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We’ve printed up some limited-edition postcards of Jessica Roeder’s “Birth” for the 2017 AWP Conference in Washington, DC. “Birth” first appeared in The Conium Review: Vol. 5. Get one of these at The Conium Review‘s table (#548-T) or at the NewPages booth (#462).
We don’t expect these to last long! If you’re in Washington, DC for the conference, be sure to stop by before they run out.
Throughout the AWP Conference, we’re offering discounted prices at our table (1238). If you’re not able to attend this year’s conference in LA, we’ve still got you covered. You can get The Conium Review: Vol. 4 for just $10.00 (marked down from $12.00), and The Conium Review: Vol. 3 is only $5.00 (list price of $12.00). You can also pre-order Matt Tompkins’s Souvenirs and Other Stories for $10.00. There’s even free shipping for the duration of the conference! Get these great discounts through April 2nd in our online storefront.
To coincide with the 2016 AWP Conference in Los Angeles, the Kindle editions of The Conium Review: Vol. 4 (current issue) and The Conium Review: Vol. 3 are on sale for just $0.99 each this week! The sale lasts through April 2nd, 2016.
This volume of The Conium Review features nine new stories from Emily Koon, Tamara K. Walker, Rita Bullwinkel, Marina Petrova, Kayla Pongrac, Ingrid Jendrzejewski, Zach Powers, and Theodora Ziolkowski. The pieces include a mix of flash fiction and short stories, each with a penchant for innovative characterization, bizarre settings, and other weirdness. You’ll discover a dictator in a jar, a modernized fairy tale, a person living as a Tinseltown extra, and more.
Get the Kindle edition for $0.99 through April 2nd, 2016!
(List price for the Kindle edition is normally $5.99)
This volume of The Conium Review features eight new stories from Olivia Ciacci, Tom Howard, D. V. Klenak, Jan LaPerle, Zach Powers, Christine Texeira, and Meeah Williams. In these strange and surreal stories, you’ll find a company that sells knight-in-shining-armor-style happy endings, a boy with a second person trapped inside of him, a contemporary fable with a chickadee protagonist, and more. The pieces include flash fiction, short stories, and novella-length fiction.
Get the Kindle edition for $0.99 through April 2nd, 2016!
(List price for the Kindle edition is normally $5.99)
Fiction editor William VanDenBerg will be signing copies of his Caketrain Press release, Lake of Earth, at our 2016 AWP Conference table (#1238) on Saturday, April 2nd from 2:00pm to 3:00pm. Later that evening, he’ll be reading at an off-site even hosted by Caketrain & Solar Luxuriance.
The reading starts at 7:00pm at The Drain, located at 2232 E. Cesar Chavez Ave. in Los Angeles. The other readers include Rachel Levy, M. Kitchell, Thibault Raoult, Kit Schluter, Katy Mongeau, Leif Haven, Kristin Hayter, and Bridget Brewer.
Lindsay Hunter was originally slated to be on our AWP Conference panel, “What the Heck Does Innovative Fiction Actually Mean?: Authors Cut Through the Jargon,” but she had to drop out and Manuel Gonzales will be replacing her as a panelist. Fortunately, Lindsay was still able to answer some panelist questions for us. This chat gives a preview of what you might expect at the panel on Friday, April 1st, and it also gives Lindsay a chance to chime in on the topic for our online readers.
[James R. Gapinski]: So I have to ask the central question: what does innovative fiction actually mean? It seems like some cheesy buzzword, but can we define innovative fiction?
[Lindsay Hunter]: I think innovative fiction is something that surprises its readers. You know that feeling you get when you’re reading something and you think, “Man, I could never do this.” And then you think, “Man, I’m gonna go sit down right now and try to do that, or try to write something that makes me feel like reading that made me feel.” That’s innovative. It generates a chain of inspiration and creation.
[JRG]: When you’re writing a piece like “Don’t Kiss Me,” do you begin with the intentional goal of doing something formally unconventional, or is that something that just happens organically as you write?
[LH]: It’s very organic for me. I sit down and write the first line knocking around in my head, and then I write the next one and the next one. It’s all about the voice, the word selection that nourishes that voice. I don’t think, “Okay, I gotta write something truly f*cked up, GIDDY UP HUNTER, LET’S DO IT.” I think, “Hmm I wanna write about a woman who’s obsessed with another woman at work.” I think it’s unconventional because I’m trying to reveal something in these marginalized, sometimes hyper-real characters that I love so much. I’m trying to unveil some humanity whenever I can.
[JRG]: You’re judging our short fiction contest. I’m sure those interested in submitting are itching to know: are there specific things you look for in a great piece of innovative writing?
[LH]: I always find myself looking for an interesting turn of phrase. A quickness, a deftness between word and image. Something that makes me jealous! I’m also a sucker for anything that makes me feel nostalgic – either the character’s nostalgia or something sparked inside me.
[JRG]: Could you share some authors or books that you find particularly risky or innovative?
[LH]: Gutshot by Amelia Gray is like an opus of innovation. I think it’s perfect. Catherine Lacey’s Nobody is Ever Missing is another one. And Maryse Meijer’s forthcoming Heartbreaker burns it ALL down. Full disclosure, we all have the same editor. But that editor is a master of seeking out innovative, weird stuff!
Lindsay Hunter is the author of Ugly Girls (FSG Originals, 2014), which The Huffington Post called “a story that hits a note that’s been missing from the chorus of existing feminist literature.” Her next novel, working title Eat Only When You’re Hungry, is forthcoming from FSG. She is also the author of the flash fiction story collections Don’t Kiss Me (FSG Originals, 2013) and Daddy’s (Featherproof Books, 2010).