SOJOURN
Aboard a cruise for convalescents, patients and passengers mingle over dinners or lounge side-by-side at the pools, all of them feeling distant from their former lives in a world that has unmistakably changed and continued on without them.
With a crew of boys, an eccentric doctor, and international patients, the unnamed ship aimlessly moves along the North American Atlantic coast; its unfortunate passengers’ daily activities extend little beyond dining, sunbathing, reading, and swimming, yet Adrian, a private nurse for 9-year-old Mara, finds purpose amidst the routine and narrates the odd and comical world that has sprung to life far – and perhaps not far enough – from the mainland. Meanwhile, Martin, the temporarily exiled accidental activist, and Corinne, a woman stuck in recovery, become closer in what may very well be their greatest rebellions.
Sojourn draws inspiration from Franz Kafka’s modernism, Karl Marx’s analogies, and the Three Stooges’ absurdities.
197 pgs.
First Print, 2018, edition of 50: SOLD OUT / Second Print, 2019, edition of 25: SOLD OUT / Third Print, 2020, edition of 25: SOLD OUT
**SOLD OUT**
Bio
Joe (he/him/his) is a writer, teacher and musician living in Reading, Pennsylvania with his wife, Erica. He’s worked – in libraries, schools, museums, cafeterias, restaurants, wood shops, basements, and cubicles, for artists, carpenters, friends, and entrepreneurs, on cricket farms, kayaks, and docks – since he was 14, somehow always finding time to write.
His stories have appeared in online and print journals such as Pank, Everyday Genius, the Legendary, the Northville Review, Prick of the Spindle, York Review, Coatesville Cultural Journal, and Hyphen and received nominations for Best of the Net. Now and then, Joe wrote album reviews for the venerable – though now-defunct – The Active Listener. He published a novel, Sojourn, in 2018.
He earned his B.A. in English Literature from Temple University in 2007 and his M.A.T. English Literature from Bard College in 2012.
Currently, he’s working on several short stories and a science-fiction novel, Pia’e, from which excerpts have appeared in Isolation Street and on the podcast As Read by Me.
He’s in the noise-rock band: Tlooth. He occasionally records as Darkhold Redeemers.
Previous bands include Canid, Spetters, Behind Glass, Sometimes Movement & Her Illumination.
Works
Poetry
Lusitania, Hyphen Literary Magazine
Fiction / Short Stories
Agreements, As Read by Me Podcast
Descriptor, Hyphen Literary Magazine
An Interview with Walter Bergman, Open Yr Throat & Speak Radio Show
Old Spark, Prick of the Spindle
Pact, Pank
The Resistance, The Northville Review
The Slow Release, Everyday Genius
Spotter, Isolation Street
Spotter, As Read by Me Podcast
That Time of Night, Everyday Genius
The Vanity, Prick of the Spindle
Women of the World, The Legendary
Fiction / Novels
Sojourn
Non-Fiction / Music Reviews