old Pontiac Bonneville, the car Dad bought for that trip. She says no but agrees to merge her trip with his. He refuses to consider her supernatural explanations of the dreams or visions she’s been having, even when he starts having them himself. Are they hallucinations brought on by stress and grief? Will the trip go according to John’s plan or will he accept a little of Lennie’s spontaneity? And who is watching over them?
I’m a sucker for a good sibling story, and this one does not disappoint. It’s no surprise that both thought Dad favored the other and that neither really knew Dad at all. Lennie and John seem like opposites—the only thing they had in common was basketball—but they manage to complement each other when they give it a chance. Nothing runs smoothly for them even when apparent miracles occur. The ending is satisfying and not cheaply won.
Order your copy from your local independent bookstore. Use IndieBound.org to find it.
Also available on Barnes & Noble HERE.
Also available on Amazon HERE.
Available on Kindle HERE.
Square Pig in a Round Hole-May 2, 2020
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times nightlife listings for abundant source material!
SQUARE PIG IN A ROUND HOLE PANDEMIC EDITION #7
Wow, we’ve been at this lockdown awhile, and we have at least a month to go. I hate to say it, but live music will probably be among the last things to come back. Remember when you could stand up front and the band would spit beer on you? Yeah, that’s why, but those were the days. Fortunately, I still have loads of appropriate band names from past posts. If you are able, please buy these bands’ music and merch while we wait for a better day.
(April 25, 2015) This name brings into close proximity two words that shouldn’t have anything to do with each other, but once introduced, suggest any number of scenarios. Is this the flowers you send the person harmed by your wreckage? The flowers you use to smack the person who done you wrong? Or is it the sweet smell of brokenness brought into the open?
(April 20, 2019) As long as it’s consensual, a positive counterpart to the “hurt people hurt people” formula. Empathy and touch promote health and healing.
(June 21, 2015) Why aren’t they on a bill with Abstract Friends? But they are on a bill with Bad Idea, which might be a clue: guy walks into a bar with only the concept of friendship, sits next to an emotionally demonstrative stranger and quickly gets dragged into someone else’s drama.
(March 2, 2013) Timely, considering the season. (Apologies to all hay fever sufferers). I like this because pollen is a collective noun already and making it plural is amusing overkill. But I’m sure that botanists (and hay fever sufferers) are concerned with the variety of pollens out there.
(December 22, 2018) Probably won’t be a hit video game, but any parent of two or more who has been through at least one winter will be nodding in recognition.
One last thing before you go: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, The Storypunk Report, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, upcoming events, and other goodies, including “Wizard in the Mosh Pit,” an exclusive short story just for subscribers. Click the link to check out the first six issues and subscribe here for future issues. (Or just follow the blog for your weekly dose of band names.)
Square Pig in a Round Hole-April 25, 2020
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times nightlife listings for abundant source material!
SQUARE PIG IN A ROUND HOLE PANDEMIC EDITION #6
Just to show it’s not all old news, I will be interviewed live on Chat and Spin Radio tomorrow, Sunday, April 26 at 3:10 p.m. Pacific. It’s internet radio, so tune in from wherever you are!
One of the few upsides of the lockdown is seeing other people’s pets during online meetings. Our own pets seem to love having their people home, too. And so, I offer a pet-themed (OK, cat-themed) retrospective for your comfort and enjoyment. If you are able, please buy these bands’ music and merch.
(November 12, 2011) You don’t often see a band name that’s a question. And what a question! If the answer is “yes” you can’t expect an answer, or much more than a disdainful glance, rendering the question unnecessary.
(January 31, 2015) Always happy to celebrate a cat-related name. Rather than cats carrying explosives, I prefer of think of this as a stealth weapon that goes off and suddenly everybody everywhere has a cat on their lap and cat rock in their earbuds.
(December 27, 2014) Classic outsider scenario with so many possible outcomes. Cat bides her time, blending in and winning the pigeons’ trust, then begins to pick them off one by one; they never figure it out. Or: Cat goes crazy trying to chase all the pigeons at once, and never catches even one. Or: the pigeons lull the cat into a false sense of security, then descend en masse.
(July 21, 2013) This is another word for that fuzz-covered, carpeted perch by the window. Or possibly your bed when there’s a sunbeam.
(June 2, 2012) Maybe it’s because I just fed my cats, but I want to know: kibble, canned, or rodent? Or something to feed the soul of a real cool cat?
One last thing before you go: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, The Storypunk Report, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, upcoming events, and other goodies, including “Wizard in the Mosh Pit,” an exclusive short story just for subscribers. Click the link to check out the first six issues and subscribe here for future issues. (Or just follow the blog for your weekly dose of band names.)
Square Pig in a Round Hole-April 18, 2020
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times nightlife listings for abundant source material!
SQUARE PIG IN A ROUND HOLE PANDEMIC EDITION #5
The bars are still closed but there’s no shortage of band names in the vault. The pandemic theme includes both grief and comfort (including comfort food). If you are able, please buy these bands’ music and merch. And come back next week for more band names–I brought up enough for 4 or 5 more weeks.
(June 21, 2015) A step removed from imaginary friends, this implies an idea of friends separate from any actual experience of friendship. The teenage protagonist of my young-adult work-in-progress [no longer in progress but out in the world! –ed.] could probably relate — she’s invisible and has no real friends until she takes courage and starts a garage band. The members of this band look the right age to be her classmates, too.
(February 5, 2011) Taxes are a close second.
(March 2, 2013) If this isn’t the name of a hangover breakfast, it should be. Or maybe it’s the thing you toss in to distract the guard dogs.
(November 1, 2014) Not often do I see a band name so genuinely touching. Enough time has passed to see what was gained through grief. This is grown-up stuff.
(February 27, 2016) I’m pretty sure I would have picked this even if I wasn’t down with a cold. Always great to find something to lift you out of the mundane.
One last thing before you go: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, The Storypunk Report, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, upcoming events, and other goodies, including “Wizard in the Mosh Pit,” an exclusive short story just for subscribers. Click the link to check out the first six issues and subscribe here for future issues. (Or just follow the blog for your weekly dose of band names.)
Square Pig in a Round Hole-April 11, 2020
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times nightlife listings for abundant source material!
SQUARE PIG IN A ROUND HOLE PANDEMIC EDITION #4
Well, here we are, Easter weekend, and the country is not close to being open for business. It goes without saying that every bar is still a dead bar. If you might have gone to church for Easter in less weird times, I hope you will enjoy this Easter story I wrote a few years back. And if you’ve run out of reading material, go here to receive 20 free ebooks, including my garage-rock fairy tale The Gospel According to St. Rage.
I have almost used up my first stash of pandemic-themed band names from the past but never fear: if this blog has taught me anything, it’s that band names will never be in short supply. If you are able, please buy these bands’ music and merch. And come back next week for more band names.
(June 4, 2011) Take 1 scary, potentially lethal occurrence, give it a calm official title, repurpose said title as the name of a rock band. I like the hyper-rational badassery that results.
(June 2, 2019) The invasion has begun. I welcome our robot overlords.
(May 2, 2015) I’m not a fan of genre classification, but I admit this is my default section of the bookstore and where any books of mine would likely be shelved. Is there such a thing as “Speculative Rock”? [My first novel, the aforementioned The Gospel According to St. Rage, released a little over a year later.]
(April 23, 2016) See above, re: those damn wizards.* (This one reminds me of a recently published post-electoral dystopian blues, Ted Cruz Smiles and a Baby Dies, in which I have a story about the coming revolution.) [N.B.: a new version of that story, “Emma’s Knives,” was included in Shout: an Anthology of Resistance Poetry and Short Fiction (2020 Not A Pipe Publishing).]
* The same post included Blame the Wizards about whom I wrote: Maybe that’s the explanation for the awfulness so far this year: a wizard did a spell, taking Prince and Bowie, but leaving Trump and Cruz. Damn wizards.
(March 21, 2012) This one seems to go with Not Dead Yet [featured on March 31, 2012 and in last week’s retrospective, April 4, 2020]. I like the complete sentence, apparently delivered with utter calm.
One last thing before you go: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, The Storypunk Report, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, upcoming events, and other goodies, including “Wizard in the Mosh Pit,” an exclusive short story just for subscribers. Click the link to check out the first six issues and subscribe here for future issues. (Or just follow the blog for your weekly dose of band names.)
Square Pig in a Round Hole-April 4, 2020
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times nightlife listings for abundant source material!
SQUARE PIG IN A ROUND HOLE PANDEMIC EDITION #3
The Longest March is finally over but here we still are, with every bar still a dead bar. I’m once again descending into the cellar to bring you a vintage pandemic-themed retrospective. The names are still great even if the bands aren’t playing. If you are able, please buy their music and merch. And come back next week for more band names.
(March 31, 2012) I dig the Monty Python reference. And also: my first-born is 21 [now 29], and yet . . .
(August 26, 2017) Sick maniacs making a bid for freedom.
(April 29, 2017) In late 2013, I started writing a short story called “St Rage” that had in its backstory a teen band called Plague of Turtles (first mentioned publicly in this post). In 2015, the story was published as the January release in the Pankhearst Singles Club, then grew into a full-length novel, The Gospel According to St Rage. [Re-released in a new edition in August 2019 from Not A Pipe Publishing. –ed.] Plague of Turtles remains in the backstory but the members appear in a reconstituted group called Sack o’ Hamsters, then Legion of Morons, and finally, The Greebles. Yesterday, I was delighted to learn that Plague of Turtles is no longer fictional! It tickles me no end that someone else thought this was a perfect band name.
(September 28, 2019) I like this kind of wordplay, where changing a few sounds in a common phrase twists the meaning in an unexpected direction. Not just infecting others, but selling it to them. That’s a clever rat.
(October 8, 2016) I probably wouldn’t read a book that got this review, but I salute the pun.
One last thing before you go: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, The Storypunk Report, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, upcoming events, and other goodies, including “Wizard in the Mosh Pit,” an exclusive short story just for subscribers. Click the link to check out the first five issues and subscribe here for future issues. Issue #6 coming next week! (Or just follow the blog for your weekly dose of band names.)
Square Pig in a Round Hole-March 28, 2020
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times nightlife listings for abundant source material!
SQUARE PIG IN A ROUND HOLE PANDEMIC EDITION #2
How’s everybody holding up? I am lucky that I can do most of my day job from home, as can the other employed people in the household, though it has been an adjustment. Sanity walks and comfort food seem to help. It’s inspiring to see how artists and arts organizations have found ways to keep sharing music. Check out The Quarantine Sessions if you haven’t already.
With every bar still a dead bar and every show cancelled, I’m once again digging into the vault to bring you a pandemic-themed retrospective. The names are still great even if the bands aren’t playing. If you are able, please buy their music and merch. And come back next week for more band names.
(December 13, 2014) Whether or not they are bastards, these guys are sick in the best sense of the word. (Bonus: back in 2014, I was unable to dig up any online presence. Now I can finally let them know!)
(April 23, 2016) Why, exactly, do we want what sounds like a creepy phantom running our markets? How is that a good idea? Great name for a band, though.
(August 1, 2015) Walking along Lake City Way yesterday, I found a discarded 7″ lying by the side of road. I was almost home and it was so hot out, I almost didn’t pick it up. But how often do you find an unbroken (not undamaged) vinyl record just lying there? I picked it up. It still plays well enough for us to determine that both bands — Iron Lung and Scurvy Bastards — have names perfectly suited to their genres. For that, both receive honorable mention in this week’s blog.
(December 27, 2014) A simple and obvious play on the It Gets Better campaign, but so punk and so often true.
(June 25, 2016) Another favorite category shines a spotlight on an isolated body part. Here we have a variation on that theme, pairing up two very different but necessary parts that happen to alliterate.
One last thing before you go: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, The Storypunk Report, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, upcoming events, and other goodies, including “Wizard in the Mosh Pit,” an exclusive short story just for subscribers. Click the link to check out the first five issues and subscribe here for future issues. Issue #6 coming in April! (Or just follow the blog for your weekly dose of band names.)
Square Pig in a Round Hole-March 21, 2020
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times nightlife listings for abundant source material!
SQUARE PIG IN A ROUND HOLE PANDEMIC EDITION #1
For the first time in 9.3 years of this weekly blog, there were no nightlife listings. With every bar a dead bar and every show cancelled, I’m digging into the vault to bring you a pandemic-themed retrospective. The names are still great even if the bands aren’t playing. If you are able, please buy their music and merch. And come back next week for more band names.
(July 11, 2015) Well, that’s one way to get rid of an inconvenient body.
(June 25, 2016) A very specific and very weird historical reference — dancing and plague are not usually found in the same phrase. As a band name it’s long enough to approach awkwardness, which is one of my favorite categories.
(October 12, 2013) I’m surprised I haven’t included this one already, though I have referenced them a couple times. I actually know the story behind the name, which grew out of drinking in bars where there was no energy or excitement, nothing going on but drinking and thinking. If these guys are playing, the venue is automatically not a dead bar anymore.
(June 8, 2019) RIP Pugsley Addams. She finally succeeded.
(May 14, 2016) This is the exception to the [literary] theme, unless medical texts count as literature. There’s a nice irony here in that their music is all about masterful singing, which relies on strong lungs.
One last thing before you go: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, The Storypunk Report, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, upcoming events, and other goodies, including “Wizard in the Mosh Pit,” an exclusive short story just for subscribers. Click the link to check out the first five issues and subscribe here for future issues. (Or just follow the blog for your weekly dose of band names.)
Karen Eisenbrey 