With On Broad Sound, Rusty Barnes turns his attention from his rural Appalachian roots to twenty plus years of living in a working class suburb of Boston. Ranging widely in subject matter, On Broad Sound's poems were inspired by and often titled with locations in and around the author's adopted home in Revere, Massachusetts. Whether it's observing planes land at Logan Airport, eating cookies with the city mayor or watching his children play in a marsh partially sectioned off by yellow crime tape, On Broad Sound is part urban travelogue and part sharp portrayal of modern life.

Rusty Barnes is author of the story collections Breaking it Down (sunnyoutside, 2007), Mostly Redneck (sunnyoutside, 2011), and Kraj: The Enforcer (Shotgun Honey, 2019), as well as four novels: Reckoning(sunnyoutside, 2014), Ridgerunner (Shotgun Honey, 2017), Knuckledragger (Shotgun Honey, 2017), and The Last Danger (Shotgun Honey, 2018). His fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in many journals and anthologies like Dirty Boulevard: Crime Stories Inspired by the Songs of Lou Reed (Down & Out Books, 2018), Best Small Fictions 2015, Switchblade, Mystery Tribune, Goliad Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Red Rock Review, Porter Gulch Review, and Post Road. His poetry collections include On Broad Sound (Nixes Mates Press, 2016) and Jesus in the Ghost Room (Nixes Mates Press, 2017). He founded and edits Tough, a journal of crime fiction. He grew up in rural northern Appalachia