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The Best of Panic!
The first anthology for the revolutionary downtown New York/Latino reading series PANIC!, curated and edited by writer/literary activist Charlie Vázquez. Witness the cutting edge of the "new" New York underground writing scene...over thirty new voices featured!
216 pages, Paperback
First published December 10, 2010
16 people want to read
About the author
Charlie Vázquez
15 books43 followersCharlie Vázquez is the author of the novel Contraband (Rebel Satori, 2010). His fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous anthologies, including “The Death Angel of Santurce”, featured in San Juan Noir (Akashic, 2016). He coedited the anthology From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction (Lethe, 2011) and appears in the graphic novel collection Ricanstruction (Somos Arte, 2018), which donates proceeds to hurricane relief in Puerto Rico. He contributed to the anthology Crashing Cathedrals (ITNA, 2019), which features essays by authors on their favorite Edmund White books. His latest collection of stories, Fantasmas: Puerto Rican Tales of the Dead, will come out in April 2020. Charlie directed the BCA Bronx Writers Center from 2014-2018 and lives in the Bronx.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 14, 2016
I have a story in here, so obviously I'm giving this five stars :)
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If you liked this, make sure to follow me on Goodreads for more reviews!
April 14, 2022
WRITINGS FROM THE PANIC! READING SERIES
In his introduction to The Best of PANIC! Charlie Vázquez writes: “[T]he intersection of being queer and Latino . . . is anything but dull.” The writers (not all Latinos) and their stories and poems that Vázquez includes in this collection are most certainly anything but dull. The Best of PANIC! Is a cornucopia of riches. After finishing one selection, I quickly turned the page to read the next one. In no time at all I had finished the collection. I wanted more!
I particularly liked Dan Lopez’s story “The Cruise.” A group of friends from New York go on a cruise on a ship named the Patria and become infatuated with one of the young crew members. The joys of this story are the dialogue and interaction between Rogelio, Marcelino, and Teófilo as they vie for the unnamed crew member’s attentions. The young man has a dream of someday owning his own boat. The guys say they would go with him. But, as Teófilo says, “The only way that boy was ever going to get off this boat, compadre, was to jump, and if we were smart we’d jump too.”
“Deflower” by Rosalind Lloyd is a beautifully written piece of lesbian erotica that begins in the Union Square Green Market and ends in the ladies’ room of the Coffee Shop on the square. Flowers play a major role in the story.
Tod Crouch’s short piece “The Only Life I Ever Intentionally Ruined” somewhat humorously deals with a particular brand of high school politics that every gay man experiences. Crouch attributes the following quote to Quentin Crisp: “Some roughs are really queer, and some queers are really rough.”
The last four stories, all by male authors, are somewhat shocking and, depending on the reader, may test the boundaries of good taste: Larry La Fountain-Stokes’s “la mierda (shit),” Pietro Scorsonne’s “God in an Alcove,” an excerpt from Charles Rice-Gonzaléz’s novel Chulito titled “Hallelujah Pow!” and David Huberman’s “Full Circle.” Read these stories and see what you think.
As you would expect from a collection of writings from the PANIC! reading series in New York, The Best of PANIC! contains a lot of energetic, expressive poetry. Standouts for me are three poems by Roberto F. Santiago, “And Then We Kissed” (romantic), “Carrier” (ironically romantic), and “Say Yes” (“I’m not asking you for anything / you don’t already want. / I am simply stating my availability.”). Also, I was struck by the two intense, angry poems by Gabrielle Rivera, “The Love Choke” (“Five years have passed between us and it’s come to this / Sink, swim, or die by my hands, bitch.”) and “Jane Doe Rican” (I am the Jane Doe Rican / another faceless name on the 2020 Census,”).
The Best of PANIC! contains many more exciting stories and poems than I have mentioned here.
In his introduction to The Best of PANIC! Charlie Vázquez writes: “[T]he intersection of being queer and Latino . . . is anything but dull.” The writers (not all Latinos) and their stories and poems that Vázquez includes in this collection are most certainly anything but dull. The Best of PANIC! Is a cornucopia of riches. After finishing one selection, I quickly turned the page to read the next one. In no time at all I had finished the collection. I wanted more!
I particularly liked Dan Lopez’s story “The Cruise.” A group of friends from New York go on a cruise on a ship named the Patria and become infatuated with one of the young crew members. The joys of this story are the dialogue and interaction between Rogelio, Marcelino, and Teófilo as they vie for the unnamed crew member’s attentions. The young man has a dream of someday owning his own boat. The guys say they would go with him. But, as Teófilo says, “The only way that boy was ever going to get off this boat, compadre, was to jump, and if we were smart we’d jump too.”
“Deflower” by Rosalind Lloyd is a beautifully written piece of lesbian erotica that begins in the Union Square Green Market and ends in the ladies’ room of the Coffee Shop on the square. Flowers play a major role in the story.
Tod Crouch’s short piece “The Only Life I Ever Intentionally Ruined” somewhat humorously deals with a particular brand of high school politics that every gay man experiences. Crouch attributes the following quote to Quentin Crisp: “Some roughs are really queer, and some queers are really rough.”
The last four stories, all by male authors, are somewhat shocking and, depending on the reader, may test the boundaries of good taste: Larry La Fountain-Stokes’s “la mierda (shit),” Pietro Scorsonne’s “God in an Alcove,” an excerpt from Charles Rice-Gonzaléz’s novel Chulito titled “Hallelujah Pow!” and David Huberman’s “Full Circle.” Read these stories and see what you think.
As you would expect from a collection of writings from the PANIC! reading series in New York, The Best of PANIC! contains a lot of energetic, expressive poetry. Standouts for me are three poems by Roberto F. Santiago, “And Then We Kissed” (romantic), “Carrier” (ironically romantic), and “Say Yes” (“I’m not asking you for anything / you don’t already want. / I am simply stating my availability.”). Also, I was struck by the two intense, angry poems by Gabrielle Rivera, “The Love Choke” (“Five years have passed between us and it’s come to this / Sink, swim, or die by my hands, bitch.”) and “Jane Doe Rican” (I am the Jane Doe Rican / another faceless name on the 2020 Census,”).
The Best of PANIC! contains many more exciting stories and poems than I have mentioned here.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews