From the heart of The Velvet--a writing community built around the fervent love of neo-noir fiction--comes an original anthology. Stacked with brilliant emerging writers alongside some of the strongest established voices in contemporary literature, WARMED AND BOUND crosses literary boundaries on all sides, to deliver an altogether unique reading experience. Through seemingly opposed conventions, beautiful prose makes a hard impression on the short story form. From a scary love story to a nostalgic thriller, a hardboiled pursuit of salvation to the black humor that is existentialism, WARMED AND BOUND is rogue humility and lovesick noir, where humanity is a dirty puzzle. It's Velvet Noir. Welcome.  With stories by: Matt Bell, Tim Beverstock, Blake Butler, Vincent Louis Carrella, Craig Clevenger, Craig Davidson, Chris Deal, DeLeon DeMicoli, Christopher J Dwyer, Brian Evenson, Sean P Ferguson, Amanda Gowin, JR Harlan, Gordon Highland, Anthony David Jacques, Mark Jaskowski, Jeremy Robert Johnson, Stephen Graham Jones, Nik Korpon, Gary Paul Libero, Kyle Minor, Doc O'Donnell, J David Osborne, Rob Parker, Bob Pastorella, Gavin Pate, Cameron Pierce, Edward J Rathke, Caleb J Ross, Bradley Sands, Axel Taiari, Richard Thomas, Brandon Tietz, Gayle Towell, Paul Tremblay, Pela Via, Craig Wallwork, and Nic Young. "The writers of the Velvet are contemporary fiction's most effective and least self-conscious aesthetic guerrillas . . . The result is fiction at once conceived from high artistic intent and executed with depraved populist energy."--Steve Erickson author of ZEROVILLE and THE SEA CAME IN AT MIDNIGHT