Tag: nod ghosh

Books by Friends: 2021 Edition (just in time for the Icelandic Book Flood!)

On By nancystohlmanIn flash fiction, Reading, retreats, The Writer's Life, Uncategorized, writing

Happy Winter, Friends!

Thanks for virtually traveling with me to Iceland last month for our Fire and Ice Flash Fiction retreat! It was a magical time with Kathy Fish and nine incredible writers in the gorgeous, never-ending twilight and eerie beauty (and hot springs!) of Iceland. If you didn’t follow along on social media, check out some of our favorite pictures here!

Speaking of Iceland, you might already know that every December, Icelanders celebrate Jolabokaflod, the Annual Icelandic “Book Flood” and book gifting holiday!

And, in the spirit of Jolabokaflod, every December I share my list of Books by Friends from the previous year. Because if you’re going to gift books, why not gift books by friends?

Reykjavik last month

Books By Friends 2021 Edition:

(I’ve provided the publisher or author’s direct link if available)

(in no particular order)
Len Kuntz: This Is Me Being Brave 
What does it mean to be fully present in the moment? What does it mean to grieve? To confront your failings? Or to love like it’s the only love you’ll ever have? In THIS IS ME, BEING BRAVE, Len Kuntz addresses these issues and dozens more by splaying himself wide open for the reader. Full of wisdom and humanity, deeply personal and universally relevant, Kuntz turns bravery on its very head. And defies you not to be moved.

Chelsea Stickle: Breaking Points
In thirteen slick, innovative, and gut-wrenching flashes, the young women and girls in Breaking Points, the debut chapbook from Chelsea Stickle, hit the walls around them—walls constructed by family, friends, significant others, and insidious cultural perils. 

Grant Faulkner: All the Comfort Sin Can Provide
With raw, lyrical ferocity, All the Comfort Sin Can Provide delves into the beguiling salve that sin can promise—tracing those hidden places most of us are afraid to acknowledge. In this collection of brutally unsentimental short stories, Grant Faulkner chronicles dreamers, addicts, and lost souls who have trusted too much in wayward love, the perilous balm of substances, or the unchecked hungers of others, but who are determined to find salvation in their odd definitions of transcendence.

Twice Not Shy: One Hundred Short Short Stories. Laura Keenan and Linda Martin (eds)
A contemporary collection of 100 flash, micro and hybrid stories, each 500 words or less, by rising and established writers. Building on the success of Night Parrot Press’s first collection, Once, Twice Not Shy showcases the best of Western Australian authors writing in this exciting, challenging and condensed genre. Small but mighty, the stories linger long after reading them.

Bryan Jansing and Paul Vismara: Italy Beer Country updated 2021 edition
In 1996, a handful of men inspired a crusade—the Italian craft beer movement. Italy: Beer Country presents the movement’s humble roots and the passionate brewers whose persistent, dogged determination allowed them to overcome cultural bias, low expectations, and Italy’s infuriating taxes, to forge what has become Europe’s most vibrant beer scene. From less than 20 microbreweries in 2001, the movement has grown to over 1000 in 2021. Italy: Beer Country is the first, and only, written history of this evolving, creative craft beer scene.

Sylvia Petter: All the Beautiful Liars
As a child in Australia in the Fifties, Katrina Klain is taunted in the playground as a Nazi, long before she knows what the word means…Told in a thrillingly inventive narrative style, Sylvia Petter’s debut novel is a powerful, pacy tale about making peace with the past, which also paints a richly evocative picture of Central Europe in the early decades after the war.

Beth Gilstrap: Deadheading and Other Stories
Irrevocably tied to the Carolinas, these stories tell tales of the woebegone, their obsessions with decay, and the haunting ache of the region itself—the land of the dwindling pines, the isolation inherent in the mountains and foothills, and the loneliness of boomtowns. Gilstrap’s prose teems with wildness and lyricism, showing the Southern gothic tradition of storytelling is alive and feverishly unwell in the twenty-first century.

Selah Saterstrom: Rancher
To heal is to be changed, to be, potentially, revolutionized by the fracture whose initial presence signals as a wound. For all of its pain, the fracture sends out new lay lines – new paths of inquiry that necessitate new modes of knowing and being-with. Rancher follows such paths into the uncanny territories of life after rape: What happens when a lie becomes the truth? What happens when the ghost haunting your house turns out to be you? 

Cheryl Pappas: The Clarity of Hunger
“This is a sharp, wise, aching beauty of a collection. In these pages, Cheryl Pappas gifts us with afterflowers, an old woman frozen in place, beasts and witches lying in wait, a king who blithely dreams of tulips, volcanoes on Mars, and so much more. These stories are daring, daunting, desire-filled. Pappas brings tremendous skill and range to this captivating debut, landing it with truly one of the most beautiful and profound flash pieces I have ever read.”— Kathy Fish

Sarah Freligh: We
This me-too guide to We takes a deep dive into golf greens, mom & pops, cornfields, & figure salons to rescue the wreck eons of Kingship has wrought on everyone from the school shooter to Cassiopeia & the holy roller girl. Freligh’s voice is fresh & flagrant, tender as it is Olympic, the curse that works its own godspell—& this book broke my heart open.—Jane Springer

Francine Witte: The Cake, The Smoke, The Moon
Francine Witte’s precise economy of words and rich employment of voice, scene and imagery create such vibrant evocations in the extraordinary The Cake, The Smoke, The Moon. She is, without a doubt, a modern-day Chekhov, and one of the most luminous stars in the flash and micro world.—Nathan Leslie

This is What America Looks Like: Caroline Bock, Kathleen Wheaton, Jona Colson (eds):
Following an open call for submissions in February, 2020, the press received over 500 creative pieces, including new poetry and fiction from past WWPH winners. The ensuing pandemic and the nationwide protests for racial justice later that spring are reflected in the work reviewed and the pieces ultimately chosen to represent this extraordinary historical moment. 

Debbi Voisey: Only About Love
There’s no such thing as a perfect family. A perfect life. A perfect man. Frank is proof of this. He’s everyman and yet as unique as a fingerprint. With a wonderful wife and children who are the loves of his life, he couldn’t ask for anything more. But time and time again he keeps risking it all. In snapshots through time, Only About Love takes a sweeping loop around Frank’s life as he navigates courtship, marriage, fatherhood and illness. Told through the perspectives of Frank and his family, this story is one of intense honesty about the things we do to those closest to us.

Maddie Anthes: Beautiful Violent Things
“Drunk ghosts, feral mothers…riveting obsessions and unbelongings and captivities—the fragmented texts in Beautiful, Violent Things seethe and grip and fluoresce without apology. In these eleven dispatches, Madeline Anthes carefully weaves desire and estrangement, reimagines power as a woman’s capacity for hollowing a man, the ability to deliver impossibilities from her misappropriated body. ”— Tara Stillions Whitehead

Nod Ghosh: Toy Train
Toy Train is brutal, compassionate, sincere, mysterious, uplifting and devastating. Nod Ghosh is a flash master. Every sentence is significant. These are stories crammed with truth told in poetic language, rife with symbolism and brimming over with emotion. Make space for yourself to read this collection — it’ll leave you breathless.~ Epiphany Ferrell

Meg Pokrass: Spinning to Mars
“Meg Pokrass has written an exquisite collection of linked stories. As I read Spinning to Mars, I felt plunged, soaked, immersed … into a life both deep and wide. This book will spin you off to Mars with its exacting language and biting insight. Here is the kind of compressed writing that I long for and rarely find.” ~ Sherrie Flick

Stephanie Carty: Inside Fictional Minds
‘An invaluable guide to creating authentic characters by peeling back the layers and searching for the ‘why’ that lies behind all our actions. I have really enjoyed applying psychological theory to creative intuition, led by Stephanie’s accessible approach to creating believable, motivated characters.’
~Sarah Steele,

Michelle Elvy: The Other Side of Better
Fresh: yes! Authentic: yes! Poetic: yes! Brilliant: yes!! Here, with Michelle Elvy’s the other side of better, are wise reflections cast through refracted light. Here is the scent of the sea, the rift and grit of childhood. Here is an absorbing cinematic poetry in the telling – breathtakingly honest and elegant stories (personal, yet universal) about how we live, how we struggle and, most enduringly, how we thrive. A wondrous collection!~ Robert Scotellaro,

Jonathan Bluebird Montgomery: Nine Books
Nine Books is a book about the number nine. There are nine different books covering nine themes of my recent work with nine pieces each, which will be posted regularly over the next nine months. By subscribing you’ll get access to the content of each book (a new one posted over the course of each month) along with exciting multimedia content such as photography, audio recordings, video, and invites to exclusive events.

Diane Klammer: Love, Love
Love, Love is a book of poetry about love sports and relationships, their intersections and juxtapositions. It takes the reader on a journey of the body, mind, heart and spirit. Sometimes it is funny, sometimes sad, like love itself, but it is always about the human condition. Written in part from life and in part from the imagination, it allows the reader to be simultaneously vulnerable and strong. 

Diane Simmons: An Inheritance 
“An Inheritance is a gem of a novella. It succeeds in spanning seventy years and four generations of one family, exquisitely capturing their relationships, secrets and divided loyalties. The historical changes wrought by each decade are delicately interwoven throughout the twists and turns within the family’s life. This captivating narrative will make you weep and smile.”–Joanna Campbell

Charmaine Wilkerson: Black Cake (coming 2022!)
PRE-ORDER US EditionPRE-ORDER UK Edition
In this moving debut novel, two estranged siblings must set aside their differences to deal with their mother’s death and her hidden past—a journey of discovery that takes them from the Caribbean to London to California and ends with her famous black cake.  This is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names, can shape relationships and history.


Damhnait Monaghan: New Girl in Little Cove
It’s 1985. Rachel O’Brien arrives in Little Cove seeking a fresh start after her father dies and her relationship ends. As a new teacher at the local Catholic high school, Rachel chafes against the small community, where everyone seems to know her business. The anonymous notes that keep appearing on her car, telling her to go home, don’t make her feel welcome either. 

Nuala O’Conner: Nora
Dublin, 1904. Nora Joseph Barnacle is a twenty-year-old from Galway working as a maid at Finn’s Hotel. She enjoys the liveliness of her adopted city and on June 16—Bloomsday—her life is changed when she meets Dubliner James Joyce, a fateful encounter that turns into a lifelong love. 

P.S. This is an ever-evolving list, and I’m bound to have forgotten someone! If there’s someone you think should be on this list, please let me know! xoxo

Be Icelandic for a day and give books this holiday season!
Happy Jolabokaflod, everyone!
(me in Iceland below)

Books By Friends 2020 Edition (just in time for the Winter Book Flood)

On By nancystohlmanIn flash fiction, Reading, Uncategorized, writingLeave a comment

Once a year I wish I was Icelandic, because Jolabokaflod, the Annual Winter “Book Flood”, is perhaps the best holiday ever.

I first visited Iceland in 2015, and I fell in love with a lot of things: colorful homes, black lava landscapes, their quirky sense of humor and the fact that most Icelanders have a warm place in their hearts for elves, but the most stunning unicorn of them all was an adorable cozy bookstore, the kind you dream of, on every corner. Every. Corner.

Yes, long winter nights have created some of the world’s most avid readers and created the Winter tradition known as the Book Flood. Publishers will release a “flood” of books from September to December, and all the people giving and receiving books during the winter holidays (traditionally on Christmas Eve) ensures plenty of long nights cozied up by literary fires across the country.

Yeah. Kinda perfect, huh?

So every year at this time, I like to share the new and old books by friends that grace my nightstand and might give you some reading and gifting ideas as we head into the Winter Book Flood season. Because if you’re going to gift books, why not gift books by friends? Whether we are Icelandic or not, or celebrate Christmas or not, we can still embrace the spirit of Jolabokaflod by sharing and indulging our creative imaginations during the darkest nights of the year. And so I present:

Books By Friends 2020 Edition:

The books that I will personally be cozying up with as 2020 comes to a close:

(I’ve provided the publisher or author’s direct link if available)

(in no particular order)

Diane Simmons: Finding a Way  “In Finding a Way, Diane Simmons chronicles a family navigating loss. Told from various perspectives, this series of connected flashes finds words where so many cannot. The often indescribable is distilled in a way that is fresh and full of deep emotional understanding. This debut collection is both delicate and impactful, and the stories within are among the rare that will move any reader.”

gregory SETH harris: The Perfect Stranger  “Liberally sprinkled with incredible, unique images, Harris’s unconventional  Perfect Stranger evokes the impression of Richard Brautigan cartwheeling down an Escherian Stairwell: Very creative, certainly strange, and possibly dangerous.”

Karen Jones: When It’s Not Called Making Love
“When It’s Not Called Making Love is a breathless, breathtaking, unflinching coming-of-age debut you will not want to miss. … I just loved When it’s Not Called Making Love. With an authentic voice, Karen Jones tells the story of the troubled Bernadette as she grows from displaced child to young adult.”

Jeanette Sheppard: Seventy Percent Water
“This collection of thirty-one stories explores familial, social and romantic relationships through a sense of who or what is absent. Several of the stories evoke the theme through magical realism — the title story about a woman who tracks down her ex-lover in a hospital corridor takes a fantastical turn of events impossible to see coming”

John Wheway: A Bluebottle in Late October
“John Wheway’s first full collection places its trust exactly where it should be: in the poetic present tense where every gnomic detail is magnified, every commonplace brought to its own species of transfiguration. At a time when the lyric is so much in need, he rejuvenates it in its most pellucid and most effortless form; the couplet is reshaped and crystallised, and comes to life. A Bluebottle in Late October is a memorable sequence of poems.”

Nod Ghosh: Filthy Sucre
“In Filthy Sucre, Nod Ghosh paints fresh and stinging portraits of human vulnerability and fallibility. The three novellas will pull you fully into the worlds of her characters, mixing lush details with harsh surroundings, tragedy with amusement, and surreal happenings with all-too-familiar human experiences.”

Jennifer Louden:Why Bother?
“In Why Bother? Jennifer Louden shows with great honesty that feeling what is ours to feel is how we endure our way into a more authentic dream where who we are is more than enough. Without being prescriptive, this book is a strong and sensitive companion on the path of becoming fully human. … This book is a revelation.”

Pamela Painter: Fabrications: New and Selected Stories
“A crowning collection from the award-winning short story writer Pamela Painter. Pamela Painter’s short stories have been praised by Margot Livesey for their “wicked intelligence and ruthless humor.” In Fabrications, which brings together 7 new and 24 selected stories, characters struggle to avoid the chaos in their lives, but—driven by addictions and appetites—often bring on disaster. Nobody is ordinary in Painter’s stories.”

Robert Scotellaro: What Are the Chances?
“Robert Scotellaro has given us a gift with this collection of taut, stunning prose. Each piece is a marvel. The characters, and the situations they find themselves in, are thrilling, unique and immensely entertaining. In seconds he can get your pulse throbbing, or put your anxiety at ease. Scotellaro displays a mastery of the short form.” 

Meg Pokrass: The Loss Detector: a novella-in-flash
“Set in coastal California, The Loss Detector is a funny/sad portrait of teenage blues and of a small, transplanted family of non-conformists. The flawed but lovable characters in Pokrass’ novella remind us of how the world’s most beautiful places are not always the easiest in which to thrive. Moments of giddy, perceived freedom set against resignation dot the narrative in such a way that will leave you changed.”

Tino Prinzi: This Alone Could Save Us
“With This Alone Could Save Us, Santino Prinzi has fashioned a collection of small, smart fictions that read large. Here is work undergirded by innovation, incisive wit, and a keen ability to navigate terrain that is personal, and at once universal to us all.”

Peter Churches: Whistler’s Mother’s Son
“How do you begin to describe a collection of over 100 short prose pieces of varying length and styles when the only thing they all have in common is weirdness? Maybe you say it features parodies, standardized tests, nursery-rhyme anxieties, fables, riddles, collaborations, conundrums, rescued clichés, abominations-in-training, dark Americana, existential misdemeanors, misbegotten mysteries, identity crises, optimistic nihilism, formal experimentation, and polyrhythmic prose, with a side of word salad.”

Tina Barry: Beautiful Raft
“Tina Barry’s Beautiful Raft provides a gorgeously rendered glimpse into the enigmatic lives of UK artist Jean McNeil and her mother, Virginia Haggard. These poems and interludes examine not only the deep complexities of a family but also the interplay between art and society. Beyond Barry’s probing portrayal is an examination of the concept of artistic mastery and what it takes to both create and be seen in the world.”    

Jon Sindell: The Pugilist Poets of Venice
“This is a rollicking, big-hearted tale, full of laughter, bravery and unflinching humanity. The touch is light, but the questions are big: family, loyalty, art, and love are the rightful subjects of Sindell’s troupe of misfits and raconteurs, each of them a poet and each of them a pugilist too in this deeply funny and deeply felt novel.” 

Francine Witte: Dressed All Wrong for This
“Winner of the 2019 Blue Light Book Award Dressed All Wrong For This, (Blue Light Press, 2019) is Francine Witte’s debut collection of fifty-seven flash fictions. The book quickly establishes itself as an absurdist joy with stories that roam anywhere and everywhere. I felt drawn to the possibilities, the humor, and the fact that I had no idea where Witte’s stories might take me.”

KB Jensen: A Storm of Stories
“Sometimes telling a story is just another way to stay alive. Swerving to avoid a hitchhiker out in a whiteout storm, Julie’s car ends up wedged in a snow bank. With the inches piling higher on the dark road, she can’t escape a man who makes little sense. Stranded in the freezing cold, the two tell stories to pass the time. From the Midwest to India, Denmark and Canada, they offer visions of lives and loves from young to old, far and wide. But as the hours blur together, and the snow and ice set in, it becomes less clear how their own story will end. A tale of love, craziness and impossibility.”

Cath Barton: In the Sweep of the Bay
“This warm-hearted tale explores marriage, love, and longing, set against the majestic backdrop of Morecambe Bay, the Lakeland Fells, and the faded splendour of the Midland Hotel.”

PLUS: Check out the So You Wrote a Book series for more great titles by friends from earlier in the year. And yes, SYWAB will be returning soon and I’ll hopefully be talking to many of the authors on this list! Stay tuned!

Happy Book Gifting and Happy Holidays!

Love, Nancy

P.S. And, in the spirit of the season, check out my special book gifting offer from my own book collection of new and previous titles—2 of which are out of print and you can only get them from me!

P.S.S. (And if a little birdie told you about a Flash Fiction Retreat tentatively planned for Iceland in winter 2022 (fingers crossed)….shhh…..!)

25 Books by Friends (just in time for Jólabókaflóð)

On By nancystohlmanIn Uncategorized

icelandI’m not Icelandic, but if there is one reason why I wish I was it would be to celebrate Jólabókaflóð, the Icelandic Christmas Book Flood where books–yes, books!–are exchanged on Christmas Eve. Then everyone goes home and reads. Doesn’t that sound amazing? And did you know that Iceland publishes more books per capita than any other country in the world?

Regardless of whether you are Icelandic or not, giving books–especially signed books–during the holidays is a super thoughtful gift. It says “I care about your intellectual and creative health” so much more than that bottle of wine–and lasts longer too! Plus you’re supporting artists and that’s always a good thing.

So what books will you give and receive this Winter’s Eve (and beyond)? I have some suggestions! For several years I have done an end of the year “Top 10 Books By Friends List”, and since I was a slacker last year you get double the pleasure, double the fun!

25 Books by Friends 2018

(in no particular order: most published in 2017/2018)

books

The Realty Traveler by Jonathan Montgomery
Read my interview with Jonathan here:
“Jonathan “Bluebird” Montgomery has just released his new book, The Reality Traveler, a pop culture allegorical/philosophical tale with Jonny “Bluebird” as its picaresque narrator and Reality Traveling tour guide! Think Don Quixote meets the Alchemist meets the Guardians of the Galaxy.” Read more

Water and Power by Steven Dunn
Read my interview with Steven here
“Steven Dunn has just released his new book, Water and Power! This book is a literary mosaic, collaging the two contradictory faces of the military: the official face of the recruiting posters and the real faces of the people, including Steven’s.” Read more

Meet My Haze by Meg Tuite
Interview coming!

Kiss, Kiss by Paul Beckman
Read Kathy Fish’s review on the Flash Fiction Retreats website here

New Micro: Exceptionally Short Stories edited by James Thomas and Robert Scotellaro
My stories “Death Row Hugger” and “I Found Your Voodoo Doll on the Dance Floor After Last Call” appear in this amazing anthology
Read a review from the Los Angeles Review of Books here

Alligators at Night by Meg Pokrass
Interview coming!

Gather the Night: Poems by Katherine DiBella Seluja
Read my interview with Katherine here
“Katherine DiBella Seluja has just released her new book, Gather the Night, which is largely an investigation into the complex emotions around mental illness and addiction, particularly as it affects the narrator’s brother, Lou. While much literature has been devoted to the stories of people suffering with these and other illnesses, there are fewer stories that speak to the experience of the bystander, those caught in the orbit of the illnesses and getting the midnight ER phone calls. Read more

Funhouse by Robert Vaughan
Interview coming!

Other Household Toxins by Christopher Allen
Interview coming!

Flash Fiction Festival Two edited by Bath Flash Fiction Award
My story “Loch Ness” appears in this great compilation of writers who gathered in the UK in 2018.

On the Bitch by Matt Potter
Interview coming!

One of These Days by Trent Hudley
From my book blurb:
“Trent Hudley is unafraid to look at the underbelly of despair, taking us on an existential unraveling through the landscapes of loneliness, deftly weaving the crisis of humanity between the real and the surreal like a strange premonition. “This is a story without hope” says one of his characters, but One of These Days is a book striving for redemption.”

Roses are Red, Violets are Stealing Loose Change from My Pockets While I Sleep by David S. Atkinson
From my book blurb:
“David S. Atkinson’s imagination is a beast unleashed! The stories in Roses are Red, Violets are Stealing Loose Change from My Pockets While I Sleep are bizarre and hilarious, taking us into a highly peculiar landscape with scenarios that leave me wondering: Where does he come up with this stuff? Narrated with his signature intellectual deadpan (think “straight man”) and featuring labyrinthian titles that unroll all the way to near slapstick, Atkinson leads us from one outlandish situation to the next without flinching, apologizing, or justifying.”

Ripening: 2018 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology edited by Santino Prinzi and Allison Powell
My story “The Pilgrimage” appears in this tasty anthology!

Ideal Suggestions: Essays in Divinatory Poetics by Selah Saterstrom
Selah is awesome!

Nothing Short Of: Selected Tales from One Hundred Word Story edited by Grant Faulkner, Lynn Mundell and Beret Olsen
My story “Naked” appears in this great collection of tiny stories!

I’m Not Supposed to Be Here and Neither are You by Len Kuntz
Interview coming!

Glimmerglass Girl by Holly Lyn Walrath
“Bold yet delicate, sharp, intricate, and woven with fragile strength, there are many things to like in Glimmerglass Girl. The first a reader might notice is the interplay of words and images, something many writers attempt but not always with such success. Glimmerglass Girl uses classic and vintage fairy tale images to give the book an aura of innocence and nostalgia…”
Read more here

Rattle of Want by Gay Degani
Read Kathy Fish’s interview with Gay Degani here

The Plankton Collector: A Novella by Cath Barton
Read Kathy Fish’s blurb about Cath’s book here

Bad Motel: 100 Word Stories by Robert Scotellaro
From my book blurb:
“Like perfectly crafted dioramas, Robert Scotellaro’s micro stores are tiny keyholes, tableau glimpses into fully formed worlds, entire lives implied with the barest swipe of words said, and more importantly, not said.”

How to Make a Window Snake: Three Novellas in Flash by Charmaine Wilkerson, Joanna Campbell and Ingrid Jendrzejewski 
Three great writers for the price of one!

Musalaheen: A War Memoir by Jason Arment
Veteran Jason Arment’s debut book!

The Crazed Wind by Nod Ghosh
This collection began in my Flash Books class in February–Nod is awesome!

The Boneyard, The Birth Manual, A Burial: Investigations into the Heartland by Julia Madsen
Julia is also a great multi-media artist!

Funny Bone: Flashing for Comic Relief edited by Peter Blair and Ash Chantler
My story “Clown Car” from Madam Velvet’s Cabaret of Oddities was first published in this collection of humorous flashes
Profits go to Comic Relief, a major charity based in the UK, with a vision of a just world, free from poverty.

Nothing to Worry About by Vanessa Gebbie
This is a weird little book that speaks to my weird heart!

PS: Okay, I know that was more than 25. I can’t stop!
PSS: My goal is to interview all the authors listed here in my So You Wrote a Book Series in 2019, so stay tuned!

Regardless of what you celebrate, and whether you celebrate anything at all, I celebrate the many ways that we support one another on this crazy creative life journey.
Wishing you love, rest, and inspiration this winter season.
See you in 2019!
xoxo

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