STRANGELY EVER AFTER: pacificREVIEW, A West Coast Arts Review Annual

Looking for a read that will take you back to your childhood days of listening to fairy tales and reading fantasy series on long summer days? In SDSU Press fashion, Strangely Ever After, the 2014 pacificReview journal, puts forth a selection of short stories and poems that play with more traditional forms of fairy tales, ghost stories, and everything in between. Think Franz Kafka, Edgar Allen Poe, and the Little Red Riding Hood all in one big melting pot of poetry, photography, and fiction. 

The authors featured in the journal write literature that twists the fantasy genre with elements like humorous undertones, questionable morals, and the denial of a happily ever after. Among the creatures and characters that you will encounter in the 2014 edition of pacificReview are victims that transform into the monsters that victimized them, malevolent spirits thirsty for revenge, frustrated demons, strangers who bond over their attraction to the unappealing, deceptive faeries, and clueless teenagers. 

Contributing artists include Jamie Klenk, Gale Acuff, Diane de Anda, Jane Beal, Lisa Beebe, A.J. Benenati, and Chrystal Berche, among other talented writers and photographers. Strangely Ever After is edited by Jacquelyn Phillips, Samantha Richardson, Shannon Snyder, Melissa Hill, and Dakota Lenz. 

















Once you get your copy of Strangely Ever After sit back, listen to a mood setting lullaby by The Cure, and enjoy the strange and thrilling ride. 

You can also look forward to our upcoming 2016 publication of pacificReview, an annual SDSU Press journal. This year's theme, LURKING ANONYMITY, will gather interpretations of our relation to technology in terms of reliance and behavior and what it indicates about our humanity. 

Line of Fire: Detective Stories from the Mexican Border

The compilation of detective stories from SDSU Press’ Baja California Literature in Translation publication series, Line of Fire: Detective Stories from the Mexican Border, features non-orthodox takes on a genre that has been popular in the Latin American literary tradition. Names like Jorge Luis Borges and Roberto Bolaño have been celebrated as important figures that have paved the way for the detective novel, and as the genre continues to develop, SDSU Press has captured short detective stories taking place in Baja California and its surrounding areas. The stories that form part of Line of Fire were originally published in Spanish in En la línea de fuego: Relatos policiacos de frontera and are written by Gabriel Trujillo Muñoz, Héctor Daniel Gómez Nieves, Leobardo Saravia Quiroz, Edgar Gómez Castellanos, José Manuel Di Bella, Carlos Martín Gutiérrez , Federico Campbell, Harry Polkinhorn, and Sergio Gómez Montero.

The English version of these stories, published by SDSU Press and edited by Leobardo Saravia Quiroz, whose own story is also included in the book, has opened the door of accessibility to a greater audience. Saravia Quiroz comments on the divergence from more conventional forms of the detective story that is clear in Line of Fire, “An indifference towards reason and justice prevails: the entirely modern ‘banality of evil.’ This is one difference from the conventions of the genre.” With the introduction setting the way and the “banality of evil” present in the stories that follow, the reading experience of Line of Fire will have you stepping into worlds of confusion, mystery, and unsolved endings set in the border regions of the US and Mexico. Filled with thoughts and images of paranoia, longing, belonging, betrayal, sounds of music and of bullets, you are bound to become immersed in the Mexican borders portrayed in each story that forms Line of Fire.

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