A zine about touring about zines? It’s not a logic paradox, it’s the new piece of mimeographed wonder from Microcosm Press’ Joe Biel. Sheila Scoville gets in the van.

Sheila Scoville is intrigued by many of the assertions raised in Greg Bottoms controversial series of interviews with outsider artists - many of which go a long way towards shattering some of the idealized myths about the people behind the visionary, individualistic works.

Sheila Scoville discovers the great Townes Van Zandt through John Kruth’s freewheeling new testament to the hard-luck cowboy junkie, folk balladeer, lyrical healer and misfit hellion. And that doesn’t even begin to sum him up.

Don’t let the blinding sun of the tropics fool you. Daniel Chavarria’s new novel is prime Caribbean noir. Sheila Scoville adjusts her sunglasses and observes the bodies piling up.

Sheila Scoville is duly impressed by Nate Watson’s autobiographical account of an itinerant life in pursuit of punk’s more utopian values - and the pretty pictures, natch. It ain’t Spiderman.

The frontman of a hugely popular rock band is found dead by a shotgun wound. Sound familiar? It’s also the beginning of rock writer James Greer’s elliptical new novel. And, as Sheila Scoville finds out, any resemblance to actual events or people is entirely purposeful.

Sheila Scoville is dazzled by the range of subjects and themes in the first issue of a new “journal of urbane urban literature.” Step to this.