In the early nineties, Beck sang 'I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?' and changed everything. Suddenly, it wasn't so bad to be a nerd or an oddball; loser chic had begun. Ten years later, after all the computer nerds have had the last laugh, Jon Paul Fiorentino turns to Thorstein Veblen's seminal social science text from 1899, The Theory of the Leisure Class. Veblen's book introduced to our culture the terms 'conspicuous consumption' and 'nouveau riche'; it identified a new demographic, the leisure class, and demarcated its position in culture. The Theory of the Loser Class, then, is an art manifesto for the aesthetics and ethics of loser culture. If the Anthony Michael Hall character in The Breakfast Club wrote poems (and, deep down, you know that he did), they'd probably read a lot like The Theory of the Loser Class. Drawing on texts ranging from Thorstein Veblen's groundbreaking The Theory of the Leisure Class to Star Wars (the nerd Bible) for inspiration, this carefully crafted suite of poems documents the tribulations and insecurities of everyone's inner geek. Fiorentino maps the psychic territory of abjection across the shopworn spaces of suburban Winnipeg, where a landscape of aging strip malls, burned-out houses and living rooms littered with video-game consoles serves as a mirror to the inner states of urban ennui among the socially inept and the culturally vexed. By turns compassionate, funny and filled with selfloathing, The Theory of the Loser Class is never without the possibility of redemption; 'And if a loser falls,' says the narrator of 'Right in the Spine,' 'I feel it.' The Theory of the Loser Class is the perfect soundtrack for the alienated and the hopeless.

Fiction. Art. Illustrations by Maryanna Hardy. The characters in I'm not Scared of You or Anything are invigilators, fake martial arts experts, buskers, competitive pillow fighters, drug runners, and, of course, grad students. This collection of comedic short stories and exploratory texts is the ninth book by the critically acclaimed and award- winning author Jon Paul Fiorentino. Deftly illustrated by Maryanna Hardy, these texts ask important questions, like: How does a mild mannered loser navigate the bureaucratic terrain of exam supervision? What happens when you replace the text of Christian Archie comics with the text of Helene Cixous? And, most important of all, what would it be like if Mr. Spock was a character in the HBO series GIRLS?

Career Suicide is a collection of a new generation of funny talkers. Poems and stories which find their laughs in different quarters: in the wry, the slapstick, the satiric, and the dark. One of the characteristics of contemporary Canadian literary humour may well be its engagement with popular culture. Here the importance of DKNY, Corey Feldman, Lik M Aid, Randy Savage, John Cougar Mellancamp, the game of Clue, all question the limiting purview of what may be deemed 'serious'. As odd, off-putting, and hilarious as that may be, the authors of Career Suicide find their laughs, as we all do, in the limitations of human experience and, one suspects, pre-mixed mai tais.

Contemporary Canadian poetry got you down? Well, we'd like to prescribe a little "Hello Serotonin," the latest in mood-enhancing poetry anti-depressants. This new book of poems from Jon Paul Fiorentino operates within the constraints of what he terms 'synaptic syntax' - poetry that performs the very nature of neuronal activity from the point of view of a mood-enhanced Human Comedy, which, with a quick turn of phrase, or missing neurotransmitter, could become Human Tragedy. Filled with a witty, self-deprecating and often Andy Kaufmanesque sense of humour, "Hello Serotonin" is today's generation of pharmaceutical poetry, and will alter your perception of therapeutic poetics. Get your prescription filled today!