Carver’s Dog

The original blueprints for Trace Publications were drawn on the back of an upturned apple cart in the front yard—such that it was—of a double-wide mobile home on a barren stretch of the Mojave, 50 miles east of the I-15 that cuts a path through the desert connecting Las Vegas, Nevada, with Los Angeles, California.

Since the day of that rough-hewn arrangement, memorialized over stale coffee at a long-forgotten truck stop with Tex Ritter playing on the jukebox and the waitress looking so bored she could kill herself, Trace Publications has grown to acquire a really cool office in Las Vegas, right along the northwest edge of the city, where civilization meets the sand.

Founder and managing editor, Rodger Jacobs (Photo: Conrado Henriquez)

The first book release by Trace Publications was “Mr. Bukowski’s Wild Ride” in July 2008, featuring a series of interconnected short stories by Rodger Jacobs, bookended by short essays from journalist Joseph Mailander, poets Harry Calhoun and David Barker, and artist Vaughn Croteau.

Our second release (November 2008) was “Carver’s Cafe: Stories and Recipes for a Ravaged Economy”:

What is presented in this volume is a finely-edited version of an original family cookbook from the 1970s, pared down to 240 recipes, with an emphasis on meals that are affordable and produce the most value for your shopping dollar in these ravaged economic times. We started with a bold Introduction from writer Rodger Jacobs to thicken the plot and peppered in some of his original microfiction to spice things up. We folded in dozens of handy tips (taken from the original cookbook), sprinkled blank pages around for notes, and dashed in several suggested menus. The full Index is your icing on the cake. Welcome to Carver’s Cafe!

“Carver’s Cafe” is currently in limited release with plans to go wide in February 2009.

In December, Trace Publications is proud to release an anthology of poetry from Harry Calhoun, I Knew Bukowski Like You Knew a Rare Leaf. Harry’s articles, literary essays, poems, and book reviews have been published in a diverse array of publications, including Writer’s Digest, The National Enquirer, Word Catalyst, Chiron Review, and Thunder Sandwich. In addition, he writes an online column about affordable wines called Ten Dollar Tastings. Harry also published a now-rare booklet of Charles Bukowski poems in 1985.

Harry Calhoun

February will see an updated reissue of Rodger’s popular true crime book, “Long Time Money and Lots of Cocaine“, an exhumation of the 1981 “Wonderland” murders in Los Angeles that Adult Video News hailed as “a tale of both hubris and sheer stupidity, fueled by an equal amount of greed and narcotics, and peopled by scumbags, misfits, addicts, and caricatures of evil incarnate.”

Rodger with editor, designer, and layout artist, Lela Michael (2007)

Lela Michael — also know as Miss L — blogs at Piquant Ponderings, a site devoted to frugal recipes and family stories, the online companion to “Carver’s Cafe”.