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Smile, Hon, You're in Baltimore! contributors, past/present/future. Query/submit your Baltimore-related stories, essays, anecdotes, poetry, photography or other artwork to [email protected] for consideration, or write:
William P. Tandy, Editor
Eight-Stone Press
P.O. Box 11064
Baltimore, Maryland 21212
All contributors will receive byline/artistic credit for their work as well as three (3) complimentary copies of the issue in which their work appears.
Since 2001, Baltimore-based imprint Eight-Stone Press has published the arguably Mobtown-centric Smile, Hon, You’re in Baltimore!, a submission-based digest intended as an outlet for Baltimore related stories and images that might not otherwise find homes in more conventional media. Now eight regular issues-deep, the series has most recently published a special issue, SHOW ME YOURS SHOW YOU MINE, devoted to contributors’ scar-related stories, photography and other artwork. The issue follows two other special theme issues: INFESTATION! - being a sometimes unsavory collection of tales of Baltimore's unsung vermin - and GIVING UP THE GHOST, which focuses on supernatural encounters from Baltimore and (the great) beyond.
Need a reason to Smile, Hon? Well, read what a few others have said for starters:
[S]urprisingly fascinating, consistently absurd, and often weird as hell . . . Baltimore at its bizzare best. - BALTIMORE CITY PAPER
As far as local zines go, this one is at or near the top of the heap. - BALTIMORE MAGAZINE
In terms of local tales, Smile, Hon is the literary equivalent of the Sizzler-All-U-Can-Eat buffet. It's bountiful and bursting at the seams with delicious morsels. - THE JOHNS HOPKINS NEWS-LETTER
Screw your neo pomo fiction autobio, true tales from Baltimore are strange and much more entertaining to read. - QUIMBY'S (Chicago)
[W]ritten in such an engaging, snappy way . . . highly recommended. - XEROGRAPHY DEBT
[T]he series has a cynical and loving perspective on life in Mobtown. - MOLLY'S PUBLIC HOUSE (Baltimore)
[F]ull of pictures of the city and well-written pieces that are just a little weird...You should buy a copy, if only so that when people ask, "What was Baltimore like?" you can hand them Smile, Hon and say, "This is what Baltimore is like. A little weird, a little beautiful, not too serious about itself, and pretty fun to visit." - LEE FUTURE (Baltimore)
[D]espite the overly homey title, this digest does an admirable job of collecting the writings of several (largely) East Coast writers and publishers on their experiences in and around the nation’s crab cake capital . . . It all serves to add a great deal of dimension to a multi-faceted city in which I’ve been fortunate enough to have a number of memorable experiences, making me eager to go back for some more. - PANISCUS REVUE
In the stories, Baltimore's magic springs from everyday revelations, casual debauchery, and a peculiarly provincial brand of working-class sadness, wrapped up in both urban decay and local pride. Through it all, Smile, Hon revels in Baltimore's every eccentricity. - THE JOHNS HOPKINS NEWS-LETTER
A zine about Baltimore's vermin? GENIUS! Buy 100. - THE INNER SWINE (Hoboken, NJ)
[T]he honest and simple eloquence of the writing perfectly conveys the ethos of living in a tough yet forgiving city. - THE URBANITE (Baltimore)
Your books have caused a bit of a stir in my office . . . - BALTIMORE MAYOR MARTIN O'MALLEY (Now Governor of Maryland)
Smile, Hon, You’re in Baltimore! is an Eight-Stone Press production (online at http://www.eightstonepress.com/hon) and is available locally for purchase at Atomic Books (1100 W. 36th Street, Baltimore 21211; http://www.atomicbooks.com) and for loan as part of the Baltimore County Public Library’s Zine Collection (http://www.bcpl.info/centers/library/zines.html).
Warren Zevon, The Kinks, The Ramones, The Pogues, The Cramps, Johnny Cash, Serge Gainsbourg, Luna, James McMurtry, Link Wray, Th' Legendary Shack Shakers, The Sex Pistols, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, The Dubliners, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, Hasil Adkins, Hank Williams (Sr.), Woody Guthrie, Dick Dale, Johnny Burnette and the Rock n Roll Trio, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Blue Hawaiians, Tom Waits, Gordon Lightfoot, Jabbo Smith, Tav Falco and Panther Burns, Los Straitjackets, New Orleans Bingo Show, The Fleshtones, Toots and the Maytals, Desmond Dekker, Los Straitjackets, The Aqua Velvets, The Lost Patrol, Impala, The Dwarves, The Singing Loins, Nick Cave, Marty Robbins...
Johnny Depp, Lawrence Tierney, Vincent D'Onofrio, Crispin Glover, Robert Mitchum, Marx Brothers, Conrad Brooks, Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Robert Ryan, Clint Eastwood, Elisha Cook Jr, Peter Lorre, Timothy Carey, Sterling Hayden, Jean Servais...
Mostly live
Hunter S Thompson, Nelson Algren, JP Donleavy, Flann O'Brien, Terry Southern, Graham Greene, Barry Gifford, William S Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, HL Mencken, Carl Hiaasen, Sherwood Anderson, F Scott Fitzgerald, Tennessee Williams, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Ross Macdonald, HP Lovecraft, Anais Nin, Steve Lopez, Pedro Juan Gutierrez, Henry Miller, Jim Thompson
Mostly dead