Contributor Update, Hannah Brown: ‘Look After Her’

Today we are happy to announce the news of past SR fiction contributor Hannah Brown. Hannah’s debut novel, Look After Her, published by Inanna Publications, is now available for preorder. The novel takes place in the 1930s and follows two young Jewish sisters through the betrayal of a family friend, captivity, addiction, and danger. 

“With the background of anti-Semitism and exploitation, of sex and love and art and dramatic ruses, all during the terrifying rise of fascism in Austria and Italy, Look After Her reveals this truth: no matter how close we are to another human being, even a beloved sister, that’s what we are: close—we all have our own secrets to keep.” 

Next year, in September 2020, Inanna Publications will also publish a collection of her interlinked short stories, including “On Any Windy Day,” which appeared in SR’s Issue 15.

More information about Hannah and her forthcoming novel can be found here. You can find her fiction piece, “On Any Windy Day,” from Issue 15 here.

Congratulations, Hannah!

Contributor Update, Caitlin Horrocks: ‘The Vexations’

Join us in congratulating SR interview contributor Caitlin Horrocks. Caitlin’s debut novel, The Vexations, published by Little, Brown and Company, is available for purchase. Caitlin has been named “wildly entertaining” (San Fransisco Chronicle), “startlingly ingenious (Boston Globe), and “impressively sharp” (New York Times Book Review).

The book follows the life of eccentric composer Erik Satie, who dives into the Parisian art scene after the early death of his mother and his father’s breakdown. As time passes, Erik finds himself lashing out against his close friends and alienating himself, an artist who strived for greatness but only achieved notoriety. It’s up to Erik’s siblings—Louise and Conrad—to hold the family together and maintain faith in their brother’s talent.

To read more about Caitlin and her novel, click here. You can find her interview from SR’s Issue 9 here.

Congratulations, Caitlin!

#ArtLitPhx: Faye Hamilton’s ‘Rescue 12 Responding’

Hamilton discusses and signs her independently published debut novel.

David and Jonathan are paramedics who deal with life and death and the consequences of human choice. On Rescue 12, they respond to the tragic drug overdose of a group of teenagers at a high school party. One girl survives to tell what she witnessed during her near-death experience. This encounter results in the spiritual awakening of David and forces Jonathan to confront his own Christian faith, which he abandoned when he came out to his father. What happens when the ambulance arrives? What happens when a patient dies? Why does God allow for sin, death, and suffering? What’s the point of trying? These questions are answered, the emergency rescue calls are shared, and the lives of the two paramedics are forever changed by the spiritual warfare they encounter.

PARKING / LIGHT RAIL

  • Don’t want to drive? Take the Light Rail! It lets off at the Central Avenue/Camelback Park-and-Ride, which has hundreds of free parking spaces across the street from Changing Hands.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

FAYE HAMILTON writes, “I was a paramedic for many years. 25 years ago, while assigned to Rescue 12 in Gibsonton, Florida, I wrote the novel – Rescue 12 Responding. Shortly after I completed the novel, my life went crazy and the book found its way to the back of the closet.

I returned to School, got a bachelor’s degree with a major in Religion then continued to graduate school, and am now working as a Physician Assistant in an Emergency Department in the Phoenix, Arizona area.

Recently my husband died and in that quiet, I decided to pick up this novel and share it with others. I knew when I wrote it, that I would write a sequel to the story. I have recently begun to work on the second book, this time, set in an Emergency Department.”

EVENT INFORMATION

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W. Camelback Rd., Phoenix 

Date: Tuesday, August 6

Time: 7 p.m.

For more information about the event, click here.

#ArtLitPhx: Kimi Eisele Author Event

What if the end times allowed people to see and build the world anew? This is the landscape that Kimi Eisele creates in her surprising and original debut novel.

Evoking the spirit of such monumental love stories as Cold Mountain and the creative vision of novels like Station ElevenThe Lightest Object in the Universe imagines what happens after the global economy collapses and the electrical grid goes down.

In this new world, Carson, on the East Coast, is desperate to find to Beatrix, a woman on the West Coast who holds his heart. Working his way along a cross-country railroad line, he encounters lost souls, clever opportunists, and those who believe they’ll be saved by an evangelical preacher in the middle of the country. While Carson travels west, Beatrix and her neighbors begin to construct the kind of cooperative community that suggests the end could be, in fact, a bright beginning.

Without modern means of communication, will Beatrix and Carson find their way to each other, and what will be left of the old world if they do? The answers may lie with a fifteen-year-old girl who could ultimately decide the fate of the lovers.

The Lightest Object in the Universe is a moving and hopeful story about resilience and adaptation and a testament to the power of community, where our best traits, born of necessity, can begin to emerge.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 
Kimi Eisele is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, Longreads, Orion Magazine, High Country News, and elsewhere. She holds a master’s degree in geography from the University of Arizona, where in 1998 she founded You Are Here: The Journal of Creative Geography. She has received grants from the Arts Foundation of Southern Arizona, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Kresge Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in Tucson and works for the Southwest Folklife Alliance. This is her first novel.

EVENT INFORMATION

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W. Camelback Rd., Phoenix 

Date: Wednesday, July 10

Time: 7 p.m.

For more information, click here.

Contributor Update, Hannah Brown: ‘Look After Her’

book cover

Today we are happy to announce the news of past SR fiction contributor Hannah Brown. Hannah’s debut novel, Look After Her, will be published this September by Inanna Publications. The novel takes place in the 1930s and follows two young Jewish sisters through the betrayal of a family friend, captivity, addiction, and danger.

“With the background of anti-Semitism and exploitation, of sex and love and art and dramatic ruses, all during the terrifying rise of fascism in Austria and Italy, Look After Her reveals this truth: no matter how close we are to another human being, even a beloved sister, that’s what we are: close—we all have our own secrets to keep.” 

Next year, in September 2020, Inanna Publications will also publish a collection of her interlinked short stories, including “On Any Windy Day,” which appeared in SR’s Issue 15.

More information about Hannah and her forthcoming novel can be found here. You can find her fiction piece, “On Any Windy Day,” from Issue 15 here.

Congratulations, Hannah!

Contributor Update, Donald Morrill: Debut Novel “BEAUT”

 

Contributor Update
Contributor Update

We are happy to announce that past contributor Donald Morrill from Issue 3 has released his debut novel “BEAUT,” a winner of the Lee Smith Fiction Prize. The book is available for purchase. Congratulations Donald! 

Check out a sample of the opening pages of the book at 83 Degrees-Tampa Bay

Please visit his website at  https://www.donaldmorrill.com

#ArtLitPhx: Benjamin Rybeck: The Sadness with special guest Matt Bell: A Tree or a Person or a Wall

The-sadnessA-tree-person-or-a-wallBenjamin Rybeck presents his debut novel, The Sadness, on Wednesday, October 19 at 7 p.m. Arizona State University creative writing instructor Matt Bell joins Rybeck, with his latest work, A Tree or a Person or a Wall. The event takes places at Changing Hands Phoenix.

Benjamin Rybeck is the marketing director at Brazos Bookstore in Houston, TX. He received an M.F.A. from the University of Arizona. His work has appeared in Kirkus Reviews, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, Literary Hub, The Nervous Breakdown, and elsewhere. The Sadness is his first novel. He lives in Houston, TX.

Matt Bell is the author of the novel In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods, a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award, a Michigan Notable Book, and an Indies Choice Adult Debut Book of the Year Honor Recipient, and the winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award. He is also the author of two previous books, How They Were Found and Cataclysm Baby, and his next novel, Scrapper, was published in September 2015. His stories have appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, Best American Fantasy, Conjunctions, Gulf Coast, The American Reader, and many other publications. He teaches creative writing at Arizona State University.

For more information, please visit the Changing Hands website.

#ArtLitPhx: Changing Hands and the Piper Center Present Garth Risk Hallberg

Gary-Changing Hands

Garth Risk Hallberg will be visiting Changing Hands Phoenix with his debut novel, City on Fire. The event is co-presented by the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at ASU. The New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Vogue, Newsday, The Atlantic, and others named City on Fire the Best Book of the Year.

The event takes place on Wednesday, September 21st at 7 PM – 9 PM. For more information about the event, please visit the Facebook page or the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing page.

The author was born in Louisiana and grew up in North Carolina. His writing has appeared in Prairie SchoonerThe New York TimesBest New American Voices 2008, and The Millions; a novellaA Field Guide to the North American Family, was published in 2007. He lives in New York with his wife and children.

Michelle Hoover At Changing Hands Bookstore

At Superstition Review, we like to keep up with upcoming literary events in the Phoenix area. Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference scholar and Pushcart Prize nominee, Michelle Hoover, will be visiting Changing Hands Bookstore on Tuesday October 12th at 7 p.m. She will be reading from her debut novel, The Quickening, which was released in June.

Based on her family’s rich history of oral story-telling and her grandmother’s diary, The Quickening narrates an interminable feud between two Iowa farming families. The conflict lasted over four decades, spanning across both World Wars and well into the Great Depression. A timeless tale of humanity’s intuition in times of peril, Hoover’s entrance into the world of literature is felicitous.

While The Quickening is Hoover’s first novel, her first-hand experience of growing up in Ames, Iowa ensures validity in her work. It is obvious that this experience combined with the recounted stories from family members over the generations has provided the necessary knowledge to convey this story with immense accuracy. Michelle Hoover has also previously published fiction in The Massachusettes Review, Best New American Voices, and Prairie Schooner, as well as others. She teaches writing at Boston University and Grub Street, Inc., a group that assists writers in developing their manuscripts through six to ten week workshops.

Hoover’s website, http://www.michellehoover.net/, includes a list of upcoming readings and events and a video message about The Quickening. It also offers the opportunity to tell your own story about working or growing up on a farm. Stories must have a minimum of 500 words and be submitted by December 1st to be eligible. Two lucky winners who have shared their story will be picked to receive a copy of The Quickening. The winners will be posted on her website on December 15th. You can also follow Michelle Hoover on Twitter via http://twitter.com/quickeningnovel for frequent updates on her successes and recent work.