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Sarah Gerard’s THE BUTTER HOUSE coming in 2023!

Nov 5, 2022

Coming in 2023 from Conium Press

The Butter House, by Sarah Gerard

Launch party at AWP Seattle in March, 2023.

Join our mailing list to get updates about this release and Conium Press news.

In early 2023, Conium Press is releasing The Butter House, a new chapbook from Sarah Gerard. This story follows a woman who moves from New York to a Florida bungalow with her boyfriend. She navigates contradictory landscapes of love and possession, nature and built-environment, empathy and sympathy. She becomes a surrogate caretaker for a colony of feral cats. She grows a garden. She interrogates what it means to care for somebody or something. This is a delicate story, but it chooses deliberate moments to scratch and bite with the ferocity of a territorial alley cat.

Sarah Gerard is the author of the novels True Love and Binary Star and the essay collection Sunshine State. They are the recipient of a 2021 Lambda Literary Dr. James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize. Sarah’s short stories, essays, and interviews have appeared in The New York Times, T Magazine, Granta, McSweeney’s, The Believer, Vice, Electric Literature, and the anthologies We Can’t Help It If We’re From Florida, One Small Blow Against Encroaching Totalitarianism, Tampa Bay Noir, Erase the Patriarchy, and I Know What’s Best For You: Stories on Reproductive Freedom. Learn more about Sarah Gerard’s work on their website.

Photograph of author Sarah Gerard

Advance Praise for The Butter House

“A couple moves into the titular Butter House, and soon find themselves mired in the project of cat care. Sarah Gerard writes beautifully and precisely about the visceral, secretive feline landscape, and the possibilities that emerge when this world intersects with the human realm—challenging the couple at the center of The Butter House to renegotiate their relationship to care and what it means to feel at home.”

—Laura van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel and I Hold a Wolf by the Ears

“The Butter House is like a lithe and seductive feline, sinking its uncut claws into you. Sarah Gerard’s prose is quiet and contemplative and then chaotic in bursts, also not unlike a cat. The Butter House incisively considers the simultaneous care and cruelty of pet ownership, and Gerard is masterful in writing into all the nooks and crannies of a relationship. It’s the tale cat people deserve.”

—Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, author of Helen House

Interested in a Review Copy?

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Ted Hayden wins the 2021 Innovative Short Fiction Contest!

Aug 15, 2021

Ted Hayden wins the 2021 Innovative Short Fiction Contest!

Elle Nash has chosen Ted Hayden’s “The Sky Saw” us as the 2021 Innovative Short Fiction Contest winner! Ted’s piece will be published in The Conium Review: Vol. 10. He’ll also receive $500, contributor copies, and a copy of Elle Nash’s latest book, Nudes.

Ted Hayden‘s stories have appeared in literary publications including “Newfound Journal” and genre publications including “Nature: Futures.” Read more of his work at tedhaydenstories.com.

This year’s finalists were Alexandra Blogier, Aimee Herman, Kaleena Madruga, Jerome Newson, K. W. Oxnard, and Pascale Potvin.

Here’s what the contest judge had to say about Ted’s winning story:

“‘The Sky Saw Us’ moves cinematically between two narrators at once. The story follows Cassie and Arturo through a new kind of apocalypse: one in which our worst selves are reflected back to us, quite literally, through a new sky full of mirrors. Humans become their own enemies. What is most tense about the story, however, is the relationship between love and loss, friendship and desire, and the blurred lines between our person who strangely becomes infected by the falling sky and what this infection contains within: all the moments that make up a life, how we relate to each other. In ‘The Sky Saw Us,’ all the loss of one’s life becomes stored inside the body, where one reflects on it forever.”

–Elle Nash, contest judge & author of Nudes

Cassidy McCants is the 2020 Innovative Short Fiction Contest Winner!

Aug 31, 2020

Cassidy McCants is the 2020 Innovative Short Fiction Contest winner!

The results are in. Emily Wortman-Wunder has finished deliberating, and we’re pleased to announce Cassidy McCants as the 2020 Innovative Short Fiction Contest winner for her piece “The Things I Took From Your House.” Cassidy’s piece will be published in The Conium Review: Vol. 9, and she’ll receive a $500 prize, contributor copies, and a copy of the judge’s book.

Cassidy McCants is a writer and editor from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She received her B.A. in creative writing from University of Arkansas and her M.F.A. in fiction writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and she is Managing Editor of Nimrod International Journal. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Lascaux Review, Liars’ League NYC, Gravel, The Idle Class, Filling Station, Witch Craft Magazine, and other publications, and her stories have received honorable mentions from Glimmer Train Press.

This year’s finalists were Kelly Hill, Ploy Pirapokin, and Miranda Williams.

Here’s what Emily had to say about her choice:

Headshot of Cassidy McCants, the 2020 Innovative Short Fiction Contest winner

“All four finalists were good but this one stood out with the way its innovative form mirrored and reinforced its arc and helped to nudge out new corners of its characters. I loved this story’s sly and surprising voice, the way it skipped along in a wry wistful way and then plunged in the knife.”

–Emily Wortman-Wunder, contest judge & author of Not a Thing to Comfort You

The Conium Review stands with #BlackLivesMatter

Jul 1, 2020

CONIUM stands with #BlackLivesMatter

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Dearest readers & writers,

The Conium Review stands with #BlackLivesMatter.

But that statement alone is not enough. Here’s what we’re doing to show our support:

  • Submissions for our next print edition have re-opened for Black writers. We want to read your stories.
  • All others who want to submit to the print edition must upload proof of a donation to support racial justice. If you’re unsure where to donate, our guidelines include a list of options.
  • Our next free call for book and chapbook submissions will be open exclusively to Black writers. I’m working on guidelines for this. Stay tuned.
  • I also encourage Black writers to join our staff. We like innovative and weird fiction. If that’s your idea of a good time, please reach out. Just be aware, all positions are volunteer (whenever there’s money, it goes to Conium authors rather than editors).

This is also not enough. But it’s a start.

Sincerely,
James R. Gapinski
Managing Editor, The Conium Review

Our 2020 Innovative Short Fiction Contest opens soon!

Apr 30, 2020

The Conium Review‘s seventh annual Innovaive Short Fiction opens on May 1st! The winner receives $500, publication in our print edition, five copies of the issue, and a copy of the judge’s book. The entry fee is $15. Full guidelines are available here.

We’re pleased to welcome Emily Wortman-Wunder as this year’s judge. She won our 2018 contest, judged by Maryse Meijer. Since then, Emily has released her award-winning short story collection, Not a Thing to Comfort You, through the University of Iowa Press. Her fiction and essays have won also appeared in Nimrod, The North American Review, and The Atlantic.

Send us your weirdest and wildest fictions.