Contributor Update, Caitlin Horrocks

Join Superstition Review in congratulating one of our past contributors, Caitlin Horrocks, on her new book, Life Among the Terranauts, out now. Named a Best Book of January 2021 by Entertainment Weekly and Apple Books, this collection of short stories “demonstrates all the inventiveness that won admirers for Horrocks’s first collection. In “The Sleep,” reprinted in Best American Short Stories, residents of a town in the frigid Midwest decide to hibernate through the bitter winters. In the title story, half a dozen people move into an experimental biodome for a shot at a million dollars, if they can survive two years. And in “Sun City,” published in The New Yorker, a young woman meets her grandmother’s roommate in the wake of her death and attempts to solve the mystery of whether the two women were lovers.”

“Vigorous and supremely crafted, Horrocks’s second collection explores human frailties, desires, and mechanisms for survival… Horrocks’s linguistic finesse and narrative range is impressive, and she brings incisive humor, pathos, and wit to her characters and their predicaments. The result is an immersive and engaging work that astutely captures the complexities of the human condition.”

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Click here to order your copy of Life Among the Terranauts. Be sure to also check out Caitlin’s website and Twitter, as well as, our interview with her in Issue 9.

Berkeley Fiction Review

The Berkeley Fiction Review is a UC Berkeley undergraduate, student-run publication. We look for innovative short fiction that plays with form and content, as well as traditionally constructed stories with fresh voices and original ideas. Ultimately, we seek to contribute to literature’s on-going evolution.

We invite submissions of previously unpublished short stories year round and publish annually. Submissions are free. Contributors whose stories are published receive one free copy of the issue their story appears in. We also host fiction contests and nominate to O. Henry, Best American Short Stories, and Pushcart prizes. Click the link to learn more about the submission guidelines: http://berkeleyfictionreview.com/submit/

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Treehouse Celebrates its First Birthday

TreehouseFor the past year, Treehouse has been dedicated to exhibiting pleasantly unusual and interesting writing that is short enough to read on a coffee break but good enough to linger over.  We feature previously unpublished work from emerging and established writers alike. We accept writing no longer than 1,000 words in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry genres. Simultaneous and multiple (up to three) submissions are accepted. Submissions are read on a rolling basis (unless otherwise noted).

To celebrate our successful first year, Treehouse is proud to present our First Annual Literary Loot Contest for Unusual Prose! In addition to publication in Treehouse, the contest winner will also receive: a one year subscription to Barrelhouse, Booth, Carolina Quarterly, Ecotone, Gigantic, Gulf Coast, [PANK], and REAL: Regarding Arts & Letters; two new Fall titles from brand new (but no less awesome) indie press A Strange Object, two new titles from Dzanc Books and a six-month subscription to their e-book club; a copy of Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard) and First Year (an MLP Anthology) from Mud Luscious Press; and a t-shirt from A Strange Object and [PANK].

Our favorite non-winning contest entries will also be published in Treehouse.The rules:

  1. We’re interested in prose that does unusual stuff. In the past we’ve published stories in the form of to-do lists, invisible text with footnotes, survival guides, landlord-tenant correspondence, recipes, and also all kinds of inventive work that was linguistically, but not necessarily structurally, experimental. So if you think your story, essay, prose poem, or genrebender fits the bill, send it our way. (Sorry, no poetry with line breaks for this one.)
  2. Entries are to be a maximum of 750 words.
  3. All entries must be emailed to treehouse.editors@gmail.com by April 30. Preferred format is .doc, but .docx and .pdf are also acceptable.
  4. Subject line of contest entries must say: CONTEST ENTRY. Otherwise, they will simply be filed as regular submissions and will have zero chance of receiving cool swag.
  5. Your name MUST NOT APPEAR ANYWHERE ON YOUR PIECE. Since we often get writing from people we kind of know, either via real life or the internet, we want to be extra careful that everything is getting read blind. We’re even going to implement our ultra-secret “assigning numbers to stories and then not telling anybody what the numbers mean” system.
  6. In the interest of fairness, we can’t accept submission from editors at any of the magazines or publishing houses that are participating. UNCW students may submit work, so long as they’re not currently on staff at Ecotone.
  7. Former Treehouse contributors are invited to submit work.
  8. We also can’t accept submissions from anyone who has gotten past second base with any member of the editorial staff. (In this case, “second base” refers to urban second base; rural second base is okay.) However, if you have gotten past second base with a member of the editorial staff: why don’t you call us already? It’s been more than three days.
  9. One of the main things we’re trying to communicate with this contest is that literature is a community. We picked out the journals and publishing houses we’re most excited about because we wanted to share them with you—our favorite readers. (And pretty much everybody we asked to participate eagerly agreed.) As such, we’ll be featuring a different participating magazine or indie house every week. Please check out their sites and consider subscribing or buying books—not because they’re helping our contest, but because they’re sustaining a thriving literary community that you’re not going to get from mainstream publishing. And because they publish cool shit!
  10. We really believe in doing as much as we can without getting money involved. So even if you can’t afford to subscribe to any of our partners’ publications, consider spreading the word—about the contest and/or about any of the publishers you see that tickle your fancy—via facebook, twitter, or other social media. Or, you know, your mouth.

Our authors have been featured in Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize AnthologyBest New American VoicesBest American Mystery Stories, and Best American Fantasy. In the past year we’ve published new work from acclaimed young writers like Roxane Gay, Matt Bell, Patrick Somerville, Marie-Helene Bertino, and many others.

We look forward to reading your work! To support Treehouse, you can read the magazine, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook!

Subtropics: literary fiction, essays, and poetry

Subtropics is published three times a year by the Department of English at the University of Florida. The editor is David Leavitt, managing editor is Mark Mitchell, 
and poetry editor is Sidney Wade.

Fiction and poetry from Subtropics have been anthologized in the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories; Best American Poetry; Best American Short Stories; New Stories from the South; and New Stories from the Midwest. In addition, some of our authors have received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Subtropics seeks to publish the best literary fiction, essays, and poetry being written today, both by established and emerging authors. Visit their website at: http://www.english.ufl.edu/subtropics/

Reading: Patrick Michael Finn

On Friday, November 4, Phoenix College is presenting a free reading and book signing by award-winning author Patrick Michael Finn.

The reading and book signing will begin at 7:30 p.m. at Phoenix College, 1202 Thomas Rd, in room H102.

Patrick Michael Finn is the author of the novella A Martyr for Suzy Kashasovich, which won the 2006 Ruthanne Wiley Memorial Novella Competition. His collection of short stories, The Darkness Under Our Feet, is the 2009 Hudson Prize winner.

Patrick’s short stories have appeared in Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, Third Coast, Quarterly West, The Clackamas Literary Review, and Houghton Mifflin’s The Best American Mystery Stories 2004. Awards for his fiction include the Third Coast Fiction Prize 2004, AWP Intro Award, citations in the 2005 Pushcart Prize, and The Best American Short Stories 2008.

Patrick has taught at the University of Arizona, Western Nebraska Community College, and the University of North Carolina, Asheville, and founded the Chandler-Gilbert Community College writing program in 2007, which he currently directs. He lives in Arizona with his wife and son.

For more information about the reading, contact Lisa Miller at 602-285-7348 or lisa.miller.@pcmail.maricopa.edu.