Author Archives: John Biscello

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About John Biscello

Originally from Brooklyn, NY, novelist, poet, performer, playwright and filmmaker, John Biscello, has lived in the high-desert grunge-wonderland of Taos, New Mexico since 2001. He is the author of six novels, Broken Land, a Brooklyn Tale, Raking the Dust, Nocturne Variations, No Man’s Brooklyn, The Last Furies, and No One Dreams in Color; a collection of stories, Freeze Tag, two poetry collections, Arclight and Moonglow on Mercy Street; and a fable, The Jackdaw and the Doll, illustrated by Izumi Yokoyama. He also adapted classic fables, which were paired with the vintage illustrations of artist, Paul Bransom, for the collection: Once Upon a Time, Classic Fables Reimagined. His plays have been staged and performed both nationally and internationally.

Craft

How a writer, cave-timing dark and solitude, annoints an ember by crafting the small hours into a flagrant torch.

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Curse You, Red Baron!

It was Snoopy’s way of living through Charlie Brown’s shame and ignominy, his low self-esteem. Dogs are sensitive that way. Snoopy co-opted Charlie’s gnawing desire for a heroic life, or at least to do something right, to feel right inside … Continue reading →

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Shed

It is never in your best interest to fashion yourself in a corset of old dead skin; shed, as a sibilant directive, breathes ceremony into the places where you ache, to die, and begin again.

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Everybody’s Got One

I was once asked to create a safe happy place to which I could go during times of distress and turbulence, and there it was, as it had always been– a wooden bench set under a streetlamp in a park … Continue reading →

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The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish

(Review of Katya Apekina’s stunning debut novel, The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish. ) Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; All the king’s horses and all the king’s men Couldn’t put Humpty … Continue reading →

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The Greatest Job on Earth

So much depends upon a red spiral notebook opened to a blank page, beside a pen’s barest volition to longing, within silence’s meted reign.

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This Word’s Life

Words are wonderfully illegitimate and unhurried placeholders for psychic disturbances and vagrant quandaries. To frame it differently– Using a broken compass to navigate through a paper town on a vintage red bicycle is, in itself, immaculate. Words, in other words, … Continue reading →

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The Honeymooners

Ralph Kramden sweats and sweats, his eyeballs bulging. Plagued by the notion that he has become a whale, no a rhinoceros, no an inoculated hippo that shows up to birthday parties uninvited. This visual grotesquerie, reflected to him through the … Continue reading →

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Laura Palmer

There is a rumor that Laura Palmer’s going to be at the dance. While you don’t know her personally, all you can think about is the exquisite mystique of her corpse, and how her live voice, on a tape loop, … Continue reading →

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Happy Days

In this episode of Happy Days, Arthur Fonzarelli, Fonzie, The Fonz, slaps Richie, hard, across the face. Void of context, we don’t know why. Richie’s jaw drops. He is in shock. He holds his hand against his crimsoned cheek. Richie … Continue reading →

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