Ahead of Canzine 2013, we will be doing short profiles of some vendors we’d like you to know about. If you like what you see, please come support their work at Canzine on Sunday, October 20!
Chris Eng’s debut novel, ‘Molotov Hearts‘. Check it out here.
Chris Eng’s interview answers were, in all honesty, too amazing not to put word-for-word. So here it is…
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BP: How would you describe your work/what you are doing?
Chris: I mostly write punk romance fiction for my publishing imprint, HoodieRipper. Sometimes I write things that aren’t very romantic, but they’re still usually about punks. I also do a punk music podcast. I’m gonna try to write a sentence that doesn’t use the word ‘punk’ in it. Should be super easypunk. Dammit.
BP: What are you bringing to Canzine?
Chris: I’ll be bringing copies of my debut novel ‘Molotov Hearts’. Here’s the blurb for it: “Jenn McNabb is a girl who spends her days shuttling back and forth between her crappy home life and crappy school life, dreaming of the punk scene—dreaming of escape (and maybe that punk boy she saw). But even if she manages to get into the scene (or get the boy), will that be enough to fix her problems and change her from the girl the world thinks she is to the girl she wants to be? And will she figure out how to throw a punch if she needs to? Molotov Hearts features punk houses, punk parties, basement shows, make-out sessions, fist fights and dumpster diving. It’s funny, sad, romantic and a novel for anyone who wants to read a story in the tradition of “girl-meets-boy, girl-joins-punk-band, girl-kicks-ass.” (It lives online here.)
I’ll also be debuting ‘Singles’, a brand new collection of punk romance short stories with illustrations from Cristy C. Road and Kelsey Short, and a cover by Emily Shoichet! Seven of the stories have been published before, but one of them is all new! (The short stories live here.)
BP: Why should people be stoked about visiting your table?
Chris: Punks in love! Posi stories (mostly)! Whenever people talk about punk stories, they always bring up things like ‘Sid & Nancy’ where the synopsis runs along the lines of: “Punks meet. Punks fall in love! THEN SADNESS! BTW, DRUGS! OH NOEZ, DED!” I decided to do something different by writing stories which are sometimes sad (I mean, hey, life is sometimes sad), but are mostly just about kids trying to figure out their place in society and the world, as well as with each other. Because, y’know, sometimes life has happy endings. And sometimes they even happen to people who tell society to go fuck itself.
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Based on the interview alone, Chris seems like a pretty cool human, so be sure to check out his table at Canzine!