In this complex, stylish and downright dirty novel. Daithidh MacEochaidh belts through the underclass, underachieving, postponed-modern sacrilege and the more pungent bodily orifaces. Somewhere between the intertext and the testosterone find Ron Smith, illiterate book lover, philosopher of non-thought and the head honcho's left arm man Like a Dog to Its Vomit is a must read for anyone who has ever poked his toe into the world of critical theory: many of the postmodern textual games and strategies are on offer, used, abused, open to derision, and yet strangely sanctioned in the end.

Jo Pearson - Born into a one time mining family in Ossett, West Yorkshire in 1970, Jo Pearson was brought up on Merseyside, returning in 1984 with a scouse accent at the height of the miner's strike. Jo studied music and psychology in York and London and worked in Edinburgh as a music therapist. She is now a eurythmy pianist at York Steiner School. Jo began writing prose poetry in the mid 1990's. Not a performer, Jo prefers to let her poems speak from the page. Published widely in the small press, this is Jo's first full collection. Talking to the Virgin Mary explores legacy and its effect on the individual and the social, identity and its expression through appearance and perception and communication, the wafer thin mint dividing sanity and reality. Daithidh MacEochaidh - Mad Mac's poetry is informed by the absurdity of the mundane, the injustice of the quotidian boot in the face, and the senselessness of drawing the next breath. Despite sticking the flip-flop into a fully formalised nihilism, his poems rage against the tame, banal niceties of poetic craft in favour of the scansion of the head-butt, the iambic explosion of a Tourettic F.U. and a manic metric syntax charged with semtex. All this laced with poisonous wit, humour and the smile of the successful suicide. Peter Knaggs - is interested in how the ordinary and extraordinary interweave. His poetry is about storytelling and characters. Informed by modern poetics and culture, Cilla Black has as much to do with the outcome as Simic, O'Brien, Sweeney or Armitage. Tolstoy on a Horse, is a chronicle of his time spent as poet in residence of his own home, 75 Chanterlands Avenue, Hull.

"Route Offline" is a festival of contemporary stories that brings together in printed form a series of distinguished collections which were initially published online.The twenty-five stories included here take you around the world in the safety of your own book and in the hands of first class storytellers. Inside you will find five original collections featuring: a magical and exotic compilation of Bulgarian shorts; the young single father's tale; an exploration of skin that crosses the barrier between what's inside and what's outside; an eclectic series of colourful lives condensed and a sundrenched collection of dogs, summer heat and the first flushes of sexual awakening."Route Offline" is a title in the "Route" series of contemporary stories.