Join us as we celebrate Mark Leidner newest work, UNDER THE SEA, a collection of stories that focus on love, lost love, death, the absurdity of the human condition, relationships, and beauty. 

Mark will be joined by Tatiana Ryckman, editor of Awst Press and author of I DON'T THINK OF YOU (UNTIL I DO). 

About the Book

In Under the Sea, a high-school pariah tries to get her stolen drugs back, a married woman copes with death by having an affair, an insect gets drunk at the brink of a civil war, a social outcast loses her shit in a bougie café, a middle-aged man battles an interdimensional void, a middle-school student waxes memoiristic about heartbreak, and a translator sends an email that ends his career. Blending absurdity and realism, meaning and banality, and love and death in equal measure, each tale weaves a portrait of our world that will leave readers thinking two things simultaneously: Oh the horror! Oh the beauty!

“In a literary world of fictional same old same old, Mark Leidner is a real deal original. In Under the Sea, Leidner leads us through a world of stolen drugs, weird tales about characters named Tzara-9, modern sickness, break-ups and anti-break-ups. There’s only one thing you can say about a writer like this: He’s a total bad ass.“

– Scott McClanahan, author of The Sarah Book

About the Author

Mark Leidner is the author of several books, mostly recently Under the Sea, a collection of short stories published in 2018 by Tyrant Books. He also wrote the movie Empathy, Inc., a sci-fi thriller currently screening at festivals worldwide. His books of poetry include The Angel in the Dream of Our Hangover and Beauty Was the Case that They Gave Me. He resides in Atlanta.

Tatiana Ryckman was born in Cleveland, Ohio and lives in Austin, Texas. She is also the author of two chapbooks of short prose, Twenty-Something and VHS and Why It’s Hard to Live. Tatiana’s work has appeared on Tin House’s The Open Bar, Barrelhouse, Opossum Lit, The Establishment, Nonbinary Review, Flavorwire, and many other publications. Tatiana has been an artist in residence at Yaddo and Arthub, and she is the editor of Awst Press and Assistant Editor at sunnyoutside press. More info at tatianaryckman.com.