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FEATURED for Autumn 2024—
The hardest working man in the poetry business!
The ULTIMATE GUIDE to Reno’s Poet Laureate Jesse James Ziegler— Replete with Profile, interview and his poetry.
Profile here.
Interview here.
Poetry here with exclusive publishing premier of Jesse’s “The Perfect Day.”
Was this the start of a Literary “Lakequake”? Lake Tahoe Literary Festival debuted in Tahoe City, CA October 11
The Tahoe Literary Festival weekend kicked off with a free evening of jazz, poetry and prose Oct. 11 at Tahoe Wine Collective in Tahoe City.
Poetry & Prose was enjoyed by about 80 folks at the Boatworks hosted by Scott Green of Tahoe Poetry Collective. An evening with featured poets and writers included Green, Reno Poetry Laureate Jesse James Ziegler, MillValleyLit publisher and novelist J.Macon King, Karen Terrey, Teresa Breeden, Roxy Hankinson, Edward Manzi, John Merryfield, Cheyenne McGregor and others.
MillValleyLit is a proud sponsor of this exciting inaugural event.
King read poetry “deconstructed” from his novel at the Tahoe Literary Festival, Tahoe City, Lake Tahoe, Oct 11. With Jesse James and other presenters.
Circus of the Sun
MillValleyLit publisher J.Macon King’s debut novel of 1979 San Francisco’s cultural, sexual and political maelstrom. Available from Amazon.
Penny Bear, 205,000 pennies, 1.5-ton. at Heritage Plaza, Tahoe City, by Lisa and Robert Ferguson. Big hugs from our editor Perry King and writer Tom Fitzmorris, June, 2024. Credit JMK
Summer issue’s Literary Latte:
Way Down Upon the Ganges River, 1987. Adventure memoir by Gene “Tarzan” Fischer
“I now head to Varanasi, a city located on the Ganges River where Hindu dead are taken to be burned or cleansed by the river. The 1500-mile river is considered sacred and spiritually pure, although one of the most polluted in the world.”
Get LIT and keep us fired up. NEW Free original-design spiral notebook for a donation of $50.00 or more. While supplies last. Donate via Venmo Venmo profile (perry-king-5) or PayPal Info on donating and free notebook here.
Grant Flint’s prize winning short story: The Night F. Scott, Papa, Tall Tom, and Wee Willy Faulkner Came to Maxwell Perkins’ Birthday Party
I Want to Take You Higher: The Life and Times of Sly and the Family Stone
by Mill Valley Literary Review Poetry Editor, Jeff Kaliss
TRIPPING WITH A VIPER: The Unexpurgated, True Story Of Neal Cassady & Anne Murphy
The “Tandem Story”
by Rebecca and Gary
Plus La-te-da * Hooligan * Peekaroony * Switcharoo * Filibuster * Quagmire. What’s your best words ever?
Circus of the Sun
MillValleyLit publisher J.Macon King’s debut novel of 1979 San Francisco’s cultural, sexual and political maelstrom. Available from Amazon.
In the wake of his girlfriend leaving him, young musician Jack has sworn off women, yet the reforming bad boy cannot resist the incandescent, liberated artist Bretta and her creative entourage. The pair sense they have found their Masterpiece of Love—until the return of Bretta’s enigmatic friend unveils disturbing secrets.
“…an ambitious and poetic story of love and creativity. At times racy and poignant… King deftly includes details that bring the book’s characters and events to life.” —Pacific Sun.
“More than a love story, this is a portrait of the city of San Francisco… The prose leans towards the poetic, which results in gorgeous, Kerouac-ian vignettes…seeming like a movie played on fast forward…” Kirkus Reviews.
“A great, lyrical portrait of an era…a spot-on recreation about a great time of history…and I enjoyed the sheer trip of it. Beautifully observed writing—the emotions in the story are true and moments of life are rendered with clarity.” —Louis B. Jones, author of four New York Times Notable Books, including Ordinary Money and Particles and Luck.
“…sets forth a story-within-a-memoir so skillfully that you forget this is a work of fiction. …Captures the ups and downs of an intense relationship deftly. —Rick Dale, The Daily Beat.
Buy Circus of the Sun on Amazon $15.95.
Also from J.Macon King:
If you, and/or your children, enjoy the semi-dark, mischievous fantasies of A Series of Unfortunate Events, Roald Dahl, and Harry Potter, take a look at King’s short novel, Ruby Robs The Tooth Fairy. The first three episodes are free on Vella.
From Spring ’24—The international literary flavors of:
Elemental Skin, book of Irish poetry from Catherine Ronan
review by Jeff Kaliss, Poetry Editor
“Just after midnight
on the outskirts of city,
the moon gave birth
to an everlasting sun.”
Antoinette Vella Payne. Poet Spotlight from Jeff Kaliss.
“Started out in a 1953 red Chevy Bel Air
with red vinyl seats.
brought from my brother’s friend for five hundred dollars in 1969.”
Poet Mary McColley in the West Bank.
“I feel like a shard of glass, or a prism, where I want the place, or the experience, to pass through me and refract into a variety of words, colors, phrases, imagery, that paint a picture for other people.”
With Profile presented by Poetry Editor Jeff Kaliss.
Unfiltered!
“I once ran away to Germany for a while to live with a girl I had never met…”
Like the Camel straights the author once smoked, this memoir of a first visit to Germany is UNFILTERED. “Mega Bright” excerpt from Thomas-Wolfgang Rohan’s true stories in Got a Cigarette?
Poetry by Geoffrey Heptonstall, Cambridge, England.
From his newly published collection of poetry: A Whispering.
“…When I fell for her there was no motion to compare.
The earth was weightless, the moon a madman’s lantern…”
Plus:
Book review: Like a Rolling Stone
Wenner’s obsession with glamorous rock gods and celebrities, and their lifestyle, would give him more intimate knowledge of them than the “Plaster Casters,” to soon transform himself into a certified celebrity.
Book review: The Will of the Many by Australian writer James Islington.
From Book Reviewer Nick King. The novel follows the journey of a young orphan who becomes a fugitive after the assassination of his royal patron by the newly established government.
Previous issues:
April is National Poetry Month.
Book Club of California in San Francisco salutes April’s Poetry Month.
2024 Winter Special Edition, Anniversary Celebration of:
And THE BEAT GOES ON… In celebration of the 10th plus 1 Anniversary of “Beat at the Sweet,” we’re telling the INSIDER STORY of this ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME event for the very FIRST TIME.
And highlighting one of the poets there, the late Jerry Kamstra, our favorite “Literary Outlaw.”
Welcome to the Home of the Literary Latte. Mill Valley Literary Review provides short work, poetry, articles, reviews, interviews, photos and art, from known and soon to be rich and famous creatives alike. Our click-ability allows you to read, for sun-filled days and sleepless nights, our amazing regular offerings as well as changing selections of back issue highlights.
Previous interviews and stories featured Peter Coyote, Sam Shepard, T.C. Boyle, writer David Harris, Jennifer Egan, The Brotherhood of Love’s trippy LSD Tales, Fantasy Records and CCR backstory, San Francisco’s Poet Laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin, Philip K. Dick’s ex-wife Anne, contemporary Irish poets, Marin favorites Catherine Coulter, Susanna Solomon, Christie Nelson and more.
The 10th plus 1 Anniversary of “Beat at the Sweet.” A Beat Poetry Reading (and music) in Tribute to Jack Kerouac & movie release of On the Road at Mill Valley CA. Sweetwater Music Hall Jan. 8, 2013:
T’was a night to remember featuring Kerouac’s pal Al Hinkle, Woodstock’s Wavy Gravy, “literary outlaw” Jerry Kamstra, poets Joanna McClure, Clark Coolidge, North Beach’s Sharon Doubiago, Daniel Yaryan, Beat expert Gerald Nicosia, musician Ramblin’ Jack Elliot,* MillValleyLit publisher\poet J.Macon King, Live Poets Society founder\MillValleyLit poetry editor Ari Maslow, and many more.
Remembering “Literary Outlaw” Jerry Kamstra by Wallace Baine.
Jerry Kamstra Obituary by Daniel Yaryan.
THE LAST BOHEMIAN WIZARD (in honor of novelist Jerry Kamstra) by Daniel Yaryan.
” And then there was this time…”
Poems and kind words by Ari M. Maslow upon the occasion of 10th plus 1 Anniversary of “Beat at the Sweet.”
Beat at the Sweet photos by poet and “Sparring Artists” founder Daniel Yaryan.
The Convoluted Backstory of Beat at the Sweet.
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And the Beat Goes On….
“The Most Interesting Man” (you never heard of). 30 years after, John DeLorean’s friend and right-hand man, Walter Strycker, revisited the 80’s quintessential corporate tale.
Interview by J. Macon King.
Walter Strycker remembered.
December 2023
SUBMISSIONS are now open! Send us your best short fiction, memoir, poetry now.
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Buy our books here.
everything with an asterisk: haiku of Bruce H. Feingold.
Five poems from his latest volume.
November:
Winter is coming. Biscuit and Perry playing snowball near Tahoe Rim Trail, Nov. 2, 23. (photo J.Macon King)
To Sur, With Love: award-winning poem— ode to Big Sur, surfing, and adventurous life by J.Macon King.
“Sets of waves 1…2…3…4… Calm…
Across the beckoning Pacific Waves 1…2…3…4
They Ride Epoxy Ponies
through bobbing heads of Medusa’s kelp”
(Painting credit below.)
The “Algonquin Round Table” literary luminaries, included Dorothy Parker. Painting by Maxfield Parrish, still hanging above the Algonquin Hotel bar.
The acerbic Dorothy Parker, poet, writer, wit, was a rare female member of the Algonquin Round Table, a compendium of early 20th-century literary luminaries who collected at the historic 1902 Midtown Manhattan hotel.
Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright George S. Kaufman, along with Harpo Marx, and Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Benchley—grandfather of Jaws author Peter Benchley—were some members of what they christened “the Vicious Circle.”
Martini acrylic painting by Annika Hemming-e, Truckee, CA.
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October:
Halloween Story : The Gravedigger’s Score
by J.Macon King
“So, what was that weird thing that happened here last Halloween?” Gerard asked.
20 Feet from Enlightenment: A Coming of Sage Story
memoir humor by J.Macon King
September:
David Harris Interview — activist, author, journalist by J.Macon King. David discusses the war, dope smuggling, Hunter S. Thompson, his ex-wife, “Queen of the Scene” Joan Baez, and how Bill Walsh’s 49ers saved San Francisco. “Davis Harris wrote for Rolling Stone Magazine during its original years in San Francisco (folded with no staples), The New York Times, and penned twelve non-fiction books…”
August:
Landscape of Marin County, CA. Paintings by Jeb Harrison.
Dickens in Appalachia. The first sentence serves as a warning: “First I got born.” Demon Copperhead review by Jeb Harrison
July 2023:
June 2023:
THE LITERARY UNITED STATES: A MAP OF THE BEST
BOOK FOR EVERY STATE
Three short, stunning poems from Vyacheslav Konoval, a poet living in Kyiv, the capitol of Ukraine.
Nevada Nature photography by Eric Dennison.