Guest Blogging with the BookBitch – Inherit the Dead

The wonderful Stacy Alessi, AKA the “Book Bitch” (and anyone who knows Stacy knows she is anything but a bitch), asked me to write a guest blog about the creation/editing of the serial novel “Inherit the Dead,” which I did for Touchstone/Simon & Schuster. It turned out to be great project for a good cause, and a dream team to work with. Here’s an excerpt:   “Take 20 great writers. Ask them to each write a chapter in a continuing story. Give them both direction and a free hand. Donate the proceeds to charity. Mix it all together. Stir. Simmer. Bring to a boil. Voila! One great novel written in 20 voices. To continue the recipe metaphor you could say that putting a serial novel together is a bit like making an omelet or better yet, a soufflé. You get all the ingredients together, whip up the eggs, put it in the oven and hope … Read more

Vintage Magazine Quarterly – Visual Essay

I’m very proud to be part of the 4th issue of Vintage Magazine, the brainchild of Ivy Baer Sherman, and the most glorious, beautiful and amazing magazine (so much more than that; think, ART), modeled after the brilliant and short-lived Flair Magazine of the early 1950s. But Vintage is like nothing else, entirely unique and has to be seen to be believed. The fact that anyone would take on such an ambitious magazine project in the digital age is incredible, but Sherman pulls it off in spades. I’m not kidding when I say every issue is a collector’s item and not to be missed.  

“The Peyote Factory” Short Story on Akashic Books

Today, my short story “The Peyote Factory” inaugurates Akashic Book’s “Thursdaze” Check it out on the Akashic Books Website.         The Peyote Factory By Jonathan Santlofer I always told myself that I’d never use anything stronger than pot. I was a middle-class kid away from home, at NYU for my second year of art school, and hard drugs scared the shit out of me. But pot, I loved it. I smoked in the morning, afternoon, and night. I’d go to school stoned, paint stoned, fuck stoned. It was 1970 and I was living on Avenue C. It looked like the set for an end-of-the-world movie: deserted tenements, bums, hustlers, junkies, and pushers on every corner. I thought I was cool. Read more…

Strathmore Artist’s Pad Cover and Interview

Strathmore selected some of my work to be printed on the cover of their 400 Series Charcoal drawing pads.   To mark the occasion they also did a small interview with me on their website.  Here’s an excerpt: How did you interpret using the Strathmore Thistle for the pad cover artwork?  Anything else you’d like to share about your piece? I used the thistle as part of a plant motif that frames my portrait of the artist, Marcel Duchamp, and one of his artworks, and ties the drawing together. How did the Strathmore paper you used for the project affect your drawing (or painting) techniques? The paper’s tooth set up a wonderful texture for the charcoal, which I allowed to show through. I use Strathmore bristol plate when I draw with pencil because of it’s smooth surface, but the charcoal paper was perfect for exploiting the effects of this particular medium. (Read the rest here)  

My Own Dark Places – La Noir

Mulholland books asked the contributors to LA Noire: The Collected Stories why Los Angeles is so associated with the Noir genre.  Here is my response: “When Rockstar asked me to put together an anthology to accompany their darkly beautiful video game, LA NOIRE, I pounced. Having been enamored with noir both on the page and on the screen since my brooding teenage years, my mind was spinning Chandleresque tales before I wrote a single word or asked another author to contribute. I wanted to invite a hundred writers but it ended up a small collection, every story burnished black as ebony, all jittery gems that invite the reader to trespass along those sunny/seamy LA streets. For my own story I slipped into the mind of a killer and had fun mixing fact and fiction, bringing in shadowy underworld figures I’d only read about, like Mickey Cohen and Johnny Stompanato, real life bad guys who seem … Read more