To be Released August 1:

This new edition of Michael Kleen’s classic Tales of Coles County, Illinois combines both the original book and the Legends and Lore of Coles County for the first time in print. When four students from Eastern Illinois University are stranded during a violent storm, they seek shelter with an elderly couple who give them more than they bargain for. After one night, the four will never look at Coles County the same way.

In the Legends and Lore of Coles County, Michael Kleen reveals over a dozen hidden stories from the area’s past and present. What is the history of Coles County’s ghost towns? Does a werewolf stalk the Charleston Stone Quarry? When did a poltergeist terrorize one rural family in Pleasant Grove Township? Is there buried treasure in Coles County? What is the real story behind the “Mad Gasser of Mattoon”? The answers to these questions and more can be found in this definitive volume.

The Blue Parrot

By Robert Klein Engler

You can't beat the digital version in full color“Looks like dis dyin’ gonna be hard as dis livin’,” Old Santiago says, then he slams his empty shot glass on the damp table. “Let’s have another,” he shouts. “I’m still thirsty.”
    
Outside, a thin rain falls. It makes the wrought iron balcony above shine like black oil. A hint of fog paints halos around the street lamps. There comes also the clop, clop of a mule pulling a carriage around the corner. This beat fades over the low song from the jukebox. It must be at least two in the morning. Because this bar on Rampart Street near Esplanade never closes, what difference does it make? Casey Mallone, the owner, is sometimes here and other times his wife pours the drinks and takes the money. When worshipers come to the temple, it is foolish for priests to be asleep.
    
The Blue Parrot is an old, dark and ramshackle place. Mardi Gras decorations hang from the dim lamps and drape across a cloudy mirror. Multicolored bottles of various potions rest on small stairs before they are emptied. These bottles are lit from behind and cast a magical light in an otherwise dull and ordinary place at the edge of the French Quarter. In a touch of New Orleans irony, there are no pictures of blue parrots to be seen here, just an electric sign in the smudged window that flashes over and over, “OPEN” and turns toward her. (Pg. 13)

Nero’s Flame

By Steven Clark

The courtyard of my apartment, nestled on Beacon Hill, is one of Boston's finest. A discreet but handsome niche fit for an old dowager like myself. It would be praised and admired by all if they were allowed to enter and see. But they are not.
    
I just spent the summer morning pruning my roses and reading a chapter of some Victorian romance that I had put off until now. I set down the book and let its face kiss the spruce bench as I admired the garden's verdant flora. Its grotto reminded me of past summers in Paris, the Cape...Venetian courtyards where I had been entertained by men who were now long dead. My cat Trump rubbed his brindled body against my leg, as he does when he wants to remind me that it is really his garden though one where I'm tolerated. I pet him and he leapt onto my cast-iron table, a soft meow breaking the silence. I started to baby talk him, a habit only done in solitude.
    
My fingers glided on his furry cheek until he froze and jumped down to the brick patio, where he scurried behind the ferns. I looked up.
    
She was certainly no older than her mid-twenties. A prim, modest skirt and jacket covered a slender figure, all of it matching a face looking like a shy aunt in a family photograph. Her beauty lay in the unsullied blue eyes that looked at me openly and innocently, ready to trust. (pg. 17)

Read the compelling conclusions to these stories, and more, in the new issue of Black Oak Presents!

To Enjoy Black Oak Presents:

Click on one of the options below. If you order the digital version, you will recieve a link in your e-mail in-box directing you to a secure site where you can download the issue. If you order the hard copy, the magazine will arrive at your house with a beautiful, full color cover and glossy, b/w interior pages!

As a Digital (.PDF) Copy - $3.50

As a Hard Copy - $5.00:

The Summer 2010 issue of Black Oak Presents in now available!

In our Summer 2010 issue, Black Oak brings you an exclusive interview with Andrew Yeoman of the Bay Area National Anarchists. BANA gained national attention earlier this spring when they were attacked by left-wing anarchists at a May Day rally in San Francisco. Read the interview and hear the fascinating story behind this incident, and join us for a conversion about Andrew's personal philosophy.

Black Oak Presents is packed full of opinions, artistry, and writing from America’s heartland. In this issue we feature art by Ryan Hoevenaar, Rachel Katzman, Kieran McGonnell, and more, plus fiction by Golda Carrico, Steven Clark, Robert Klein Engler, and Nick Vracar.

Steven Clark returns to Black Oak with his short story "Nero's Flame." Violet Cotton works at her garden undisturbed, until one day a young women named Alice stops at her home to sell flowers. There is only one problem: Alice is trapped by a cult. Through the magic of Nero's Flame, can Violet save the young women before it's too late? Find out in this issue of Black Oak Presents!

To Enjoy Black Oak Presents:
Click on one of the options below. If you order the digital version, you will recieve a link in your e-mail in-box directing you to a secure site where you can download the issue. If you order the hard copy, the magazine will arrive at your house with a beautiful, full color cover and glossy, b/w interior pages!

As a Digital (.PDF) Copy - $3.50

As a Hard Copy - $5.00:

By Michael Kleen

A few weeks ago, a young man with a certain “edge” approached me on Facebook, hyping his magazine with promises of an open war on “politically correct horror,” seeking the voice of the “new Angry Young Man or Angry Young Woman.” He attacked a friend’s publication, accusing it of not being “dark” enough. In the contemporary horror scene, it appears that “badder is better,” and like thrash metal, its sole purpose has become one-upmanship—plot, character development, and interesting settings be damned.

But the idea that any artistic pursuit ought to be more offensive and more extreme than the last loses sight of the real purpose of art. We have long used art to question, to inspire, to reflect, and to arouse the passions. Sometimes, offending a viewer, listener, or reader is inevitable—a byproduct of the original intent. But what happens when the purpose of a work of art is to offend, or to simply “be extreme”? The end result is not art, but something else. The artist has confused the consequence for the purpose. Or, as the late Peter Steele of Type O Negative once said, “Functionless art is simply tolerated vandalism.”

At the root of this rat race to be the most offensive and the most extreme is nihilism—a disgust with life and a desire for destruction. At the risk of sounding like an art snob, that is not art, it is merely the annihilation of form and content for the sake of it; an outward manifestation of the frustrations of an adolescent stuck in an artist’s body. Does it also stem from a yearning for attention? Perhaps.

To be an artist requires skill and, some would say, a bit of talent. The ability to put words to a page does not make someone a writer any more than the ability to strum a guitar makes someone a musician. People who want to make it in the music business by emulating Jim Morrison’s bizarre behavior do not realize how many hours of practice he put into his art, how many failures he overcame, and how much suffering he endured.  Likewise, one cannot just do a bunch of drugs and become a writer like Hunter S. Thompson. Morrison and Thompson’s extremity was a byproduct of their work—not their purpose or original intent.

This is my plea to my fellow artists, writers, and musicians—understand why you want to create and make your goal the perfection of your art. Extremity for the sake of extremity is destructive, not creative, and creation is the foundation of all true art.

Since 2007, Black Oak Media has endeavored to bring you independent art, writing, commentary, social critique, and hard-hitting interviews with men and women making an impact in their communities - be they professional, academic, cultural, or otherwise.

Now, we are looking for columnists for both BlackOakMedia.org and our quarterly magazine, Black Oak Presents.

Opinion columns should be between 550 and 750 words and pertain to issues effecting Americans living in the "flyover states." Please e-mail your submissions, along with a short bio, as an attachment (text-file or MS Word file) to "submissions@blackoakmedia.org." Please include your name, ground address, e-mail address and phone number on both your e-mail itself and the attached document or text file.

We are especially interested in columns that have a local focus, but that draw broader connections to the culture at large. Feel free to reference art, music, literature, movies - anything you believe might bolster your argument. Plagerism will not be tolerated.

Black Oak Presents: A Quarterly Journal of Mid-American Culture

In our Spring 2010 issue, Black Oak brings you an exclusive interview with Jan Stover, Founder and Director of The Mothers Institute. Jan tells us how her organization is working with mothers all over Illinois to educate their children in the principles of liberty.

Black Oak Presents is packed full of opinions, artistry, and writing from America’s heartland. In this issue we feature a review of Minsk’s new album With Echoes in the Movement of Stone, as well as profiles of other local artists. This issue also contains art, fiction, and photography by Ann Coddington Rast, Stephen Cunningham, Camille Hawbaker, Mark Swain, and many others.

But that’s not all. William E. Feltt returns to Black Oak Presents with his short fiction, “Blank Page: A Love Story.” Through the pages of her diary, Joannie struggles to find love in a brutal world. Will expressive therapy help her overcome her intoxicating addiction, or will she succumb to the cycle of abuse?

To Enjoy Black Oak Presents:
Click on one of the options below. If you order the digital version, you will recieve a link in your e-mail in-box directing you to a secure site where you can download the issue. If you order the hard copy, the magazine will arrive at your house with a beautiful, full color cover and glossy, b/w interior pages!

As a Hard Copy (pre-orders until March 8) $5.00:

 Or download our order form to pay by check.

As a Digital (.pdf) Copy $3.50: