Stephen Canner - Parsing the Traces: A Book of Disappearances

“Parsing the Traces: A Book of Disappearances” by Stephen Canner, 36 pp., 8.5 x 5.5 in., printed on 70# linen paper, saddle-stitched with a 100# uncoated smooth cover featuring a color photograph by Austin photographer Will Branch, in an edition of 50 signed and numbered copies.

This mysterious and haunting creative non-fiction piece isn’t easy to describe. Combining elements of psychogeography and hauntology with history and poetic prose, it may leave you feeling that you’ve wandered into some forgotten archive of ephemera related to strange and eerie occurrences. On the surface these fragments may seem random, but are connected in ways that slowly reveal themselves. This is no linear history, but an intuitive unfolding — a re-examining of how artificial categories limit our understanding of reality — told through subtle observations and evocative writing.

STEPHEN CANNER holds a BS in interdisciplinary studies with concentrations in English literature and linguistics, and a master’s degree in archival studies. His writing centers on creative non-fiction and on obscure and overlooked topics of popular culture. He is also a songwriter and musician in the mutant folk/acoustic Americana project Swarme of Beese. With his wife and creative partner Lynne Adele, he co-founded Backwoods Modern Press.