Out of the Alley and Other Stories [B&W illus.]

There is, beneath the surface of our lives, a greater significance, even hints of a greater reality. Some call this idea illumination; others, illusion. This is the world in which the stories of Out of the Alley and Other Stories are placed. Here the reader will find tales of deep despair and brilliant hope--but not always in the same story. Most of these stories take place in Manhattan, a place of chaotic energy, both creative and destructive. One character explores grimy alleys full of the discarded pieces of two lives. Elsewhere, a tortured man in crisis recreates the Tabernacle built by Moses out of abandoned furniture and bed sheets. A penny-ante cryptographer despairs of losing his sight in Bellevue Hospital, while an advertising executive receives advice in Central Park from a gondolier who may not be entirely real. Delinquent fathers, performance artists, punk rockers, ritual magicians, and living gods: these are some of the characters in this debut collection of nine short stories by Mark Koltko-Rivera. Each story is illustrated in black and white, * and the collection begins with maps showing locations mentioned in the stories. Several of these stories have appeared in online literary magazines. The stories include: . "Spiritual Practice" . "The Cryptographer" . "Out of the Alley" . "Art Form" . "The Gondolier of Bethesda Landing" . "The Death of Mozart" . "The Blueprints" . "The Lines" . "The Most Holy Place" *An edition of this book with full-color illustrations is also available.
About the Author: Mark Koltko-Rivera was born and raised in the East Village, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He has lived for substantial periods of time in Hiroshima, the suburbs of Philadelphia, inner-city Newark (NJ), and Central Florida; he currently lives in New York City.

At various times in his life, Koltko-Rivera has worked as a janitor, hardware store stock clerk, security officer, LDS (Mormon) missionary, systems analyst, director of marketing, psychotherapist, college and graduate school instructor, and as a director of research. For a brief period as a pre-teen, he worked unknowingly as a numbers runner.

He has appeared as an expert in documentaries broadcast on the Discovery and History channels, and has appeared in episodes of the online TV series, "Math Warriors." He is a graduate of Haverford College, Fordham University, and New York University.

His fiction has appeared in several online literary magazines. Three other stories of his appear as interlocking narratives, all encrypted, in Cracking Codes and Cryptograms for Dummies(R) (co-authored with Denise Sutherland; Wiley, 2010).

Koltko-Rivera is at work on a variety of literary projects, fiction and nonfiction, including works for the stage and screen. Readers may learn more about these projects at the author's website: www.markkoltko-rivera.com .

He can be found at the "Mark Koltko-Rivera, Writer" page on Facebook.

His Twitter feed is available at @MarkKoltkoRiver .

The author receives e-mail at: authorMEKR@yahoo.com .