Life is filled with excitement, and high on the list is a debut novel, especially one that arrives with this kind of praise from Tim O'Brien: "The Benedictines is a taut, vivid, spellbinding, and gracefully written novel.
Authors
excerpts from new and forthcoming titles, announcements about book tours, readings, and relevant links
01/20/2015
It's nice to see we aren't the only ones excited about our new author, Nick Ripatrazone.
12/11/2014
Catherine Gammon, author of Sorrow, has been quite busy writing a number of astute and discerning book reviews for several online literary journals. Her careful and honest critique provides insight and thought-provoking discourse.
Street Talk
frank discussion by guest authors, editors, agents, and publishers who share insights into the literary life
Cameron Barnett
10/24/2017
Braddock Avenue Books: The Drowning Boy’s Guide to Water is your first book. How long did you work on this collection before it won the 2017 Rising Writer Prize at Autumn House Press?
Cameron Barnett: I worked on the poems in the book during the three years of my MFA at the University of Pittsburgh between 2013 and 2016, with a couple of exceptions: the oldest poem in the collection, “Nigger,” is a revision of a piece I first wrote in 2008; the newest three, “Redwoods in the Hood,” “Muriatic,” and “Fresh Prince” were all written after I graduated. The title and concept of the book came well after most of these poems were written too—that is, I didn’t quite realize what I was writing toward for a couple years until some key conversations with peers and mentors. I made some tweaks to it a few months after graduation and began sending it out. That’s how it found a home with Autumn House Press.
Catherine Zobal Dent
06/03/2015
Braddock Avenue Books: Let’s start at the end. The final story in your collection, “Unfinished Stories of Girls,” is also the title of the entire collection. Why did you decide to use this title for the book and why did you decide to put that story last?
Zobal Dent: That last story is drawn from a novel I’m working on in which a daughter of Italian-American immigrants struggles with various accounts she’s been given of her family’s movement through time and space. This story, a narrative thread of the novel, draws from a folktale called Gatti sotto il mare, or “cats under the sea.” It’s this disturbing tale of good sister versus bad sister, and in the end, of course, the “good girl” wins and the “bad girl” loses.
Jac Jemc
11/07/2012
Salvatore Pane: My Only Wife is told through a series of short vignettes doled out to the reader in a non-linear order. How did you settle on this format? In my work, I find myself drifting toward chronological A to B to C construction about 90% of the time, and the idea of structuring a novel in this way not only impresses me but terrifies me as well.
Jac Jemc: I started writing the first draft in a non-linear way, compiling memories the narrator has of his wife.
Winners, Finalists, and Semifinalists
Guest editor: Aimee Bender
The Best Small Fictions Editors 2018
Editors
Guest Editor: Aimee Bender
Series Editor: Sherrie Flick
Founding Series Editor: Tara Masih
Chauna Craig, Assistant Editor, Domestic
Michelle Elvy, Assistant Editor, International
The Best Small Fictions is the first contemporary anthology solely devoted to honoring the best short hybrid fiction published in a calendar year.
The series began in 2015, featuring seasoned and emerging writers. Flash, micro fiction, prose poetry, and haibun stories are just some examples of the hybrid forms honored. Tara L. Masih founded the annual series and serves as series editor; guest editors include Pulitzer Prize–winning author Robert Olen Butler (2015), PEN/Malamud Award winner and O. Henry Prize winner Stuart Dybek (2016), and Rea Award and PEN/Malamud Award winner Amy Hempel (2017).
