I would like to swipe right on your book: Trying to get in with Sad Laughter by Brian Alan Ellis

It's like the Dating Game, only way hotter. I'm Janie and I'm trying to date your new book. In this case, I'm trying to get in with Sad Laughter: A Totally Unessential and Demotivational Guide to Reading, Writing, and Publishing by Brian Alan Ellis and published by the always brilliant Civil Coping Mechanisms. According to Sad Laughter's Tinder bio, it's all about [how] "Writing is like trying to make sense of an inside joke you have with yourself but haha joke’s on you ’cause the joke is more sad than funny." 

Since I love a sense of humor coupled with a futile sense of despair, I'm basically already about this book (along with most of the author's other work). Let's Dating Game this motherfucker: 

Q. If your book was trying to seduce someone in an underground blood orgy, what song would it put on the jukebox?

A. *googles “underground blood orgy music”* A YouTube video of the Dead Milkmen song “Theme from Blood Orgy of the Atomic Fern” came up. Sad Laughter is satisfied with that result.

* as representatives of Philadelphia, we're hyped on this answer 

Q.  If your book was one of the seven deadly sins, what Spice Girl would it kill?

A. ​Is that what the seven deadly sins do, they kill Spice Girls?? That’s horrible. Sad Laughter says, “♫ If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my chronic emotional emptiness ♫”

Q. What is the color of your book’s aura? Why? Get into this, it’s important. 

A. I am only interested in the color of my book’s Oreo, which is Double Stuff Halloween orange.

Q.  If your book was a reality television show, what would its premise be?

A.  A writers retreat where instead of writing, the writers just sit around eating different flavors of Doritos while listlessly watching each other take turns trying to beat really hard NES games like Contra 2 and Kid Icarus.  


Q.  Speaking of reality television, what is your book’s Real Housewives tagline? 

A. The Real Housewives of a Constant and Pervading Existential Void.

Q.  What is the crux of your book’s intimacy issues?

A. Sad Laughter says, “How can you be upset that your short stories get rejected when you’re constantly rejecting love?”

How can you be upset that your short stories get rejected when you’re constantly rejecting love?

Q.  If your book was to make a podcast, how badly was Bret “the Hitman” Hart cheated during the Montreal Screwjob?

A. ​Sad Laughter wholeheartedly agrees that the Hitman was legit wronged at the 1997 Survivor Series. Vince McMahon was a liar—Bret did not screw Bret! Hart Foundation 4 Life! 

Q.  What songs does your book sing when it’s drunk in the middle of the night on a Tuesday trying not to text its ex but does anyway? 

A. Tell me what you thought about when you were gone and so alone
The worst is over
You can have the best of me
We got older but we’re still young
We never grew out of this feeling that we won’t give up
 
—The Starting Line, “Best of Me”

Q.  If your book was an appetizer, which one would it be? 

A. Sad Laughter would be an Applebee’s Classic Combo Platter.

Q.  Sun sign? Moon sign? Rising sign? 

​A. Johnny Cage / Scorpion / Sub-Zero 

Q.  If your book was an Olympian what would it be for? Would it medal? 

​A. Like WWE legend Kurt Angle, Sad Laughter would win a gold medal with a “broken freakin’ neck!”

Q. What is your book’s state dog? 

A. Dog the Bounty Hunter.
 
Q. What is the last book that your book got really into? 

A. Sad Laughter only pretends to read books by Haruki Murakami and Joan Didion so as to impress smart people.
 
Q. What drugs does your book do to unwind? 

​A. Whippets.

Q. We love you, Sad Laughter, no question period the end. 

A. Sad Laughter loves you back. *wink*

Go support innovative and prose and poetry and pick up Sad Laughter. Go support our boy and by extension all bossin' indie lit making a difference in this big bad world. 

BRIAN ALAN ELLIS is the author of several books, including Sad Laughter (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2018) and Something to Do with Self-Hate (House of Vlad Productions/Talking Book, 2017). His writing has appeared at Juked, Hobart, Monkeybicycle, Fanzine, Electric Literature, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Funhouse, Heavy Feather Review, and Queen Mob’s Tea House, among other places. He lives in Florida, and tweets sad and clever things at both @brianalanellis and @HouseofVlad. 

​You can also find him living over at brianalanellis.tumblr.com

Civil Coping Mechanisms (CCM) is a DIY kind of press. We take the same level of angst as our colleagues in shunning those that would be in the immediate position of neglecting our efforts as artisans. We take the sentiment of doing it ourselves while stating to the tired publishing process, “To hell with it.” Why not do it our way? What only matters: Offering a space for the innovation so sorely shamed and disregarded as unmarketable by the major and indie presses too busy selling the next celebrity memoir, paper-thin creative nonfiction spine of lies, the wax-intellectual pursuits of yet-again the same vision wrapped in newer trim, or the same regurgitated genre-fiction and prose you’d expect would have become stale by now. Oh yes, we rant. This is our place. We’ll do as we damn well please.​

The above was taken from their home over at: http://copingmechanisms.net/ 

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Sad Laughter: A Totally Unessential and Demotivational Guide to Reading, Writing, and Publishing

House of Vlad catalogue