Neurotica

I've recently re-established contact with a very dear friend from my days at LSU--writer, artist, teacher, and all-around awesome chick Elva Maxine Beach. We were both in the MFA program in Fiction, and over the course of the two years I was there Max was probably my closest and best friend. Somehow in the years following I allowed myself to fall out of touch with her, which was totally inexcusable on my part and denied me the pleasure of her long-distance company. What a loser I am, huh?

Anyway, a recent nostalgia-fueled Google search turned up Max's kickass new website, and news about her collection of short stories soon to be published by New Belleville Press in Austin. The collection is entitled Neurotica, and contains Max's trademark erotic memoirs in fictionalized form, which have been published (among other places) at the literary-erotica website Nerve.com. Check out what the critics are saying:

Neurotica delivers the uneasy kick of a one night stand or the off-balance excitement of an amateur porno, yet Beach’s descriptive passages radiate such warmth and detail that they seem to cry out in the vernacular of one's own memory. The humanity of this writing eats most writers for breakfast and compares Beach favorably to Bukowski and Anais Nin. – Rex Rose, Toast

Max says of her own work:

“My work isn’t necessarily erotica,” Beach says. “It’s raw, yes, and there’s lots of fucking and sucking, but my work delves into the psyche. It’s psyche-sexual drama.”

I don't know about you, but that sounds like the butter on my toast. So if you're in the mood for some psyche-sexual drama, go the The New Belleville Press's site and order yourself a copy. And tell Max that Scott sent you. And be sure to check out Max's blog on her website for poetry, links to her stories online, self-revelations, and other cool awesome stuff from one of my favorite people in the world. You rule, Max!