Monday, April 25, 2022

Open Poetry Reading May 1, 2022 in Joshua Tree! 4-6 PM

 


Cholla Needles

Open Poetry Reading

May 1, 2022 4-6 PM

at
The Retreat Center Bookstore Stage
Bring a mask and a lawn chair for comfort
and your own poetry to read!
Everyone is welcome!

Sponsored by The Joshua Tree Folk School

Come early and enjoy the
Joshua Tree Retreat Center Cafe/Restaurant
located at the large red dot on the map.

Map:

Monday, April 11, 2022

Book Release Party April 24, 2022 3-5 PM!


Sunday, April 24, 3-5 PM. 

We are celebrating three fabulous poets with new books to share! Cynthia Anderson, Toti O'Brien & Katerina Canyon will read from and sign copies of their new work at the Retreat Book Store, located at The Joshua Tree Retreat Center. We are entering through the main gate and following the signs to the office (bookstore is close to the office). Plenty of space to social distance, and plenty of parking. Feel free to bring a mask, a lawn chair, and a sun umbrella for your personal comfort. There is limited seating available on-site if you do not have a chair. Also note: The Retreat Center CafĂ© is 1 minute away and is open from 7 AM to 3 PM. So, a fun plan is to go to lunch & then head on over to the reading. There is a restroom available at the bookstore. Bring a friend and enjoy the party! If you have questions, message us, or send rich an email - editor@chollaneedles.com. Good times!!! 

CLICK TO LEARN MORE:

Cynthia Anderson: [Website] [Facebook]
Toti O'Brien: [Website] [Facebook]
Katerina Canyon: [Website] [Facebook]




  

Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Youth Poetry Reading! April 10 2 PM at MDLT


Cholla Needles

Open Youth Poetry Reading

April 10, 2022 2-4 PM

at
The Mojave Desert Land Trust
60124 Twenty-nine Palms Hiway, Joshua Tree, CA

Bring a mask and a lawn chair for comfort
and poetry to read!

There are also chairs on-site if you need one =:-)

Everyone is welcome!


 

Monday, April 4, 2022

Review: Fallout From Our Asphalt Hell by Gabriel Hart

Fallout From Our Asphalt Hell by Gabriel Hart

If Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, and Edgar Allen Poe were all summoned back from the dead to jointly work in a chemistry lab for the express purpose of creating a modern day story teller, the end result would take the form of Gabriele Hart. Where has he been? Licking his wounds, honing his craft, evolving, putting in those 10,000 necessary hours before being able to write fearlessly and with abandon. A musician, poet, and journalist Hart has forsaken the disorienting L A street scene in favor of the clarifying California high desert. His characters are frequently bizarre, hermetic, and uncaring; like the desert itself. Take them or leave them because they won’t change – they are what they are.

This collection of 20 fast-paced short stories cut to the quick.  There’s death, there’s suicide, there’s alcoholism, there’s hopeless drug addiction.  And, there are precious few characters to actually look up to. Hart provides a gutter lever glimpse of humanity that is not unlike a hideous car wreck; they’re simply too awful to look away from. Infidelity gone awry, botched contract killings, glorification of the anti-hero, out-patient sex change operations, an entire town’s economy propped up by dog fighting, invention of a drug that takes the user so high that death is the  only thing left to experience. A delicious and dizzying display of debauchery, dysfunction, and despicableness that leaves you shocked, occasionally revolted, and constantly turning the pages.

Fallout From Our Asphalt Hell defies genre description.  Are these stories punk, pulp, speculative, or heroin chic? At times they’re equal measures of all, and at other times they’re none of the above, but at all times they’re thoroughly entertaining. As Thompson would say: “Buy the ticket, take the ride.” You won’t be disappointed.


Click here for more information 

 Review by John Krieg

Other recent books by Gabriel Hart










Friday, April 1, 2022

April Issue Released! Cholla Needles 64



 A huge thanks to these great writers
for making this issue special!

Cynthia Anderson
Tamara Madison
Cindy Weinstein
Tobi Alfier
Susan Abbott
Toti O’Brien
Francene Kaplan
Heather Morgan
Mark T. Evans
John Sierpinski
Ernesto Cardenal

Open Poetry Reading! April 3, 2-4 PM in Joshua Tree

 


Cholla Needles

Open Poetry Reading

April 3, 2022 2-4 PM

at
The Retreat Center Bookstore Stage
Bring a mask and a lawn chair for comfort
and your own poetry to read!
Everyone is welcome!

Sponsored by The Joshua Tree Folk School

Come early and enjoy the
Joshua Tree Retreat Center Cafe/Restaurant
located at the large red dot on the map.

Map: