Books of Short Stories
Weasel Press- The Hypochondriac Society (2021; out of print)
Praise for The Hypochondriac Society
The Hypochondriac Society is punchy, tender, ironic, and winningly odd. Infused with Prihoda’s laconic wit, these comic gems and twenty-first century parables surprise as often as they charm. Telegrams from the frontier of contemporary fiction. Not to be missed. – Dr. John Bolin, University of Exeter professor and author of Three Pioneers
Reading The Hypochondriac Society and other stories by Michael Prihoda is a delirious summersault into the lives of ordinary people made strange by their yearning for connection and the end of their boredom. Prihoda is an accomplished storyteller, whose inviting voice and sense of brevity will get you to sit, down, shut up, and share a few laughs along the way. Prihoda lures you in with laughs, and makes you stay for the warm fire feeling of resonance as you get to know these characters, all along wondering when someone like you will show up, living the multitude of lives you’ve been missing out on until you sink deeper into these short but stirring tales. – Tommy Dean, author of Hollows and editor at Fractured Lit
Enigmatic, engaging, strange, these stories arrive like alien transmissions, half-foreign, half-familiar, completely compelling and singular and authentic in tone and voice and wonderful weirdness. The Hypochondriac Society stands wild and real, and Michael Prihoda brings us such fresh news of the world, all of it shot through with his slant rhymes of intelligence and heart. – William Lychack, author of Cargill Falls and The Architect of Flowers
Books of Poetry
Hesterglock- Out of the Sky (2019), under their Prote(s)xts imprint.
A full, page-by-page redaction of Don DeLillo’s Falling Man.
Reviewed by:
Weasel Press- Years Without Room (2018, out of print)
Praise for Years Without Room
In Michael Prihoda’s years without room he is able to distill the beauty and desperation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road by stripping down an already bare landscape into a shoulder-width story that crowds us and pushes us into ourselves in a profound way. Combining short lines of dialogue, abstract landscapes, and emotional fits from McCarthy’s masterwork he has created a unique volume of redaction that succeeds wildly in inverting the original text into his own sparse poetry. years without room does exactly what great redaction or erasure can do, it finds the inner voice, the different voice, the haunting voice of the original work and makes us listen to it. –Darren C. Demaree, author of Two Towns Over
Michael Prihoda’s years without room is a ballsy collection of poems based on the writing of Cormac McCarthy. In lesser hands this would be foolish but Prihoda is up to the challenge and his language is as sinewy, fiery and Biblical as McCarthy’s. Favorite page: ‘he felt/years,/claiming him.//possibly/a door’.”-Corey Mesler, author of Among the Mensans
Early on Prihoda poetisizes, ‘lost among the inward parts of some granitic beast the earth of years without room.’ This pretty much sets the tone for the whole book. These poems are really compact stories that thrive in an incomprehensible world— stories that remind us of our brittle humanity. As a whole they present a powerful message that urge us to stay strong and mindful in spite of the difficult news. These are poems worth returning to—words that may just give us some comfort that otherwise would have been absent. . .-Jeffrey Zable, poet/musician
Weasel Press- Beneath This Planetarium (2018, out of print)
Praise for Beneath This Planetarium
Beneath this Planetarium by Michael Prihoda takes the reader through a whirlwind of a journey that spans from the whimsical to macabre. This collection is a series of broad overarching thoughts about the world interspersed with the narrow reflections of human relationships and existence. It’s a compelling read with imagery that allows its audience to feel, taste, smell, and be moved by each and every piece as Prihoda shares proverbial wisdom and cries out for change. —Sherayah Witcher
Beneath This Planetarium is an education in disillusionment and survival. Disillusionment with the human capacity for cultural, socio-political, and personal neglect. Survival through the realization that wisdom and care can be hidden in the things we fear the most. These truths and hopes are not left in the open to be stolen or corrupted. They are buried, deep within a complex structure of loss and living. The onus is on us (the readers) to find them:
“here is our mother.
she is makingthe bed, pushing
out from the doorwayto another door
another way of being.”—Peter Gabriel Res, poet & editor, author of the softest girl on earth (a…p press, 2015)
Wanton Text Press- The Festival of Guns (2017)
A full, page-by-page redaction of Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.
Weasel Press- The First Breath You Take After You Give Up (2016, out of print)
An experimental collection of song poems where each poem is constructed entirely of song titles from an artist’s single album.
Sein Und Werden Books- A House in Use (2016)
A full blackout collection of the novel Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Sein Und Werden Books- Threat (2016)
A full blackout collection of the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Weasel Press- The Same That Happened Yesterday (2016, out of print)
A collection of experimental poetry, often dwelling on the disorientation in human relationships.
Sein Und Werden Books- Hear (2015)
A full blackout collection of the novel The Stranger by Albert Camus.
Michael Prihoda 