Michael Mirolla

The Collection Agency Files is a faux translation from the German consisting of five sections and a fragment of a sixth relating to events that take place during and immediately after the Second World War. Blending historical facts and alternative history themes, it chronicles the creation and subsequent actions of an all-powerful "collection agency" in Nazi Germany and the adventures of one of the agents (Claudius) in the midst of the rapid rise and even more rapid collapse of the Thousand Year Reich.

Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, friends—they all get into the act in Michael Mirolla's Lessons in Relationship Dyads. Harsh lessons, sweet lessons, bitter lessons, faux lessons, —these are tales that probe not just the primary relationships all humans "enjoy" but also the relationships involved in the act of storytelling itself. These stories rise from fiction to metafiction without ever forgetting that the central beat, the central electrical pulse, in any tale must come from the heart.

Praise for Michael Mirolla: "Intriguing, passionate, sad, hilarious. Mirolla is a master storyteller. . . . Berlin will make you laugh, cry, and cringe."--Toronto Sun "An ambitious novel concerned with the nature of identity, the weight of history, the significance of catastrophe, and the legacies of fascism and communism."--Quill & Quire "Mirolla . . . is a teller of tales that only the tautest of prose could relate with cohesion and beauty. This book will thrill the mind."--CrimeSpree "Mirolla's book excels."--Rain Taxi "The Facility is a fascinating, thought-provoking novel. If you like quirky, mind-bending books, this one is for you "--Geekscribe "Mixes theology, cloning, and Beckettlike absurdist alienation. . . . Parallels the division between mind and body, between technology and nature, and between what we can do and what we should do."--Publishers Weekly The Giulio Metaphysics III is a collection of linked tales on the fluidity of identity and the power of the word. A character named Giulio frees himself from his creator in order to write his own story, only to find himself lost and confused, unable at times to recall his own name. He wanders through landscapes both familiar and alien, struggling to return home. Michael Mirolla's publications include a novella, The Ballad of Martin B.; two novels: Berlin (Bressani Literary Prize winner) and The Facility, which features a string of cloned Mussolinis; two story collections: The Formal Logic of Emotion and Hothouse Loves & Other Tales; and a collection of poetry, Light and Time. He is publisher and editor-in-chief of Guernica Editions in Toronto, Ontario.

The House on 14th Avenue is about paired and shared lives, featuring two people whose connection sometimes seemed forced and uneven. That of master and slave. That of trembling and acceptance. Some of the poems detail each individually, a scraping together of momentary identities; others bring them together as they embark on journeys both physical and psychic. Journeys into the past through an underworld of ancestral ghosts and paths so well-trodden there is no possibility of creating new ones. Journeys in the present through detailed lists of the physical objects around them (with the mythic bleeding through on occasion leaving only stains behind). And journeys into a future where the realization of endings looms and where the two are left once more to cope, each in his or her own way, with that knowledge. In the midst of it all lurks the manipulator of words, phrases, images -- the meta-text that tries so desperately to make sense of it all, that tries to bring order into what seems like simply a chaotic movement forward, and that wishes for, prays for, sacrifices for, a dream state where a culmination of sorts exists, if only in the mind of the creator. In the end, it is left to the reader to decide whether the "two peasants" will be allowed to escape the gravitational pull that has weighed them down...to float away from the harsh realities that have defined them into the realm of words and infinite possibility.