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October, 2007 |
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Fiction Collective Two |
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New Releases, New E-mail, and Tribal Updates! |
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Kissssssss Steve Katz
Like a soapbox preacher on a poetic rant, Steve Katz declares, “Dysfiction is right now and beyond.” Kissssssssssss is a miscellany swarming with American kooks and modern primitives who demonstrate the absurdity of our reality. A transsexual places Harvey Keitel’s nose on her clitoris during meditation. An African Grey parrot pontificates on the plight of parrots in war-torn countries. Using syncopated language and Anthony Burgess-esque hyper-slang, Katz interweaves the iconic traumas of the 21st century with prescription drug commercials and sub cultural body modification, reflexively avowing that the absurd is our reality. |
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Ronald Sukenick-American Book Review Innovative Fiction Prize! |
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FC2 is proud to announce the winner of the 2006 Ronald Sukenick-American Book Review Innovative Fiction Prize:
The Bruise by Magdalena Zurawski.
Magdalena Zurawski was born in Newark, NJ in 1972 to Polish immigrants. Her work has been published in American Poet: The Journal of the Academy of American Poets, The Poetry Project Newsletter, Rattapallax, Talisman, and other magazines. She lives in San Francisco. The Bruise is her first novel.
The Bruise is a novel of imperative voice and raw sensation. In the sterile dormitories and on the quiet winter greens of an American university, a young woman named M— deals with the repercussions of a strange encounter with an angel, one which has left a large bruise on her forehead. Was the event real or imagined? The bruise does not go away, forcing M— to confront her own existential fears. M—’s wavering desire to tell the story of her imagination is that of the writer, breathless, desperate, and obsessive, questioning the mutations and directions of her words while writing with fevered immediacy. With rhythmic language and allusions to literature and art, Magdalena Zurawski reclaims the university bildugsroman as an intelligent and moving form. |
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Current Releases! |
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Don’t forget! |
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The submission period for the 2007 Ronald Sukenick-ABR Innovative Fiction Prize ends November 1st, 2007! Anyone still considering submitting—or if you know someone who is considering submitting—should keep that date in mind!
For more information on the guidelines and deadlines for the contest, visit our website here. |
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FC2 has a new e-mail address, so change your address books!
Thanks to Scott Kopel, Florida State’s technical wizard, FC2’s email is now operating through Gmail. For the next few weeks, any emails sent to the old email address will be forwarded. After that, however, send all emails to fictioncollective2@gmail.com. The email for interns (and tribal updates) is fc2admin@gmail.com. |
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E-mail update!
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It Was Like My Trying to Have a Tender-hearted Nature Diane Williams
Diane Williams—considered by many to be the leading practitioner of the genre dubbed “flash fiction” and credited with having redefined the short story—makes another daring departure with a new comedic and outrageous voice.
The hero of the novella On Sexual Strength explores his perplexing lust for his neighbor’s wife. As he crosses the boundaries of good behavior and good sense at every opportunity, he ingeniously narrates his adventure as both a tragedy and escapade. Celebrated for her linguistic inventiveness, Diane Williams’ new stories and novella continue to advance her inimitable voice. The forty-one accompanying stories advance Williams’ ongoing artistic explorations and continue to feature radical and impeccable storytelling. |
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Kissed By Alexandra Chasin
Kissed By is a provocative story collection that encompasses both the trivial and the momentous within daily human experience. An anonymous person expresses longing for a beautiful stranger through a series of classified ads. A woman puns her way though a series of sexual liaisons with famous philosophers. The collection concludes with a set of indexes highlighting themes of the stories, while simultaneously suggesting the impossibility of limiting such themes. From the highly political and well wrought montage about September 11th to a bisexual’s romantic quandary, Alexandra Chasin’s work playfully explores the curious and often contradictory essence of language. |
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Spring 2007 Releases! |
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The Trouble with Being Born: A Novel Jeffrey DeShell
Novel, memoir, and anti-memoir, The Trouble with Being Born depicts the lives of Frances and Joe, husband and wife. Frances’s story moves in reverse: beginning with her dementia in old age, her narrative moves backwards into a childhood that she recalls fondly as a time of innocence and belonging. Joe’s memories begin in childhood, and we watch him grow into a manhood fraught with wrong turns, rage, betrayals, and disappointment, caring in the end for the woman he has long mistreated. The Trouble with Being Born is a stark meditation on memory and the struggle--both necessary and impossible--to remember. |
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Writer’s Edge Conference Updates! |
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Writers Edge 2007 Portland, OR
The second annual Writer’s Edge conference was held on Friday through Sunday, 27-29 July, in downtown Portland, Oregon. This urban campus provided a unique setting for innovation and creativity. It was sponsored by FC2 and hosted by Portland State University. The gathering was composed of five workshops, two panels, a faculty reading, two open mics for participants, and myriad conversations about innovative prose. The year before, 50 participants from around the country attended. This year, the number was 65 and next year about 75 is expected.
Lidia Yuknavitch and Lance Olsen served as co-sponsors, and their overwhelming impression was one of creative and intellectual good-spiritedness, invigorating energy, and a thoroughgoing commitment to the notion of collectivity.
To read more about the 2007 Writer’s Edge Conference visit our webpage here. You can also go to Now What, a blog by Lance Olsen and Ted Pelton, here and here. |
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Writers Edge 2008 Portland, OR
The next Writer’s Edge is going to be held on July 25-27, 2008 at the Portland State University campus.
The workshops will consist of the following works and authors:
Fairy Tales Almost Blue by Kate Bernheimer Usage Is More Powerful Than Reason by Noy Holland M(M)MW: Multi (Modal) Media Writing by Steve Tomasula Corporeal Text: The Body & Writing by Lidia Yuknavitch The Mosaic Mind: Fiction As Collage by Lance Olsen.
To learn more about the 2008 Writer’s Edge Conference, visit our website here. |
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Trevor Dodge, Lidia Yuknavitch, Lucy Corin, and Brian Evenson at the 2007 Conference in Portland |
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Tribal Updates! |
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What are the members of the Fiction Collective Two up to these days? Click here to read what the following authors are doing: |
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George Angel Alexandra Chasin Debra Di Blasi Noy Holland Affinity Konar Cris Mazza Vanessa Place Doug Rice Diane Williams |
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Mark Amerika Kate Bernheimer Lucy Corin Raymond Federman Bayard Johnson Michael Martone Lance Olsen David Porush Matt Roberson |
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An easy and satisfying way to support FC2 is to adopt FC2 titles for use in the classroom and to invite FC2 authors to come visit your university.
FC2 publishes books that can be very useful in undergraduate as well as graduate courses in postmodern or contemporary literature, and, as textbooks go, they are reasonably priced.
To read more on how to support FC2, click here! |
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Support FC2! |
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You are receiving this e-mail because you are on the mailing list for FC2. If you do not wish to receive e-mail newsletters in the future, please contact fc2admin@gmail.com and ask to be removed.
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My Amputations Clarence Major
The author of the acclaimed novel, Reflex and Bone Structure, returns here in My Amputations, to the question of identity, the double, adventure, detection and mystery, but with more hypnotic power and range. In My Amputations he has his protagonist, Mason Ellis, (who may just be “a desperate ex-con” or a wronged American novelist out to right the wrong done to him) jump through flaming loops like a trained dog, so to speak. In other words, there seems to be no end to the troubles Mason Ellis faces. |
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Correction of Drift: A Novel in Stories Pamela Ryder
It was called the crime of the century, and it was front-page news: the Lindbergh kidnapping, the disappearance of the world’s most famous baby. Correction of Drift: A Novel in Stories imagines the private lives behind the headlines of the Lindbergh kidnapping case, and examines the endurance—-and demise-—of those consumed by the tragedy.
All are bound by the violence, turmoil, and mystery of the child’s disappearance. And as the days, weeks, and years pass, it becomes evident that each life has been irrevocably changed and continues to spin out beyond the event itself. Patterns of bereavement and loss illuminate these stories: despair at the death of a child; the retreat into seclusion; the comfort—and the desolation—of marriage. But the heart of this novel is the far-reaching nature of tragedy, and the ways the characters continue to live their lives. |
