My short-short, "Red" just found another home at Filter, a journal printed in Seattle.... I can't wait to see this book, it looks absolutely gorgeous. It is handmade, and the artwork is exquisite.
You can buy Filter here:
tickerfinch.etsy.com
And here are some details about the book, lifted from the editor, Jennifer Borges Foster's blog:
"Filter is a hand-bound literary journal that features original poetry, prose, art and erasures. The book is sewn together by hand using various colors of waxed Irish Linen thread and an exposed spine binding with a modified button-hole binding technique. End papers are hand torn and come from various sources including Japanese Washi paper, pages from Apgar's Plant Analysis Adapted to All Botanies (1892) (some of which include the notes, illustrations and actual flower pressings of a Mr. D.A. Powell made in the Spring of 1904), and color plates from Travelling With The Birds (1933) . Books feature an accordion-fold erasure booklet made from hand torn Rives Heavyweight paper, each hand printed using 10 separate ink screens and slipped into hand made envelopes created from pages of old books about magic and maps featuring nations that no longer exist. All of the color artwork is tipped in by hand. There are two different cover designs (Aardvark & Aardwolf) by Amy Jean Porter (Jubilat, McSweeny's). The covers are each screen printed by hand, using 3-4 screens and 7 colors.
List of Contibutors:
Mary Jo Bang, Derek Beaulieu,
Jennifer Borges Foster, Matt Briggs,
Rebecca Brown, Elizabeth Colen,
John Cross, Rachel Davis, Dana
Elkun, Emily Kendal Frey, Joanna
Fuhrman, Adriana Grant, Carol Guess,
Matthea Harvey, Maggie Jackson,
Ariana Kelly, Counsel Langley,
Kate Lebo, Norman Lock, Erin Malone,
Ben Mazer, Brian McGuigan, Tatyana
Mishel ,Sierra Nelson, Nico
Vassilakis, David Mitsuo Nixon,
John Olson, Roberta Olson,
John Osebold, Deborah Poe, Amy
Jean Porter, Trisha Ready, Bob
Redmond, Zach Savich, Amy Schrader,
Claudia Smith, Kary Wayson,
Deborah Woodard, Corrina Wycoff.
I'll be reading at Powell's in Portland, and then at the University Bookstore in Seattle the next night, with fellow Peculiar writer Kathy Fish.
Wednesday August 20th @ Powell's @ 7:30 p.m.
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
1005 W Burnside (800) 878-7323
Join contributors Kathy Fish and Claudia Smith.
Thursday # August 21 # 7pm Claudia Smith and Kathy Fish A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness: Four Chapbooks of Short Short Fiction by Four Women (ROSE METAL PRESS) Reading & Book Signing U District store
We are pleased to welcome two of the four young writers collected in this book from Rose Metal Press. Claudia Smith is a friend of the story-and a fearless, fantastic writer. Kathy Fish is equally talented, and equally brave when placing pen to page (or fingers to keyboard).
Myfanwy Collins reviews A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness in Quick Fiction
"The cover of the book suggests a quartet, offering that these four books will play harmoniously as one; indeed, they do. Taken separately, though, each has its own sound, its own voice. However you choose to read them, the stories within these four chapbooks will most definitely blow your mind. In fact, they will obliterate you." - Myfanwy Collins, Quick Fiction
DiAnne Malone gives A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness a very thoughtful review in Gently Read Literature: Essays and Criticisms of Contemporary Poetry and Literary Fiction.
She says great things about Kathy Fish, Elizabeth Ellen, and Amy Clark - and me! Here is some of what she says:
"It is no wonder that Rose Metal Press insisted on flinging these four chapbooks together as one for the theme of yearning resonates even as one reads the last page. The reader yearns for more of the energy of words that encompass all of the elements. It seems almost a miracle that these pieces could compliment each other so well. Each chapbook is both ethereal and visceral, earthly and otherwordly. And, although not horror by any means, one may not want to read A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness in a dark and quiet room, save one light, for each story leaves with the reader a strange sense of uneasiness."
won Rose Metal Press's second annual short-short chapbook contest and is available from Rose Metal Press
"Although the collection deals with dismay, disappointment, and death, it is a symposium on love […] In the Land of the Free makes me see how a short short story chapbook can be a great thing." -Robert Shapard, editor of Sudden Fiction
Friday, July 25: Claudia Smith reading from A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness and discussing independent presses with local poet Dan Boehl at BookPeople
Austin, TX, 7:00 pm.
Free and open to the public.
BookPeople
603 N Lamar Blvd
Austin, TX 78703
Matt Bell's story "Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken" from Storyglossia 23 won the Million Writers Award for best story published online in 2007.
Here it is: Storyglossia
Quick Fiction, issue 13 is out. This one includes my short-short, "Conditions" and I'm in there with lots of good writers whose work I'm familiar with - Aaron Burch, Kim Chinquee, Myfanwy Collins, Avital Gad-Cykman, translator Toshiya Kamei, Jeff Landon, Mary Miller, Amy Clark....and others whose fiction I've just discovered. The artwork and writing in this publication is consistently good, and I especially like this cover. It features a toothy, startled looking pink fish that might be a blowfish or a barracuda or maybe, like Dr. Seuss's animals, it's a made- up creature.
Quick Fiction publishes stories 500 words or less and comes out each spring and fall. They recently featured my short-short "Groove" online. Check out their site here: Quick Fiction
Melissa is one of Rose Metal Press's talented designers
I'll be reading this Thursday from A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness, in my new hometown San Antonio.
- Time: Thursday, June 26, 2008 6:00 p.m.
- Location: The Twig Book Shop
- Title of Event: Claudia Smith,
- A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness
The Twig is a lovely bookstore, on Broadway, right next to Central Market. There should be wine, and maybe some cheese as well. Please come if you can!
The new anniversary issue of Smokelong Quarterly is up.
Issue twenty-one includes stories by every writer who has ever guest-edited or been a staff member of Smokelong, as well as writers new to the publication. I've been looking forward to this issue for awhile. It's packed with good stories and interviews that are entertaining but also say something about the craft of writing.
Here is my story, Sugar
and here is Joe Young's interview with me interview
It is a strong issue. Here is a sampling:
The Wigleaf top 50 very short fictions of 2008 list is up now, and some of my stories are on the list.
Chad Simpson's introduction
Last Thursday, I read in Buffalo for the COMMUNIQUE Flash Fiction series at Rust Belt Books. My host, the writer Forrest Roth, gave me such a thoughtful introduction I couldn't resist posting it somewhere on my site. Here is a spread in ArtVoice about the reading:
And here is a bit of what Forrest Roth said before I stood up to read:
In the introduction to Claudia's award-winning short collection, The Sky Is a Well and Other Shorts, contest judge and author Ron Carlson succinctly notes how flash fiction "is not a single thing done a single way. So many are sharp, luminescent puzzles, arresting flashes in the dark that leave us a touch of wonder or alarm. Some are complete little worlds in a page and some are simply scene fragments in two."
Carlson's comments here remind me what drew my attention to Claudia's work, how indeed she can navagate both these little worlds and fragments, as well as create one from the otherówhich I think most Flash writers would say is not easily accomplished, or sometimes appreciated.
Many of Claudia's stories, then, will likely appear quite familiar to the reader on the surface they skim but also distant in an unresolved sort of urgency-one that shoots us toward outcomes we are never prepared to deal with because neither are these characters, many of them young girls growing up in Texas, left vulnerable to the great open expanse of their lives suggested in the collection's title. Within this genuine "well" we witness the precarious relationships they form with each other (either under or outside of the wary gaze of their parents), their initial if often unsuccessful forays into womanhood: attraction, sex, pregnancy, loss, reclamation. Even their seemingly innocent playtime masks a hidden antagonism directed to the would-be protectors in their lives and, perhaps not surprisingly, towards themselves. These are small childhoods on the cusp of a much larger adult world, ready to spill into the unknown waiting for them ...
The Sky Is A Well and Rose Metal Press got a write-up in the March issue of Paste magazine. I called my local bookstores and music stores and they were all sold out, so I haven't seen it yet. I called Paste and they are sending me a copy.
PASTE magazine
The one with Gnarls Barkley on the cover.
A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness is available now from Rose Metal Press
And here is a schedule of upcoming readings from Rose Metal Press authors Amy Clark, Elizabeth Ellen, Kathy Fish, and yours truly.
- Pasha Malla in The Globe and Mail
- Elizabeth Ellen Running Red
- Darlin Neal Two Fictions
Here is Smokelong Quarterly, Issue 20
March's Hobart online is up with stories by Mary Miller, Daniel Pinkerton, Dave Prescott, and Robert Repino. There is also a Kentucky Bourbon Trail edition of the fan favorite likes and dislikes.
Kim Chinquee has a new book of short-shorts available from Ravenna Press and Amazon. You can order it here
And take a look at her Bliggidy Blog
Today I am blogging for Patry Francis; I learned about this on Susan's Henderson's LitPark.
I have not read Patry's book, but I think it looks like a great read.
At long last, Rose Metal Press's 4X4 collection, A Peculiar Feeling Of Restlessness, four chapbooks of short-short fiction by four women, is available for pre-order right here.
I've known Elizabeth Ellen and Kathy Fish as writers, and as friends, for years. I'm thrilled to have my stories next to theirs; but, it gets better. Pia Z. Ehrhardt wrote the introduction. I have long been a fan of Pia's, Elizabeth's, and Kathy's fiction. Their work is fierce, brave, lingering....and I'm looking forward to Amy Clark's collection as well. I was surprised to learn, when I first heard about this project, that Amy Clark and I both went to Bard College. Well, I'm older, so we never met. But, what are the odds? I guess sometimes the world is small in unexpected ways.
Everything Rose Metal Press publishes is exquisite, so I'm sure the book will be beautifully produced.
The spotlight is on Kathy Fish at Insolent Rudder
Pia Ehrhardt read her story "Stop" for The Writer's Block, KQED
Although this edition is sold out, there are a few copies still available at Powell's.com and we will have a few on hand at the AWP Conference later this month in New York. Claudia's book will be reprinted as part of A Peculiar Feeling Of Restlessness, an anthology of four chapbooks of short short fiction by four women, later this year, so keep your eye on this site for further details.