Free Book Alert!

Get a free book from Seven Stories Press if you rush over there before 4pm EST today (Friday Nov 27th). I ordered Dream With No Name, an anthology of contemporary fiction from Cuba, but there are several titles available.

From their website:
"In honor of the festival of brutal late-capitalist commerce that the day after Thanksgiving, or Black Friday, has become in America, Seven Stories Press wishes to offer—as our contribution to the alternative tradition of celebrating the day after Thanksgiving as Buy Nothing Day—free copies of some of our classic titles.

The books below will be available from noon to 4 PM EST on Friday, November 27, 2009. Ten copies of each title are available, except where limited. Each customer can take one copy of one book, which will ship with a free catalog and a chapbook containing the opening chapters from our Fall 2009 lead fiction title, The Old Garden by Hwang Sok-yong. (Due to restrictive postage costs, we can not ship books outside of the United States.)

No payment of any kind is required—no book price, no shipping, nothing. The books are absolutely free. All that’s required is that you create an account with sevenstories.com, allowing you to buy books from us in the future at a 25% discount, if and when you choose."

Free Book Alert!

Win a free copy of Awkward One from Awkward Press by commenting on this post at Lit Drift.

Read about the book here.

Awkward Press is a brand new small press "founded in 2009 with one simple goal: to print imaginative fiction by incredible writers at an affordable price."

From their website:

"In Awkward Press’s publications, we strive to showcase works by talented artists who choose to create outside the realm of traditional publishing. As the major publishing houses latch onto flavor-of-the-month trends in search of the next blockbuster, readers must turn to smaller houses to find writing that’s risky, original, and alive. And that’s what Awkward Press is all about—bringing a sense of adventure back to reading. Exploring the fringes of literature. And selling our releases for less than the cost of a movie ticket." more

Great mission statement. Check out their website and support them if you can!

Writer's Digest 78th Annual Writing Competition

This year, I decided to enter the Writer's Digest 78th Annual Writing Competition. I sent in two entries, both in the Literary/Mainstream Short Story category, and they both placed! The Nomads placed 1st and Over The Wall placed 4th. I won a total of $1,100 and $150 worth of books, plus a copy of the 2010 Writer's Market Deluxe Edition. The competition had almost 14,000 entries so this was quite a confidence boost!

The Nomads will be published in the Writer's Digest Competition Collection, an anthology featuring the first-place winners in each category. Other categories included poetry, screenplays, stage plays, memoirs and articles.

1st place won me one hundred dollar's worth of WD books and 4th place got me another fifty dollar's worth. Not sure yet if I'll be able to pick which books I want, or if I'll end up with duplicates. If I do get duplicates, or books I've already read, I'll probably give them away here on this blog, so check back for updates on that if interested.

How To Leave Hialeah

This is a stunning collection of earthy, uproarious stories that force you to smile even as they break your heart. Ms. Crucet doesn't hold back at all in her intimate depictions of the lives of Cuban immigrants in Miami.

I first encountered one of the stories in this book in an online literary journal and was captivated by the writer's honesty. Here's a link to the story, Low Tide. If you're not sure whether or not to buy this book, go and read Low Tide first. It will give you an appetite for more.

As always, I'd be happy to mail my copy to anyone who is on a tight budget because of the recession. Just send me an email or comment on this post if you want it.

Free Book Alert

Enter a random drawing to win one of three amazing books at GoodReads.com:

Small Kingdoms:
"Set in Kuwait during the ominous years between the two Gulf Wars, Small Kingdoms traces the intersecting lives of five people—rich and poor, native and foreigner, Muslim, Christian, and non-believer—when they discover that a teenaged Indian housemaid is being brutally abused by her employer."

Small Kingdoms is published by The Permanent Press. I'm reading one of their books now (won a bound galley in a pre-release giveaway) and am loving it.


A Disobedient Girl:
"Ru Freeman's debut novel chronicles the trials and travails of two Sri Lankan women and their pursuit of freedom. Orphaned then absorbed as a servant into a well-to-do Sri Lankan family at the age of five, Latha Kumari grows up in tandem with the family's spoiled young daughter, Thara. However, Latha's mysterious origins and ambiguous caste ensure her a future of unpaid servitude in the Vithanages's household. Resentful, she involves herself with the man meant for Thara. This choice ultimately causes her loss and suffering."


Sunflowers:
"A young prostitute seeking temporary refuge from the brothel, Rachel awakens in a beautiful garden in Arles to discover she is being sketched by a red-haired man in a yellow straw hat. This is no ordinary artist but the eccentric painter Vincent van Gogh—and their meeting marks the beginning of a remarkable relationship. He arrives at their first assignation at No. 1, Rue du Bout d'Arles, with a bouquet of wildflowers and a request to paint her—and before long, a deep, intense attachment grows between Rachel and the gifted, tormented soul".

PANK September 2009

The (online) September issue of PANK magazine is out, boasting a stellar new design and some truly memorable fiction. My favorite is Bridges, by Jennifer Andrews. It's a haunting look at the relationship between one woman and her alcoholic sister and will definitely stay in your thoughts for a while.

If you hurry over to the PANK blog, you still have a chance to win a copy of the novel Affluenza, by David LaBounty. Read Roxane Gay's excellent review and then be the first to post a comment.

Nothing makes me as smiley as a free book . . . . .

Winter of Different Directions

I just finished reading this collection of twenty short stories, by Steven McDermott. There's a little bit of everything in this book. The characters run the gamut from a homeless landscaper trying to pretend he's still in business to a self-made millionaire watching his empire crumble. There's a drunk pro-golfer, a carpenter obsessed with single malts, and a software developer who can't debug his code. Best of all, there's a guy who was paralyzed in a crowd-surfing accident and returns to the mosh pit in his wheelchair. Now that's originality. I think Enter Wheelchair Man is the best story in the book and it's certainly the one that stayed with me longest.

Overall, this is a good collection and worth a read, especially if you like dark protagonists.

If anyone would like to read this book, but is held back by the pinch of the economy, let me know and I'll put my copy in the mail for you in a couple of weeks (after my husband finishes reading it). If you own a book on my To-Read list and would like to trade, that would be good too - shoot me an email or comment here. To see my To-Read list, scroll down and look in the sidebar.

Obviously, I can only oblige the first person who responds, but I'll be doing similar book giveaways in the future, so check back soon if you miss this one.

Winter of Different Directions can be purchased from Amazon.