Fiction. Short Stories. THE LUCKY BODY is a series of stories centering on instances of rupture in social behavior. In the title story we see a group's resolve after brutally murdering a passerby. Later, in "Spring in Zurveyta," a journalist confronts her own mortality when she is granted an interview with a ruthless dictator, only to find she has become a target. "Moving Water" shows us the impacts of second husbands and a mother's struggle to support her children. In the penultimate story, "From Anna," two travelers retell a tale of an ancient civilization where the elders had to fight to the death for the salvation of their grandchildren. And finally, in "Ahead," a man about to commit suicide decides he'd like to live when he remembers the happiness that can be found in stories.

The Lucky Body

Literature & Fiction

Coma-Thompson, Kyle

United States

Dock Street Press

Fiction. In this brilliantly rendered, LA Times Book Prize nominated debut collection (as well as Longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award), Sara Lippmann draws the reader into the intimate lives of characters seeking connection beyond their scripted worlds. She captures the beguiling transformation from child to adult with humor, heartache, and desperation. From grieving mothers to fathers adrift, old flames to restless teens, isolated characters in DOLL PALACE are united by conflicting desires and the private struggles of the heart. A girl ditches her innocence at a state fair. Strippers ponder love over a Brazilian wax. A father falls for a drug-addled babysitter. A mother ends a pregnancy. DOLL PALACE dwells in the harder-edged territories of human compassion, navigating the powerful, often unsettling ground rarely spoken of with awareness, care, and grace. DOLL PALACE is that rare collection that invites imitation but leaves a vast majority wondering how she did it.

Doll Palace

Lippmann, Sara

Short Stories & Anthologies

Fiction. In his debut collection, Christian Winn throws his readers unabashedly into a world of characters on the brink. Sometimes overtly, sometimes obliquely, we see what it means to live in a flawed world and, like anything profound, come away from the experience provoked, asking new questions. NAKED ME, though despondent in places, is steeped in hope with characters willing to believe they might find peace, or at least a semblance of understanding within the earnest clutter of love, addiction, friendship, and dreams. Voyeurs at a gambling party spy on the exhibitionist across the alley. A young boy tries to conceal his love for his best friend. Murdered dentists mysteriously begin to appear floating in the shipping canal of a city. NAKED ME is that collection that pulls wisdom from the mundane, making us cringe and laugh in the same sentence. From the first line, NAKED ME quickly reveals we are in the capable hands of a master.

Naked Me

Winn, Christian

Literary Nonfiction. Essay. In this collection of twenty-one essays, Curtis Smith explores religion and fear, memory and dreams, aging and happiness, with the skill bestowed only to masters of their craft. The eloquent pieces in COMMUNION address a father's love for his child and the moments he knows will be gone all too quickly. Seen through the eyes of an older parent, we are spared the sentimentality and clichés of childrearing, and instead gifted the rare and laconic wisdom of a father who understands, in the present, the gravity of each conversation or hike into the woods with his son. Smith's sincere modesty, coupled with his precise prose, gives this new collection its charm and heft. The essays in COMMUNION reiterate what it means to be a father, and invite us to follow a son as he leaves the insulated world of childhood and to wish him well as though he was our own.

Communion

SMITH, CURTIS

History & Criticism

Fiction. 1863, New Mexico Territory. Shot full of holes and on the run from the relentless pursuit of his one-time friend now intent on retribution, Confederate deserter Everett Root finds himself navigating the brutal desert headed to the town of Mesilla, where he believes salvation lies. But when Everett stumbles on a cache of silver, and a young girl who's lost everything, he is forced to take stock of his past and his future. Full of sprawling landscapes and wild gunmen, Mesilla is a story of one man's resolve to rectify the wrongs he has committed and make peace with his place in the world.

Mesilla

Russell, Robert James

Fiction. In SANDY AND WAYNE, Steve Yates reveals his talents in this gorgeous swoop of prose. Arranging his characters intimately against the vast Ozark Mountains, Yates moves flawlessly between the lives of Sandy Coker and Wayne Sheridan to the road crews reshaping the land. From their harbored ambitions to the secret that threatens to pull their lost hearts apart, this beautifully written novella tells a story of worlds colliding, of truths and consequences, as two people fall in love, reluctant to change with the world around them.

Sandy and Wayne

Yates, Steve

Fiction. In the twelve new stories of ALL I WANT IS WHAT YOU'VE GOT, award-winning author Glen Chamberlain deftly writes about the fragility of small town life. Chamberlain ushers us amongst half-broken lives, sharing moments of regret, yet allowing the redemptive qualities of her characters to ultimately shine through. From a night nurse confessing her forgotten desires to an invalid, to a Chinese girl trying to piece together a past from a single photograph; from an elderly rodeo cowboy falling in love with a beautiful stranger, to a woman acutely aware of the intricacies that lead to her own death, ALL I WANT IS WHAT YOU'VE GOT is a masterful book of stories revealing how the profoundest moments in life are the ones taken for granted.

All I Want is What You've Got

Chamberlain, Glen

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. From the comedic, often luminous mind of Ben Tanzer comes a memoir about one of life's true complexities: being cool. Written in touching vignettes, like snapshots of history, Tanzer eloquently illuminates his past with humor and resolve. From crushing on columnists of Tiger Beat magazine to losing his virginity after his "second attempt to do so"; from his love of Comic Con and Sci–Fi to his struggles with infertility, BE COOL is a confession to a generation of readers, done so with acute precision and utmost trust.

Be Cool

Tanzer, Ben

Poetry. Photography. From the winner of the Poetry Society of America's Fellowship, Tyler Flynn Dorholt brings us a book that is as much poetry as it is photography as it is documentary. Capturing the essence of a country, Dorholt writes and photographs the intimate moments of lives often overlooked. From the boroughs of New York City to the plains of the heartland, the poems and photographs relive an experience as rich and as deep as the country it's dedicated to. Muscular, intricate, dazzling and ardent, AMERICAN FLOWERS is a gift to lyricism itself.

American Flowers

Dorholt, Tyler Flynn

Poetry

Tiny Hands

Tom Toro

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