A Happy Ghost
In Los Angeles, California, a receptionist named Andrei has been shattered by the hotel industry and its customers. His reality of darkness and luxury changes after he meets a guest who tells him to "live like a comet." Andrei considers: what is the most optimal way to live life? His daylong odyssey follows him navigating through Westwood and its people, theater, cafes, university, sidewalks, and gardens.
Fresh. Real. And epic. A Happy Ghost is a novel about adulthood, fear, and a dreary 25-year-old who loathes his boredom and fiercely sets out to take every risk presented to him.
Winner of the 2021 American Fiction Award in Poetry: Anthologies
10 poems.
10 sonnets.
10 haikus.
10 letters.
10 scenes.
10 objects.
10 definitions.
10 directions.
10 entries.
10 recipes.
“Unique and evocative… [he] contemplates everything… reaches insightful
conclusions… [and] crackles with energy.” - Kirkus Reviews
The Goodbye Song is a powerful volume that “tightens your throat.” In his latest book, author, Kristian Ventura, masterfully guides readers across a stunning collection of thought. This book is like an important adventure that carries you everywhere. In today’s world, penetrating one’s heart may not work with an axe, a shout, or a lecture, but rather a haiku, a recipe, and a dialogue. Ventura gazes on the complexities of our time here on earth. Its unique form targets the depths of soul-shattering topics including but not limited to: humiliation, morality, friendship, intuition, manual labor, and loneliness.
Ventura’s writing is accompanied by illustrator Maya Concepción, whose imagination leaves a precise and touching mark in each reader. From urgent fictional letters written a hundred years ago to short stories about humanity’s future, The Goodbye Song is brave, direct, and beautiful.
“An alternately humorous and heartbreaking ode to life’s difficulties... poignant… brilliant [and] exquisitely crafted.” - Kirkus Reviews (read here)
*Finalist for the 2020 American Fiction Awards for Contemporary Poetry*
Can I Tell You Something is a tender and brutal book of philosophy. Its collection is composed of 100 hundred poems about age, addiction, disease, poverty, romance, art, friendship, and more. Kristian Ventura writes to the most vulnerable parts of us, accompanied by exquisite illustrations by Marta Maszkiewicz. Can I Tell You Something, also known as CITYS, was officially released on April 12th, 2020 on Easter Sunday.
These poems were written “from hospital rooms to churches, from audition rooms to lecture halls.” Ventura uses traditional rhyme to ask perplexing questions and confront our questions, our instincts, and most concealed emotions that deserve sharing. The book is a diverse set, ranging from a poem about euthanasia to stanzas on video game/porn addiction, lines on American education to lines on extreme poverty and disease.