Tag: fiction

Sundress Releases Wind on the Moon by Katie Burgess

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Sundress Releases Wind on the Moon by Katie Burgess

wind on the moon coverSundress Publications announces the 2019 release of Wind on the Moon by Katie Burgess, our 2018 Chapbook Competition winner. The stories in Wind on the Moon fit together seamlessly, creating a world that’s as real to us readers as it is enchanted with love and grief.

Katie Burgess uses playful form and familiar tales to distill the most complex family dynamics: a daughter reckons with her mother meeting her lover in the language of a math textbook. Adam and Eve become a husband and wife who “always did encourage each other’s bad behavior.” In the final story, the act of writing conflates with the creation of the universe, our narrator critiquing the work of a god: “I liked how in your first draft everything revolved around the Earth. That makes a lot more sense if the people there are going to be important.” And Burgess shows us the importance of all people, encouraging empathy and the desire to get to know every character, every person, no matter how insignificant they may seem at first. Burgess writes with an honesty so clear it aches. Wind on the Moon is one of those chapbooks you can’t wait to share with everyone you love.

Of the work, George Singleton, author of Staff Picks said, “I’ve never read in the literary biographies how Lydia Davis and Donald Barthelme hooked up, but the result is clear: Katie Burgess. Wind on the Moon is an amazing collection of short, jaundice-eyed, hilarious, sly, insightful, intelligent stories that the world needs now. One problem: This collection needs to be about ten times as long. These characters are human, human, human. They navigate in times that are increasingly disconcerting. They triumph and/or fail. I don’t know when I last read a collection of stories that made me think, ‘Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Exactly.’”

And Diane Roberts, author of Tribal: College Football and the Secret Heart of America said, “From the guys who faked the moon landing to what really went down in the Garden of Eden back in the day, Katie Burgess’s sly and sharp stories take you on a trip through the secret soul of America. Her prose shines like polished steel and cuts like an obsidian blade. She’s as funny as David Sedaris and twice as bold, giving God editorial advice and taking down the college industrial complex. Burgess is a writer on her way up. Read her now and be cooler than your friends!”Katie Burgess Author Photo

Katie Burgess holds a PhD in creative writing from Florida State and is editor-in-chief of Emrys Journal. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, New Orleans Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Reductress, among others. Her essay, “Rahab’s Thread,” was listed as “notable” in Best American Essays 2014 and was anthologized in Southern Sin: True Stories of the Sultry South and Women Behaving Badly (In Fact Books).

Download Wind on the Moon for free today!

 

Sundress Releases Manticore: Hybrid Writing from Hybrid Identities

Sundress Releases Manticore: Hybrid Writing from Hybrid Identities
edited by Nicole Oquendo

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Sundress Publications announces the release of Manticore: Hybrid Writing from Hybrid Identities, an anthology edited by Nicole Oquendo. The anthology features the work of Jennifer E. Hudgens, Nic Campeotto, Nina Sudhakar, and Emily Corwin, along with over two-dozen writers and artists tasked with uniquely articulating what it means to occupy a hybrid identity.

In these poems, narratives, photographs, and striking hybrids of genre, Manticore compellingly reveals the ways in which the seemingly unified self is composed of infinite ways of being in the world. The anthology is not only populated with beautiful, multimodal works of art, but also includes statements by each contributor about how they conceptualize and are inspired by the notion of hybridity. Though not all of Manticore’s pieces are explicitly presented as autobiographical works of nonfiction, they each offer the honesty and vulnerability of the intensely personal. The result is an intimate, powerful, and visually striking collection that is as unique as its talented group of contributors.

“Hybridity, for me, has always equated to possibility, and the creative work I enjoy most inhabits multiple genres at once. Within the last few years, growing and changing along with the labels that make up my identity—nonbinary, disabled, queer, Latinx, brujx, and so much more—I have discovered there is a glorious intersection of identity and form when it comes to the creation of work outside the boundaries of what is traditionally accepted. In gathering the work for this anthology, I wanted to focus on hybrid identities and the hybrid work these identities inspire, and I believe this collection—in the form of various media, highlighting both the truth and what is imagined—is a fantastic representation of what we can do when we embrace possibility with ferocity.” -Nicole Oquendo, Editor

“Manticore is as surprising as it is lovely; exquisite, gut-wrenching hybridities that capture what it is to be outside. This collection of stories, poems, and images will captivate readers—its venom heady and delightful as it is deadly. A monstrous kind of magic is afoot here.” – M.R. Sheffield, author of Marvels

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Nicole Oquendo is a writer and visual artist that combines these elements to craftmultimodal nonfiction, poetry, and fiction, as well as translations of these forms. Their work can be found in literary journals like BOAAT, CutBank, DIAGRAM, and Gulf Stream, among others. They are the author of the hybrid memoir Telomeres, as well as five chapbooks, including their most recent, Space Baby: Episodes I-III.

The anthology is available for free download HERE.

Sundress Academy for the Arts Announces Writing Retreat for Survival and Healing

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Sundress Academy for the Arts Announces
Writing Retreat for Survival and Healing

Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to announce its third annual generative writing retreat celebrating survival and healing on July 6-7, 2019. This two-day retreat for sexual assault survivors will be held in Oak Ridge, TN and will be a safe space for creativity, generative writing exercises, discussions on ways to write trauma, advice on publishing, and more. Come join us in mutual support for a weekend of writing time for healing, safety, and comfort.

A weekend pass includes one-on-one and group instruction, writing supplies, meals, drinks, and all on-site amenities for $75.

The event will be open to writers of all backgrounds and provide an opportunity to work with many talented, published fiction writers and poets from around the country, including Beth Couture, Rax King, Krista Cox, and Macy French.

coutureBeth Couture is the author of Women Born with Fur (Jaded Ibis Press, 2014) and has published fiction in various journals and anthologies. She holds a PhD from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi, an MFA from the University of Notre Dame, and a Master’s in Social Service from Bryn Mawr College, and works as a therapist in the Counseling Center at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She is a licensed social worker (LSW) in the state of Pennsylvania and is beginning training as a registered biblio/poetry therapist. Her approach to therapy is person-centered, psychodynamic, and feminist, and she frequently uses expressive writing and journaling with her clients. She has extensive experience working with college-age students, survivors of sexual trauma, and the trans and LGBTQ communities.

kingRax King is a dog-loving, hedgehog-mothering, beer-swilling, gay and disabled sumbitch who occasionally writes poetry and works as assistant editor for Sundress Publications. She is the author of the collection The People’s Elbow: Thirty Recitatives on Rape and Wrestling (Ursus Americanus, 2018). Her work can also be found in Barrelhouse, Peach Mag, and Glass Poetry.

 

coxFor money, Krista Cox is a paralegal. For joy, she’s an associate poetry editor at Stirring: A Literary Collection, a member of the board of the Feminist Humanist Alliance, and Executive Director of Lit Literary Collective, a nonprofit serving her local literary community. Her poetry has appeared in Columbia Journal, Crab Fat Magazine, The Humanist, and elsewhere. There’s more fascinating information about Krista to be found at http://kristacox.me.

 

 

frenchMacy French is poet from East Tennessee. Her work has appeared in Connotation Press, DASH Literary Journal, Gravel Magazine and others. She is a graduate of Tusculum University with a bachelor’s degree in English and is currently working toward her M.Ed. in Elementary Education.

 

 

 

 

 

We have two full scholarships available for the retreat as well as limited 20% scholarships for those with financial need. To apply for a scholarship, send a packet of no more than (8) pages of creative writing along with a brief statement on why you would like to attend this workshop to Erin Elizabeth Smith at erin@sundresspublications.com no later than May 15th, 2018. Scholarship recipients will be announced in late May.

Space at this workshop is limited to 14 writers, so reserve your place today at https://squareup.com/store/sundress-publications/item/retreat-for-survival-and-healing

The Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) is an artists’ residency that hosts workshops, retreats, and residencies for writers, actors, filmmakers, and visual artists. All are guided by experienced, professional instructors from a variety of creative disciplines who are dedicated to cultivating the arts in East Tennessee.

Sundress Extends the Fiction Reading Deadline

Sundress Publications is extending the deadline for submissions of full-length short story manuscripts. All authors are welcome to submit qualifying manuscripts during our reading period which has been extended to February 1, 2019!

We are looking for manuscripts that are approximately 125–165 double-spaced pages of fiction; front matter does not count toward your page count. Individual stories may have been previously published in anthologies, chapbooks, print journals, online journals, etc., but cannot have appeared in any full-length collection, including self-published collections. Manuscripts translated from another language will not be accepted. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but we ask that authors notify us immediately if their work has been accepted elsewhere.

The reading fee is $15 per manuscript, though the fee will be waived for entrants who purchase or pre-order any Sundress title or broadside. We will also accept nominations for entrants, provided the nominating person either pays the reading fee or makes a qualifying purchase. Authors may submit and/or nominate as many manuscripts as they would like, so long as each is accompanied by a separate reading fee or purchase/pre-order. Entrants and nominators can place book orders or pay submission fees at our store at https://squareup.com/market/sundress-publications.

All manuscripts will be read by members of our editorial board, and we will choose one manuscript for publication in late 2019. We strive to further our commitment to diversity and seek to encounter as many unique and important voices as possible. We are actively seeking collections from writers of color, trans and nonbinary writers, writers with disabilities, and others whose voices are underrepresented in literary publishing. Selected manuscripts will be offered a standard publication contract, which includes 25 copies of the published book, as well as any additional copies at cost.

To submit, email your Sundress store receipt for submission fee or book purchase, send a 20–35 page sample of your manuscript (DOC, DOCX, or PDF), to sundresspublications@gmail.com; this sample can include one story or a number of shorter stories. After our initial selection process, semi-finalists will be asked to send the full collection.

Be sure to note both your name and the title of the manuscript in your email header. For those nominating others for our reading period, please include the name of nominee as well as an email address; we will solicit the manuscript directly.

More details on submissions can be found here.

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A 501(c)3 non-profit literary press collective founded in 2000, Sundress Publications is entirely volunteer-run, publishes chapbooks and full-length works in both print and digital formats, and hosts a variety of online journals. Although we are conscious of the lack of representation by women writers in literary publishing, we are a non-discriminatory publishing group focused on the creativity of all artists, regardless of race, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, education, etc.

To learn more about Sundress, visit our website.

Poets in Pajamas Presents Samantha Edmonds TONIGHT!

Poets in Pajamas, a Live-Stream Reading Series by Sundress Publications
Presents Episode 43: Samantha Edmonds

Do you enjoy live poetry? Are you looking for a relaxing way to spend your Sunday night? Don’t want to travel far or change out of your comfortable PJs?

Well look no further! Poets in Pajamas is a live-feed online reading series presented by Sundress Publications. We bring live poetry, complete with Q&A and poet interaction, to you. We don’t ask you to dig out a scarf, no, we welcome you as you are and bring the poetry. Won’t you join us? We often draw a diverse audience from around the world and we’d love it if you, too, were there.

Our next reading is scheduled for Sunday, November 18th, at 7PM EST, featuring Samantha Edmonds. On behalf of Sundress Publications, Anna Black will host.

Samantha Edmonds is an MFA candidate at the University of Tennessee. Her fiction and nonfiction appear in Black Warrior Review, Pleiades, The Pinch, Indiana Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Knoxville, where she serves as fiction editor for Grist and as the Community Outreach Director for Sundress Academy for the Arts.

Samantha Edmonds at The Billfold

Samantha Edmonds at Ravishly

Samantha Edmonds at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

Samantha Edmonds at Boston Literary Magazine

 

Anna Black received her MFA at Arizona State University. Black is a twice awarded Virginia G. Piper global teaching and research fellow. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the anthologies We Will be Shelter and In Sight: An Ekphrastic Collaboration, as well as the journals 45th Parallel, Bacopa Review, Wordgathering, the American Journal of Poetry, and New Mobility among others. In addition to hosting PiP, Black is the staff director at Sundress Publications.

 

The readings occur on PiP’s Facebook page every other Sunday at 7PM EST/4PM PST. The selected poet will read for about 15 minutes, and will then open the floor for an additional 10-15 minutes to receive questions from the audience.

 

Call for Submissions: Authors of Out-of-Print Books

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At Doubleback Books, we believe that out of print should not mean out of mind. Although other publishers rescue works that have fallen into the public domain from obscurity, few reprint books from small, independent presses that have folded during the twenty-first century and (often through no fault of their own) left new, exciting books to go out of print before their time.

If you are the author of a book that has recently gone out of print because the press closed, we want to read it. We are hosting an open reading period through August 2018.  Authors of works that have gone out of print due to the closure of the original press may submit full-length or short books, including novels, novellas, chapbooks, short story collections, poetry collections, essay collections, and memoirs. Editors may also submit out of print manuscripts their presses published before closing. To be eligible, works must have been both published and out of print after 2000.

Accepted manuscripts will be released as free downloadable e-books on the Sundress Publications website. Previous titles include Karyna McGlynn’s Alabama Steve, Jehanne Dubrow’s The Hardship Post, and Virginia Chase Sutton’s What Brings You to Del Amo (forthcoming).

To submit, email the following to doubleback@sundresspublications.com:

  • Your manuscript(s) in .PDF or .DOC format
  • A brief cover letter in the body of the email telling us a little bit about your work and yourself, and noting the genre of the manuscript
  • The name of the manuscript’s original publisher
  • The name and contact information of the publisher’s former editor-in-chief, if available.

Please note: we do not republish translated work or previously self-published work.  

Doubleback Books is an imprint of Sundress Publications. More information at http://www.sundresspublications.com/doubleback

2018 Chapbook Contest Winner

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Katie Burgess’ Wind on the Moon Named Winner 
of Sundress Publications’ 2018 Chapbook Competition

Sundress Publications is delighted to announce the winner for our seventh chapbook competition, Katie Burgess. Her chapbook, Wind on the Moon, rose to the top among many other outstanding works.

Stacey Balkun, Chapbook Series Editor of Sundress Publications and author of Jackalope-Girl Learns to Speak, had this to say about the chapbook:

“The stories in Wind on the Moon fit together seamlessly, creating a world that’s as real to us readers as it is enchanted with love and grief. Katie Burgess uses playful form Katie Burgessand familiar tales to distill the most complex family dynamics: a daughter reckons with her mother meeting her lover in the language of a math textbook. Adam and Eve become a husband and wife who ‘always did encourage each other’s bad behavior.’ In the final story, the act of writing conflates with the creation of the universe, our narrator critiquing the work of a god: ‘I liked how in your first draft everything revolved around the Earth. That makes a lot more sense if the people there are going to be important.’ And Burgess shows us the importance of all people, encouraging empathy and the desire to get to know every character, every person, no matter how insignificant they may seem at first. Burgess writes with an honesty so clear it aches. Wind on the Moon is one of those books you can’t wait to share with everyone you love.”

Katie Burgess holds a PhD in fiction from Florida State University. She lives downwind of a mayonnaise factory in South Carolina and performs with Alchemy Comedy Theater. She is also editor in chief of Emrys Journal.

It is also our pleasure to announce that Amy Watkins‘ Wolf Daughter was selected for publication. We were thrilled by all the great works submitted this year and would like to thank everyone for participating.

Other submitted Chapbooks of Note

Finalists
Rachel Federer- Lunar Fragments for the Scorpion Child 
Gail Griffin- Virginals
Jayme Russel- Threadbound
Amy Watkins- Wolfdaughter*

Semifinalists
Rachel Heimowitz-The Story of Dark Matter
Jed Myers- The Wire Said
Sara Ryan- but pink but want but blue

*Also selected for publication

Sundress Academy for the Arts Seeks Readers for Award-Winning Sundress Reading Series

safta logoSundress Academy for the Arts Seeks Readers
for Award-Winning Sundress Reading Series

The Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) would like to invite writers to read as part of their 2018 – 2019 reading series. Since 2013, SAFTA has hosted poets and prose writers as part of their award-winning Sundress Reading Series in the heart of Knoxville, TN, just miles from the Great Smoky Mountains. An extension of Sundress Publications and the Sundress Academy for the Arts, the Sundress Reading Series features nationally recognized writers in all genres from around the US while also supporting local and regional nonprofits. The deadline to apply is June 15, 2018.

We are currently curating our fall and spring reading series schedule. Our readings take place monthly on Sundays at 2PM at Hexagon Brewing Company. To apply to be a reader, please send 6-8 pages of poetry or 8-15 pages of prose, a 100-word bio, and CV in the body of an email to Erin Elizabeth Smith at erin@sundresspublications.com.

We will make every effort possible to contact those chosen by July 15, 2018. While we are currently unable to pay our readers, authors are given a discount on future SAFTA residencies and are encouraged to sell their own books and merchandise at the event.

Find our more or to view some of our past readers and schedules, visit us at www.sundressacademyforthearts.com.

Summer 2018 Fiction Writing Retreat

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Sundress Academy for the Arts Announces
2018 Summer Fiction Writing Retreat

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is thrilled to announce its Summer Fiction Writing Retreat, which runs from Friday, June 15 to 17, 2018.  The three-day, two-night camping retreat will be held at SAFTA’s own Firefly Farms in Knoxville, Tennessee.  This year’s retreat will focus on generative fiction writing and include two break-out sessions, “Conflict and POV as Perspective” and “Writing the Travel Narrative,” plus discussions on kicking writer’s block, publishing, and more.

A weekend pass includes one-on-one and group instruction, writing supplies, food, drinks, transportation to and from the airport, and all on-site amenities for $250.  Tents, sleeping bags, and other camping equipment are available to rent for $25.  Payment plans are available if you reserve by April 17, 2018; inquire via email for details.

The event will be open to writers of all backgrounds and provide an opportunity to work with many talented, published fiction writers from around the country, including Mary Miller and Jeanne Thornton.

unnamed-1Mary Miller is the author of two collections of short stories, Big World (Short Flight/Long Drive Books, 2009) and Always Happy Hour (Liveright, 2017), as well as a novel, The Last Days of California (Liveright, 2014), which has been optioned for film by Amazon Studios. Her stories have appeared in the Oxford American, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, McSweeney’s Quarterly, American Short Fiction, Mississippi Review, and many others. She is a former James A. Michener Fellow in Fiction at the University of Texas and John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at Ole Miss. 

Jeanne Thornton is the author of The Black Emerald and thornton_author-photo_smallThe Dream of Doctor Bantam, the latter a Lambda Literary Award finalist for 2012. She is the co-publisher of Instar Books and the creator of the webcomics Bad Mother and The Man Who Hates Fun. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in n+1, WIRED, WSQ, CURA, and other places. She lives in Brooklyn. Find her online at:  http://fictioncircus.com/Jeanne.

Space at this workshop is limited to 15 writers, so reserve your place today at:
https://squareup.com/market/sundress-publications

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The Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) is an artists’ residency that hosts workshops, retreats, and residencies for writers, actors, filmmakers, and visual artists. All are guided by experienced, professional instructors from a variety of creative disciplines who are dedicated to cultivating the arts in East Tennessee.

Web: http://www.sundressacademyforthearts/                     Facebook: SundressAcademyfortheArts

The Sundress Reading Series presents Chris Barton, Gwen E. Kirby, and Pamela Schoenewaldt on May 6

The Sundress Reading Series is excited to welcome Chris Barton, Gwen E. Kirby, and Pamela Schoenewaldt to the May installment of our reading series! The event will take place 2-4 p.m. on Sunday, May 6, at Hexagon Brewing Co., located at 1002 Dutch Valley Dr. STE 101, Knoxville, TN 37918. The Sundress Reading Series is free and open to the public.

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Chris Barton‘s work has appeared in Hobart, Entropy, Word Riot, Funhouse, Potluck Mag, and elsewhere. He was the winner of the 2013 undergraduate creative writing award from the University of Tennessee. He currently works at two cafes, helps with his roommate’s monthly open mic poetry event, & lives in a blue house with three cats in Knoxville, TN.

 

 

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Gwen E. Kirby‘s stories appear in One Story, Guernica, Mississippi Review, Ninth Letter, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere. Guest editor Aimee Bender selected her story “Shit Cassandra Saw . . .” for Best Small Fictions 2018 and her story “Midwestern Girl Is Tired of Appearing in Your Short Stories” won the 2017 DISQUIET Literary Prize for Fiction. She received her MFA from Johns Hopkins University and her PhD from the University of Cincinnati. Starting in the fall, she will be the 2018-2019 George Bennett Fellow at Phillips Exeter Academy.

 

PamelaPamela Schoenewaldt is a historical novelist and a USA Today Bestseller whose work has been translated into four languages. She was short-listed for the Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction. Her short stories have won international awards. She was the UT Library’s Writer in Residence and is in the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame. Her one-act play in Italian, Espresso Con Mia Madre, was performed in Naples, Italy. She taught writing at the University of Maryland European Division, and UT. She lives in Knoxville with her husband, Maurizio Conti, a physicist, and dog Jesse, a philosopher. Her most recently completed novel is set against the backdrop of the 1919 Knoxville Race Riot.