The past few years have been good to former guests of Media Whore.  Maybe I should congratulate myself for great taste in writers?  Over the next few months I plan to feature those with recently launched books.  First up is Barbara Black, who published her first book of stories with Caitlin Press in May of 2021.  With common interests like an obsession with insects, twisty runs on sport bikes at unpublishable speeds, and a deep and abiding respect for the weird, it’s not surprising I’m a fan on both personal and professional levels.  Barbara continues to score more journal publication credits and prizes every year. She recently won first prize in the Federation of BC Writers Literary Contest.

First, impressive blurbs:

“These exhilarating stories, quick and sharp and tender, breach the barrier that separates civilized and wild, human and non. Senses fuse, flesh is transfigured; characters come to themselves at moments of metamorphosis, modulating to new forms of life. Barbara Black’s magic is the kind that illuminates.”
—John Gould, author of The End of Me

“Barbara Black’s debut collection, Music from a Strange Planet, offers tales of obsession and transformation in which the melding of character with the phenomenal world is nothing less than astounding. With a surgeon’s exacting skill, she lays bare the often-strange music of the human heart.”
—M.A.C. Farrant, author of One Good Thing: A Living Memoir

“Be prepared. Be very prepared and preferably with your inner antennae on high alert as you enter into this translucent, transcendent, Kafkaesque world of illusions. Black goes beyond spider-like weaving as she spins her tales. Unusual, unorthodox, but always unique, they will stick to you.”
—Cathleen With, author of Having Faith in the Polar Girls’ Prison

Since publication, the buzz has been good.  The book was listed as one 2021 Books of the Year by 49th Shelf and long-listed for The Miramichi Reader’s Very Best Book Awards.

The reviews are in:

“In much the same way many of us marvel at the ability of musicians to create something fresh and new with notes and rhythms and sounds, I appreciate and admire writers who conjure up and harness a soaring imagination with linguistic dexterity. Black does this while seamlessly meshing her intellectual curiosity with a resonant emotional plumb line. What a treat it is to read her inventive, sometimes sad, and often funny stories.”
—from Caroline Woodward’s review in ABC Bookworld

“In lapidary prose that manages to be both spare and richly allusive, Black tells tales that seem drawn directly from the world of dreams and hallucination while fully fleshed out with observed or imagined detail. Think Kafka on crack. Think a luminous, shimmering visual paired with otherworldly and oddly menacing music. Think the emergence of a voice that will be important in Canadian fiction for a long time. Think what you like. Just don’t miss this exciting and impressive debut.”
—from Tom Sandborn’s review in Vancouver Sun

I have a feeling it won’t be long before Black addicts get another hit of the good stuff.