Mar 16, 2019
In early 2017, we announced Emily Koon’s We Are Still Here as the winner of our Book & Chapbook Contest, judged by Matt Bell. Two years later, a couple revisions, a half-dozen cover mock-ups, and we’re finally ready to bring this beast of a book to market. It’s slated for release this July. We’ll have printed galleys on display at this year’s AWP Conference in Portland. If you’re a reviewer interested in receiving an advance copy, reach out to editors@coniumreview.com.
We Are Still Here contains thirteen short stories and a novella. Throughout this stellar debut, discover a surreal band of mall dwellers, a fairy tale featuring goblins and ghosts, a “go wherever” story in which Lizzie Borden is fully prepared to give her mother forty whacks, and more.
Matt Bell, author of Scrapper, says “Emily Koon’s We Are Still Here is a smart and surprising debut, with each story alive to the many absurdities of life—as well as the joys and the heartbreaks those absurdities contain. Funny and inventive, this book will thrill fans of Amelia Gray, Lindsay Hunter, or Laura van den Berg, while introducing readers to Koon’s own exciting talent.“
Pre-order your copy of Emily Koon’s debut collection here.
Oct 28, 2016
The Conium Review‘s managing editor, James R. Gapinski, was recently interviewed by The Review Review along with eleven other editors. They discuss their favorite writers, both established and emerging. Read the full article here.
Mar 21, 2016
James R. Gapinski’s “Determining the Gull Bone Index” was recently published by SmokeLong Quarterly as a weekly feature. This flash fiction was just released as part of their quarterly edition (issue number 51). The issue also contains an interview, where guest editor Chase Burke asks James some questions about his piece. Check out the full interview here.
The full issue is available here, featuring flash fictions and supplemental interviews with twenty-one different authors!
Mar 18, 2016
We’re pleased to formally announce our four newest staff members: Holly Lopez, Meredith Maltby, Marina Petrova, and William VanDenBerg! They’ve already begun reading submissions and have proven themselves valuable members of The Conium Review team.
Holly Lopez is a recent graduate of the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte. Her work has appeared in Plots With Guns, Charlotte Viewpoint, and Choose Wisely: 35 Women Up To No Good. She is also the recipient of the 2012 Marjorie Blankenship Melton Award in Fiction. As an editor, she appreciates when writers subvert expectations and produce stories that are fresh and unconventional. She’s most interested in strange stories that also have dimension, red-blooded characters, and effectively tap into the human condition. Some of her favorite authors include George Saunders, Donald Barthelme, Aimee Bender, Kelly Link, and Karen Russell.
Meredith Maltby is the poetry editor for the Tulane Review and was a featured poet at Design Cloud Chicago’s HERE / NOW event. Meredith has previously published her work in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Chicago Tribune, ROAR: a literary journal for women of the arts, and Gravel Journal, among others. She appreciates interesting and strange writing from underrepresented voices. She admires and is influenced by Amelia Gray’s Gutshot, Lincoln Michel’s Upright Beasts, Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, Bonnie Campell’s Mothers Tell Your Daughters, and anything by Ariana Reines or Melissa Broder.
Marina Petrova was published in The Conium Review: Vol. 4, and when we posted our call for editors, she was eager to get more involved with our small press. She graduated from the MFA program at The New School in May 2014, where she had previously served as a reader for LIT. Her work has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Underwater New York, and Calliope Anthology. She’s currently working on a collection of short stories. In her non-writing life, she also works as a Business Analyst for a Media Tech company. Marina is a native Russian speaker, and growing up she was influenced by Chekhov, Nabokov, and Bulgakov. More recently, she’s become a huge fan of Donald Barthelme, Italo Calvino, Ben Marcus, Junot Díaz, and George Saunders.
William VanDenBerg is a first year MFA student at Brown University. He is the author of two chapbooks: Lake of Earth from Caketrain Press and Apostle Islands from Solar Luxuriance—he’ll be signing copies of these chapbooks at our AWP Conference table in Los Angeles (table #1238). He loves the work of Donald Barthelme, Ann Quin, Lindsay Hunter, Amelia Gray, and Steven Millhauser.
Visit masthead page to learn more about these editors and the rest of our staff.
Mar 17, 2016
Caitlin Scarano‘s “Pitcher of Cream” has been selected for the Queen’s Ferry Press Best Small Fiction anthology!
Caitlin’s story recently won our 2015 Flash Fiction Contest, judged by Laura Ellen Joyce. It was published on our website, and it will be re-released as a limited-run micro-chap later this month. The micro-chap will be available for free at the 2016 AWP Conference in Los Angeles, CA. Caitlin will be doing a signing at our exhibitor table (#1238) on Thursday, March 31st from 3:00pm to 4:00pm.
Last year’s Innovative Short Fiction Contest judge, Amelia Gray, also had her piece “These Are the Fables” selected for the Best Small Fictions anthology. Additionally, Amelia’s story “On a Pleasant Afternoon, Every Battle Is Recalled” was named a finalist.
John Englehardt‘s “This Is Great But You Don’t Need It” was also named as a semifinalist—this piece was originally published on our website and was made into a micro-chap for the 2015 AWP Conference in Minneapolis, MN.
Lastly, Daniel Aristi (former contributor to our website) had his Sand story, “Tempus Fugit,” selected for publication, and Mercedes Lawry (former contributor to our website) was named a semifinalist for her recent Cleaver Magazine story, “Was there transposition?“
We’re excited to see so many contributors and friends of The Conium Review on the long list and short list for Best Small Fictions, and we hope you’ll all pick up a copy when Queen’s Ferry Press releases the anthology later this year. The full list of semifinalist, finalists, and winners is available on the Queen’s Ferry Press website.
Loading...
