Available now from Gertrude Press (select chapbooks from the catalog)

Fiction, b&w, chapbook staple, 22 pages.
Winner of 2008 Gertrude Chapbook Competition for Fiction.

$8.00

A darkly comic and oddly touching story of sex, drugs, rock and roll, and a plane crash that crushes human bodies while leaving the mandolins unharmed. In Mixing Tracks, Jan Steckel strikes an unsettling balance between the consolations of memory, the thrilling ephemerality of youthful ambition, and our shared need for connection, even (or especially) when our world seems to have to come to its end.

Front cover illustration by Tristram Wolff

Available now from Zeitgeist Press and on Amazon.

To order from the author within the U.S.A., please send a check for $6.25 for each book (which includes postage and handling) made out to Jan Steckel at PO Box 18797 / Oakland, CA 94619. Please include your name and mailing address.

Also available at these fine independent bookstores:

• Moe's Books on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley, CA
• Laurel Bookstore at 4100 MacArthur Blvd, Oakland, CA 94619, (510) 531-2073
• Point Reyes Books in Point Reyes, CA

You can also find The Underwater Hospital in the James C. Hormel GLBT collection in the San Francisco Public Library.

“...[T]he singular lyrical tone fused with the pure strength of Steckel's poetry makes this book one I'd recommend to purchase, keep around, and put in the hands of a friend.”

— Marie Lecrivain, Executive Editor of poeticdiversity, in Subtle Tea

“Leaving no room for weak sentimentality or over-wrought poetics, Jan Steckel takes no prisoners.”

— Theresa Heath in BiMagazine

“Whether set in Harvard or outside a trashed van in Mexico, Jan Steckel's poems reveal the full and sometimes terrifying spectrum of the human condition. You will not forget your visit to brave patients in The Underwater Hospital!”

— Pulitzer-prize-nominated writer Marvin R. Hiemstra,
author of French Kiss Destiny and editor of the Bay Area Poets Seasonal Review

“There is suffering in Steckel's work but also catharsis, and her willingness to wrestle with misery in broken bodies, broken spirits, and broken hospital equipment makes The Underwater Hospital a book any lover of poetry should read.”

— Critic and writer JoSelle Vanderhooft,
author of The Tale of the Miller's Daughter,
editor of Sleeping Beauty, Indeed,
and reviewer for The Pedestal Magazine

“To read The Underwater Hospital is to enter a world that many in America choose not to acknowledge, let alone read about. But for those who do want to know, The Underwater Hospital is an important addition to the landscape of outrage and protest against current American public policy.... Jan Steckel's exquisite honesty is what engages her soul in the task of poetry. ”

— Merry Gangemi, writer and editor, producer of Vermont's Tea and Poetry series, and host of Woman-Stirred Radio

Read JoSelle Vanderhooft's review in The Pedestal Magazine here.

Read Marie Lecrivain's review in Subtle Tea here.

Read Theresa Heath's review in BiMagazine.

Read Merry Gangemi's full review here from Out in the Mountains.

Read a review by Julie Enszer in Galatea Resurrects.

Read a review by Paul Corman-Roberts in Cherry Bleeds.

A review by Mary Meriam in Street Spirit.

Another review by Eugene David.

Read a review by Jack G. Bowman in poeticdiversity.

More about the book by prizewinning writer and editor Beverly A. Jackson.

A snappy description of The Underwater Hospital by East Bay Express literary writer Anneli Rufus.