Author Guest Post: What is Bizarro Literature and am I weird enough to read it?

What is Bizarro Literature
by Lee Widener




(The answer to the second question is yes.   You probably either know that you're weird or you're weirder than you think you are.  I will get out of the way now and let Lee Widener answer the first question -  Julie)

Bizarro Fiction is an upstart literary movement characterized by a high degree of weirdness. That's the single defining characteristic. Someone might read a science fiction novel because they're interested in how things might be in the future. Or they might read a horror novel because they like the scares. Someone reads Bizarro because they want to read something that's like nothing they've read before. No two Bizarro books are the same. They're as diverse as a love story between a man and the spider that moved in next door, like in Betty Rocksteady's "Arachnophile," or a buddy cop adventure featuring Vincent Van Gogh and Ganesha, as in Chris Meekings' "Elephant Vice," or maybe a bloody revenge story starring a gun-toting 90 year old Granny, like Dustin Read's "Grambo."
 
Bizarro is the genre of the literary left-field, like a road map drawn by Picasso, as Pedro Proença once said. It's where the authors aren't afraid to "go there." They go even farther than all the way. Metaphors often come to life in a literal form. There are as many styles of Bizarro as there are Bizarro authors. "Rock N Roll Head Case" tells the story of a poor guy who happens to have Alice Cooper's head growing on the end of his arm. There are cameos by Andre' the Giant and Bela Lugosi, a talking banana and a crazy Frankenstein beast of a Presidential candidate. And that's only the beginning...
 
You can find Lee's books here. 

---