The stories in Dylan Strzynski’s new book-like zine, Guadalcanal 2006, notice oddities and make up stories about them.

What if an old car was eulogized like a human?

Would the last man alive eat cockroaches?

Why does that person have lunch alone in their car every day?

Are lizards the squirrels of Florida?

What if a painting of Guadalcanal took on a life of its own? How does Guadalcanal live on in the psyche? What if plane travelers were transferred to a submarine en route to Guadalcanal?  

A mix of fiction and nonfiction, these 26 stories of varying lengths do not provide answers to all the questions but rather observe and, in some cases, expand on what is possible. This approach aligns with how Strzynski describes his visual art.

“I’m always using my artwork as a way to tell people about where I’ve been and what I’ve seen,” he said. “Even if it’s funny and weird, it’s usually referencing something I experienced. … Rather than try to solve every problem within everything I make, I recognize everything is of a piece.”

Dexter-based Strzynski is not only a writer but also a visual artist and musician. Yet, his writing has not been featured until now.

“Writing has always been a part of my life, but I kept it a secret,” he said.

The short length of this collection, 64 pages, and a desire for a physical copy motivated Strzynski to self-publish his book as a zine. He views independent publication as the format that lets him achieve his goals for the book.  

“I see it as a continuation of the chapbook tradition that I associate with the Beat era and nonmainstream literary culture,” he said. “The on-demand published version of that would be really lame. And who else is going to publish it? I’d rather get it out there in a form I personally appreciate.”

Guadalcanal 2006 was mostly written between 2006 and 2008. The last story, however, carries personal significance, was written more recently, and, while fiction, is convincing.

“When my father read Guadalcanal 2006, he thought I had really taken a submarine to Guadalcanal,” said Strzynski. “That entire narrative … was a response to everything I had previously written. When I had finished revising and editing the old material that comprised Guadalcanal 2006, in order to resolve it—to the degree that such a fragmented collection can be resolved—it needed a final piece. So I wrote that story, ‘Return to Guadalcanal,’ this year, in January.”

The publication was not something Strzynski set out to work on, but he shares in the prologue, “It is not unusual for some projects to exist within protracted time frames. Due to timing or specific demands, they can take a long time to circle back to completion. This project was one of those. It was like a comet in a very long orbital period.”

He said that if he had encountered it 10 years ago, he would have been unhappy with it.

“Today I look for potential,” he said. “If it seems like something might be able to fly, I may as well push it out of the nest. I guess some projects with protracted time frames are the result of not throwing stuff away.”

In one of the stories in the collection, “Roughneck,” the narrator’s “official dumpster had a companion; an illegitimate black garbage can that was missing a lid.” The narrator contemplates what to do with it and asks a neighbor, “ ‘Have you ever tried to throw away an old trash can?’ ” Such pockets of humor and existential questions fill the collection.

Fast forward to 2025, Strzynski posted about copies of the zine on Instagram in the spring. “It’s one of the purest things I have ever made in regard to how it relates to me personally," he said. “When I was working on Guadalcanal 2006, I was not concerned with how it would be received or if I would be able to sell it or anything like that at all.”

Instead, writing the book, especially the more recent final story, resonated with Strzynski and turned out to be a significant moment for him and his art.

“Throughout my life, I’ve produced a lot of things. But I have never been more sure that what I was doing at that moment was precisely what I needed to be doing than while I was sitting at the kitchen table writing that story,” he said.

Strzynski is prolific in a variety of art forms that he works across to express himself.

“Paint, wood, words, sounds. These are all just mediums to me. Different ways to make the same things. They are all related,” he said. “My 2D artwork and sculptures, for example, are connected by visual motifs, themes, and materials. But the simple narratives, mystery, and weird humor in many of my paintings are also the basic elements of my writing. Constructing visual art is a form of composing, as is writing. Constructing songs—I wouldn’t call myself a ‘composer’—is very similar to my form of painting. In all three of these mediums, I try to identify my strengths and employ them within a relatively narrow set of limitations.”

Yet, his art is not a matter of working in all forms at once: “I can be very fitful. Throughout the year, I will have discreet periods of time—a month here, 10 days there—where I blast out a bunch of work.”

This method helps to keep his ideas and attention fresh. While “interest and effort in one area leads to ideas in other, seemingly unrelated areas,” Strzynski does not suffer from “creative stagnation” and instead makes “unexpected connections.”

His work, taken together, becomes its own world, which is what he admires in artists.

“My favorite artists are always worlds unto themselves,” he said. “I think of myself in those terms and value providing other people access to explore my world.”

Parts of his art world include sculptures called “Blue Collar Spaceships,” paintings called “House Portraits,” videos including a documentary film called The Life We Make, and a number of albums of reverb guitar and instro rock.

Throughout his work, he is getting ever closer to his subject’s elemental form, which is another way of looking at creating the “purest thing.”

“I believe that art seeks simplicity,” Strzynski said. “That is not the same thing as cutting corners and making things ‘simple.’ I’m talking about the distillation of your project into its most direct, pure form.”

As he returned to painting last year after a three-year hiatus, he took a different, simpler angle.

“When I returned to it, I only worked with those aspects of my painting practice that I enjoyed most. These were layering and removing of materials as freely as possible while relying on my established motifs—the coyotes, fences, trailers, swing sets—the characters that have inhabited my more illustrative paintings for years.”

Musically, his focus on guitar and melodies allows him to try a range of genres. Strzynski’s affiliations include Diesel Marine in which he plays all of the instruments, The Vicissitones as an old-fashioned garage band that he joined, Cautious Hearts, which is a collaboration with Jocelyn Gotlib, and Utica. Much of his music is instrumental.

“The combination of space and linear melodies is a great framework onto which other things can be attached," he said, "and over the years, I have been able to fold other influences into that form. It’s retro, but it can be futuristic. It is very rootsy and punk rock, but it leaves a space for the transportive aspect of prog rock.”

Like the rest of his art, his writing defies simple categorization even as he reaches for elemental forms and builds on what he created previously in his new work.

“It’s fair to say that an appreciation of the absurdity and magic of the everyday is what motivates what I do,” Strzynski said.

Martha Stuit is a former reporter and current librarian. 

"Guadalcanal 2006" can be ordered directly from Dylan Strzynski for $15 shipped. You can DM him on Instagram or contact him through dylanstrzynski.com.