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About Justin

Baltimore County

Justin Sirois's picture
Justin Sirois is a novelist and game maker living in Baltimore, Maryland. His books include MLKNG SCKLS (Publishing Genius, 2009), and Falcons on the Floor (Publishing Genius, 2012) written with Iraqi refugee Haneen Alshujairy, The Heads (Newlights Press 2013), as well as So Say the Waiters books 1, 2, and 3 (2012, 2013, 2014), The Last Book of Baghdad (Civil Coping Mechanisms 2016), and the series Two Girls (Amazon's Kindle Press). He founded Narrow House, an indie publishing company, that ran... more

Justin Sirois's portfolio

DMBSTRCK (unpublished novel)

DMBSTRCK [ a novel, 240 pages ] Two metal head brothers growing up in New Hampshire in 1993 think they can outsmart "The Dumbness", a worldwide illiteracy pandemic, by simply ignoring it.

This is my first semi-autobiographical book.

Book cover designs

I have designed books and book covers for university and independent presses from all over the United States including Both Both â?? a literary journal (San Francisco), Texas University Press, Edge Books (DC), and City Lit Press (Baltimore).

Narrow House (press)

Narrow House is a publisher that supports interdisciplinary experimentation in literature. To date, Narrow House has published 17 books, full-length albums, and multi media PDFs of poetry and fiction.

Justin Sirois - founder, designer, and co-director
Lauren Bender - co-director and editor
Jamie Gaughran-Perez - co-director and editor

http://narrow-house.blogspot.com/

Some Narrow House recordings are available for free via the University of Pennsylvania's PennSound series:

http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Narrow-House.html

Publications include

The WORMS Reader forthcoming 2012
Chris Mason - Hum Who Hiccup - Book 2011
Adam Robinson - Adam Robison and Other Poems - Book 2010
Ric Royer - She Was Ghosts, He Saw Bodies - Book 2010
i.e. Reader - Book 2009
Magus Magnus Verb Sap - Book 2007
Joseph Cashiola Lips of the Cherubim - PDF 2007
Ric Royer There Were One and It Was Two Annotated Artifacts from The Doubles Museum - Book / CD 2007
Chimera - I Am My Own Twin - PDF 2007
Garrett Caples Surrealism's Bad Rap - CD 2006
K. Lorraine Graham Moving Walkways - CD 2006
Buck Downs Pontiac Fever - CD 2006
Rod Smith Fear the Sky - CD 2005
Laura Elrick, Heather Fuller, Carol Mirakove Kristin Prevallet, and Deborah Richards Women in the Avant Garde - CD 2004
Ryan Schneider Awful Hissing Skexies - CD 2003
Anselm Berrigan Pictures for Private Devotion - CD 2003

  • L. Lorraine Graham's Moving Walkways

    Full-length album of recorded poetry - 2007, edition of 100
  • Buck Downs's Pontiac Fever

    Full-length album of recorded poetry, 2006, edition of 100
  • Anselm Berrigan's Picture for Private Devotion

    Full-length album of recorded poetry - 2003 --- Anselm Berrigan (born 1972 in Chicago, Illinois) is a poet and teacher. He grew up in New York City, where he currently resides with his wife, poet Karen Weiser. From 2003 to 2007, he served as artistic director at the St. Mark's Poetry Project. He is the brother of poet and musician Edmund Berrigan, half-brother of Kate Berrigan and scientist David Berrigan, son of poets Alice Notley and the late Ted Berrigan, and stepson of the late English poet and prose writer Douglas Oliver.
  • Ric Royer's She Was Ghosts, He Saw Bodies

    Full-length book of fiction with hand drawn covers by Jackie Milad, 1 of 300 limited edition --- "Ric Royer writes his fictions with the attention to language of a poet and the staging of scene of a playwright. The interplay between syllables and phrasings, between sleep and sex and death, and between he and she creates a new kind of fiction." Michael Kimball
  • Adam Robinson's Adam Robison and Other Poems

    Full-length book of poetry, 2010
  • Rod Smith's Fear the Sky

    Full-length album of recorded poetry, 2005 --- Rod Smith, who was born in Gallipolis, Ohio in 1962, is an American poet, editor and publisher. He grew up in Northern Virginia and moved to Washington, DC in 1987. Smith has authored several collections of poetry, including In Memory of My Theories, Protective Immediacy, and Music or Honesty. He has taught creative writing at George Mason University. Smith currently teaches Cultural Studies at Towson University, and was a visiting writer at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in the Spring of 2010.
  • Women in the Avant Garde (collection)

    2 disc, full-length album of recorded poetry - 2004 --- This is a 90 minute, two disk project featuring Laura Elrick, Heather Fuller, Carol Mirakove, Kristin Prevallet, and Deborah Richards recorded at St. Maryâ??s College as part of their women in the avant garde poetry series. this recording is truly amazing, it captures the powerful honesty of their original voices. Featured in Third Factory [Attention Span] 2004 list
  • Ric Royer's There Were One & It Was Two

    2007, A book that you can hear, a cd that you can read. "There Were One..." uses items borrowed from The Doubles Museum, curated by Canadian artists Jill Millings and Dr. Armand Rudge, to examine the double in its uncanny manifestations. Learn about Klaus the Two-Person, hear the lonely cries of lovers afraid of loving, feel the mist of the mysterious Gemini Fountain. Includes a booklet and cd designed to be read/listened to simultaneously.
  • Chris Mason's Hum Who Hiccup

    Full-length book of poetry - 2011 --- "Chris Mason has fabricated a set of visual charms, small and intense constellations of words that make & do, bounce & hop, zap & slap. These are dreams of poems more than poems of dreams, sweet & filled with delight." Charles Bernstein
  • Full catalogue

    Narrow House has published over 17 titles in 10 years. We were focused on promoting local and national experimental authors. Some of our local authors include Chris Mason, Buck Downs, K. Lorraine Graham, Ric Royer, and Rod Smith.

Broadsides with Newlights Press

A collaboration between Justin Sirois and Aaron Cohick of Newlights Press, these three broadsides are letter-pressed and hand "destroyed", making them unique each time.

The Mutanabbi Street broadsides have exhibited in:

San Francisco Center for the Book, San Francisco, Calif.
Saratoga Library, Saratoga Calif.
San Francisco Zen Center, San Francisco, California
Carleton College, North Dakota
The Rooms Museum, St. John's Newfoundland, Canada
The Thoreau Center, San Francisco, California
Northern Print, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
U.W.E. Bristol, UK.
Inkspot Studio, Brighton, UK.

  • Necking with Vladimir Nabokov

    Newlights Press 2002 Aaron Cohick of Newlights Press and Justin Sirois have collaborated for nine years on chapbooks, broadsides, and a reading series. Aaron Cohick is now Printer of the Press at Colorado College.
  • Al-Mutanabbi Street broadside

    The back of the Al-Mutanabbi Street broadside.
  • Al-Mutanabbi Street broadside

    Painstakingly designed, each letter is cut by hand with an Exacto blade then the print is peeled off, layer by layer, to create a uniquely destroyed broadside.
  • from MLKNG SCKLS

    Painstakingly designed, each letter is cut by hand with an Exacto blade then the print is peeled off, layer by layer, to create a uniquely destroyed broadside.
  • both broadsides

    Painstakingly designed, each letter is cut by hand with an Exacto blade then the print is peeled off, layer by layer, to create a uniquely destroyed broadside.
  • from MLKNG SCKLS

    Excerpt from MLKNG SCKLS - title 91% Battery Powerr Remaining - Aaron Cohick of Newlights Press and Justin Sirois have collaborated for nine years on chapbooks, broadsides, and a reading series. Aaron Cohick is now Printer of the Press at Colorado College.
  • detail of broadside in progress

    Aaron Cohick of Newlights Press and Justin Sirois have collaborated for nine years on chapbooks, broadsides, and a reading series. Aaron Cohick is now Printer of the Press at Colorado College.
  • On Al-Mutanabbi

    Poem by Justin Sirois, Arabic translation by Haneen Alshujairy, Letterpress with hand-mechanical printing, and delamination, Variable edition of 15, 12" x 18"---------- This poem and broadside were made as part of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Project. On March 5, 2007, a car bomb exploded on Al-Mutanabbi Street, the center of bookselling in Baghdad, killing 30 people and wounding 100 others.

Poetry - books, chapbooks

Video poems are from a forthcoming book of poetry published by Newlights Press named The Heads of my Friends, my Family, my Colleagues.

___________

Secondary Sound
Paperback: 90 pages
Publisher: BlazeVOX Books (2008)
ISBN-10: 1934289647
ISBN-13: 978-1934289648

Secondary Sound is a full-length book of poetry and fiction that addressed open-source culture, copyright reform, piracy, love, and struggling to retain a voice in the perpetual re-sounding of digital information.

___________

Silver Standard (Newlights Press, 2006) is a book of poetry concerning the housing bubble, out-sourcing, and digital downloading. It is dedicated to Alan Greenspan.

  • The Survivalists Guide to Contemporary Mood Inhibitors

    Chapbook by Newlights Press, 2002 - letter-pressed cover, perfectly bound.
  • Man Pointing Poem

    poem for the BMA's new audio tour

    PDF icon Man Pointing Poem
  • Silver Standard 2006

    Newlights Press, Poems and images by Justin Sirois, 56 pages, softcover, with printed and stapled dustjacket that adheres to book through a series of magnetic strips, double signature pamphlet stitched, 8 1/8� x 5 1/8�, Letterpress dustjacket & cover, digitally printed pages, staples, magnets, Edition of 100
  • Silver Standard 2006

    Newlights Press, Poems and images by Justin Sirois, 56 pages, softcover, with printed and stapled dustjacket that adheres to book through a series of magnetic strips, double signature pamphlet stitched, 8 1/8� x 5 1/8�, Letterpress dustjacket & cover, digitally printed pages, staples, magnets, Edition of 100
  • Secondary Sound free book!

    Cannibalism, pirates, zombies, ringtones, corporations, kittens, pea
    coats: Secondary Sound is about cycling and recycling. Like the
    journal of a pirate marooned on a deserted isle, this book tracks the
    sifting of 21st century culture for anything usable, something
    sustainable, something that won't devolve into something toxic.
    There's an equally deep anxiety about the desire for those things â??
    what if Pirate does create the ringtone to silence all other
    ringtones? What if stealing from the polycephalic mega-corporations
    is just corporate training boot camp? Cannibalism has an ethics; all
    heads come from heads; we're just looking for a little harmony. ------ Ken Rumble (author of Key Highway)

    PDF icon Secondary Sound free book!
  • Secondary Sound (BlazeVOX books, 2008)

    Sometimes a ringtone is just a ringtone, but not very often. Mostly they say things like "hope you got away from yourself safe," or "reformat a thief into a reverted serf," or "felt more real watching it onscreen." This is not a technological book, it's about people, so it's techno-illogical-- it's about hiding & thieving & occasionally, love. sirois has written here a stunning documentary attempt at re-lyricizing our stupid alienations. He succeeds, we don't. Ahoy there Group Gropers, press send.

Cabin/Fire reading series

The Cabin / Fire reading series is an occasional showcase of novelists and poets. It takes place in a 16 x 20 foot cabin in my back yard. We have featured writers from San Diego, New York City, DC, and Baltimore. Cabin / Fire is dedicated to promoting cutting edge literature in an effort to support the local creative community.

http://cabinfire.blogspot.com/

  • Edward Mullany's book release reading

    Edward Mullany is the author of If I Falter at the Gallows (Publishing Genius, 2011) and Figures for an Apocalypse (Publishing Genius, 2013). He keeps a blog called The Other Notebook, for his drawings and illustrations.
  • poet and essayist Mark Wallace

    Mark Wallace is the author of more than fifteen books and chapbooks of poetry, fiction, and essays. Temporary Worker Rides a Subway won the 2002 Gertrude Stein Poetry Award and was published by Green Integer Books. His critical articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, and he has co-edited two essay collections, Telling It Slant: Avant Garde Poetics of the 1990s, and A Poetics of Criticism. Most recently he has published a novel, The Quarry and The Lot, and a book of poems, Felonies of Illusion.
  • novelist Laura Van Den Berg

    Laura van den Berg was raised in Florida and earned her M.F.A. at Emerson College. Her debut collection of stories, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us (Dzanc Books, 2009), was a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection and shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Award. Her second collection, The Isle of Youth, will be published by FSG in November 2013. Laura’s first novel, Find Me, is also forthcoming from FSG. She lives in Baltimore and teaches in the creative writing program at George Washington University. 5.17.13
  • novelist Laura Van Den Berg

    Laura van den Berg was raised in Florida and earned her M.F.A. at Emerson College. Her debut collection of stories, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us (Dzanc Books, 2009), was a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection and shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Award. Her second collection, The Isle of Youth, will be published by FSG in November 2013. Laura’s first novel, Find Me, is also forthcoming from FSG. She lives in Baltimore and teaches in the creative writing program at George Washington University. 5.17.13

MLKNG SCKLS, short stories

Fiction
Publishing Genius [Press]
60 pp
5 x 7"
perfect bound paperback

MLKNG SCKLS is a book of short stories that are "deleted scenes" from Justin and Haneen's novel Falcons on the Floor. The narrative follow Salim and Khalil, two young men from Fallujah, Iraq, as they leave their hometown on the eve of the first US siege. They do not want to fight in the uprising. They thing walking up the Euphrates river to Ramadi might be safer. Acclimated by Book Slut (.com), the Baltimore City Paper, and over a dozen online literary journals, MLKNG SCKLS has functioned as a book trailer for the forthcoming Falcons on the Floor from Publishing Genius [Press].

Justin Sirois wrote MLKNG SCKLS with the help of Iraqi refugee Haneen Alshujairy. She and her family left Baghdad and Fallujah in 2003 and currently live in Cairo. Justin and Haneen worked on MLKNG SCKLS and the novel Falcons on the Floor for three years, all over the internet. They have yet to meet in person.

  • Haneen Alshujairy

    This book of short stories would not exist without the editorial support of Haneen Alshujairy. Haneen and her family fled Baghdad in the summer of 2003 as Iraq succumbed to sectarian violence. After spending two years in Jordan, the Alshujairy family moved to Cairo. Haneen left Egypt after the Arab Spring to seek asylum in the United States. She now lives in Baltimore, Maryland. She and Justin met for the first time in 2014 after working on projects for nearly six years.
  • blurbs and praise for MLKNG SCKLS

    Praised by Brian Evenson (Brown University, author of Last Days and Dark Property), Book Slut, Baltimore City Paper, Decomp Magazine, Michael Fitzgerald (author of Radiant Days, Counterpoint Press), and others.

    PDF icon blurbs and praise for MLKNG SCKLS
  • first story from MLKNG SCKLS - part 2

    MLKNG SCKLS is a book of short stories that are "deleted scenes" from Justin and Haneen's novel Falcons on the Floor. The narrative follow Salim and Khalil, two young men from Fallujah, as they leave their hometown on the eve of the first US siege. They do not want to fight in the uprising. They thing walking up the Euphrates river to Ramadi might be safer. Acclimated by Book Slut (.com), the Baltimore City Paper, and over a dozen online literary journals, MLKNG SCKLS has functioned as a book trailer for the forthcoming Falcons on the Floor from Publishing Genius [Press].
  • first story from MLKNG SCKLS - part

    MLKNG SCKLS is a book of short stories that are "deleted scenes" from Justin and Haneen's novel Falcons on the Floor. The narrative follow Salim and Khalil, two young men from Fallujah, as they leave their hometown on the eve of the first US siege. They do not want to fight in the uprising. They thing walking up the Euphrates river to Ramadi might be safer. Acclimated by Book Slut (.com), the Baltimore City Paper, and over a dozen online literary journals, MLKNG SCKLS has functioned as a book trailer for the forthcoming Falcons on the Floor from Publishing Genius [Press].
  • complete MLKNG SCKLS book

    MLKNG SCKLS is a book of short stories that are "deleted scenes" from Justin and Haneen's novel Falcons on the Floor. The narrative follow Salim and Khalil, two young men from Fallujah, as they leave their hometown on the eve of the first US siege. They do not want to fight in the uprising. They thing walking up the Euphrates river to Ramadi might be safer.
    Acclimated by Book Slut (.com), the Baltimore City Paper, and over a dozen online literary journals, MLKNG SCKLS has functioned as a book trailer for the forthcoming Falcons on the Floor from Publishing Genius [Press].

    PDF icon complete MLKNG SCKLS book
  • MLKNG SCKLS

    fiction, 60 pages Prequel to the Fallujah Burning Series -- Blurb from Brian Evenson, author of A Collapse of Horses and Windy -- "A tight, spare, and quietly tense gem of a book."

Falcons on the Floor (a novel)

Falcons on the Floor is a 300 page, full-length novel set in Fallujah and Ramadi, Iraq in 2004. It follows Salim and Khalil, two young men living in Fallujah, as they leave the city on the eve the first coalition siege. This novel has been taught at major universities such as SUNY Buffalo and was named best indie novel of the year by two book blogs. It has been praised by The American Book Review, The Colorado Review, The Rumpus, and The L Magazine (NYC) among others:

Falcons on the Floor is witty and darkly funny when it needs to be, and its sad and disastrous moments are perfectly timed... Sirois knows his craft.

Jeff Ludwig for American Book Review
_____________________________________________________________

A classic male debut novel... This book will change your life.

Ben Tanzer

_____________________________________________________________

Sirois makes no political speeches and his characters are totally overwhelmed and lack the language to describe what they have lost, the novel may seem grim, but its single-minded focus on the damage done to civil life by war, the negation of the social, gives the novel both a critical position and a ruthless emotional power.

Adam Novy, for The Rumpus
_____________________________________________________________

Justin Sirois’s debut novel is exciting and eye-opening, with a sad finish that will leave the reader with a fresh disgust for war.

Robert Tumas, for The L Magazine (NYC)

_____________________________________________________________

Apart from its obvious value in and of itself as a frequently striking piece of prose, Sirois’ novel is also notable for its perspective. After an unrelenting slew of movies and books telling the invasion story from American or British or Western points of view, this is a narrative that does at least some justice to the people of Iraq by telling it from their side.

Declan Tan, for 3:am Magazine

______________________________________________________________

Falcons on the Floor has a distinct advantage over many books being published today. That is, it feels deeply, drastically important to read.

Shane Jones, author of Light Boxes
______________________________________________________________

This book is important.

Christopher Newgent, Vouched Books
______________________________________________________________

The writing is excellent, and I say that as a reader who enjoys action in his fiction novels. There is a certain buddy cop vibe to the two main Iraqi characters, Salim and Khalil. But the novel is more Albert Camus and Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov.

Muslim Media Review
______________________________________________________________

Sirois has done something pretty damn beautiful here, both culturally and in terms of mixing the poetic with the prose, so respect must be paid, and the book highly praised.

J.A. Tyler, author of Inconceivable Wilson and A Man of Glass & All the Ways We Have Failed
______________________________________________________________

Falcons on the Floor is the rare novel about war that re-humanizes everyone involved. Through excellent writing and a deep understanding of what occupation does, to civilians and soldiers alike, Sirois and Alshujairy take the reader on a deeply personal journey where we are shown how and why war should be avoided at all cost.

Dahr Jamail, independent journalist and author of Beyond the Green Zone
______________________________________________________________

Sirois disproves that art has no place during times of war. He illuminates the absurdities and complexities of war, details a ravaged, gorgeous landscape and the hearts of men in a way only a novel can do. Compelling, heartfelt, intelligent- Falcons on the Floor shows us how young men, all over this sad planet, become pawns in a world beyond their control.

Paula Bomer, author of Baby and Other Stories
______________________________________________________________

The battle of Fallujah seen on the ground by Iraqis. Two young men slip out of the city under siege to walk through desert patrolled by Coalition commandos to Ramadi. Two young men with conflicting appraisals of the situation, and with the loyalties and lusts of youth and hopeless hopes. The writing of this complex novel makes it a lyrical and sensuous poem – an astonishing and mesmerizing book.

Alphonso Lingis, philosopher and author of The First Person Singular and Body Transformations
______________________________________________________________

I hesitate to call this a brilliant first novel. It is a brilliant novel. Sirois demonstrates a succinct mastery of active language that manages to strike a lyrical cadence. The prose is poetry at times... the dialogue and action move so fluidly and with such grace that it feels like he is retelling a personal experience, or like he stumbled upon such a story, which just happened to take place on the eve of the sieges.

Seth Amos, Dark Sky Magazine

So Say the Waiters (a series of novels)

So Say the Waiters
book 1 (296 pages) and book 2 (284 pages)
fiction
book 3 forthcoming
Series is currently optioned for TV. Named best of 2013 by the Enoch Pratt Library (Baltimore Sun Paper feature).

Henry is hired by a successful software developer and college friend who has created kidnApp, a cell phone app and social network that allows people to kidnap each other for fun. The app is growing faster than they can handle. His friend wants to groom Henry as the Mid-Atlantic regional manager with part ownership of the company, but he will need to become a seasoned kidnApper first. The problem is, Henry is stuck in his conservative job, suffering from post-fiancée breakup depression, and he definitely sucks at kidnApping. But this is an opportunity he cannot refuse.

Danielle (Dani) Hardly is an aimless bartender at a rundown nightclub. She is barely scraping by, but she is one of the first users of kidnApp in Baltimore. She uses the app as an escape from the increasingly difficult world around her, often time pushing the limits of the experience. During a botched kidnApping, she is rescued by newly recruited Henry – someone she has nothing in common with until Henry opens up to her about his less than mediocre kidnapping skills.

The unlikely duo start to change each other in ways they never expected, both good and bad. Their professional relationship, however unlikely, becomes an adventure beyond just kidnapping the simple Waiters.

BLURBS FROM THE BOOKS

“So Say the Waiters is dope. It renders the Baltimore scene lovingly, from the ground, while tapping into that contemporary human need to escape through the shifting space where technology and dreams collide. A cyberpunk novel for a corporatized generation.”

Matthew Porterfield, director of Putty Hill, I Used to be Darker and Hamilton

“The Waiters' catalyst perfectly captures the disconnected, escapist cultural mood of the current era. Baltimore , its setting, embodies so much of what is great and terrible about America right now. The characters pull you with them, hurtling through a landscape that changes under your feet with every step.”

Nolen Strals, Post Typography, Double Dagger, Pure Junk

“As a bibliophile, I'll admit I was hesitant to read a book on a computer screen, but Sirois' "So Say the Waiters" was a great introduction to using the medium and a fast paced read, to boot. His characters and locations were comfortingly familiar to me as an artist working and living in Baltimore City, and also a reminder that there are so many scenes and stories in my own town that are still hidden. Henry and Dani are kindred spirits, both navigating the hyper-connected, private-is-public world of our modern living in search of way to help others, and themselves, let go and just hit that "submit" button.”

Ellen Cherry, sign/songwriter, Please Don’t Sell the Piano

“So Say The Waiters moves like a high-dollar TV series. The writing's dangerously precise. You'll start reading Book 1 and you'll come to hours later, wondering where you just were & craving to be taken back.”

Ken Baumann, actor, publisher, and author of the novel Solip

http://www.sosaythewaiters.com/

Justin's Curated Collection

This artist has not yet created a curated collection.