Thanks to Elle France for naming L’annee brouillard (The Year of Fog, translated by Sophie Aslanides), to their top ten picks for the week of Oct 20, alongside Patti Smith’s autobiography and Luis Vittons’ City Guide. This week marks the release of a new edition of the French translation from Pocket Books.
A ELLE, nous avons adoré ce roman lorqu’il est paru l’an dernier. Découvrez cette palpitante histoire de kidnapping et partez avec Abby à la recherche de l’enfant perdue
I’m excited to announce the launch of Fiction Attic Press, which will distribute fiction of exceptional literary merit via the ebook format. The press’s first publication is a collection of short stories in translation by the writers whose work launched the magazine Fiction Attic nearly a decade ago.
Winter in Tirane: The Stories of Jiri Kajane, is now available for Kindle, Nook, and all ebook formats.
About the book: Winter in Tirane brings together for the first time twelve interconnected and enigmatic tales of bittersweet love, absurd politics, and comic hijinks, set against the final days of the Albanian empire. The stories chronicle an unnamed narrator–the Deputy Minister of Slogans–and his young friend Leni as they attempt to navigate their way through a landscape of shifting political alliances and complex personal affairs.
About Fiction Attic:
During its three-year run, Fiction Attic featured the work of Steve Almond, Stephen Elliott, Gloria Frym, Katia Noyes, Vanessa Hua, Michelle Tea, Kevin Phelan, Bill U’Ren, and Anita Garner, among others, as well as interviews with such literary luminaries as Kate Braverman and fiction in translation by the celebrated Italian writer Mario Rigoni Stern (translated by Elizabeth Harris).
Fiction Attic’s final issue, #20, devoted entirely to flash fiction, was published in 2004. In the winter of that year, the magazine’s editor, designer, and sole reader had a baby. A rather long silence followed.
In the ensuing years, online literary journals have exploded, and the world of online publishing has become far more vibrant and diverse than anyone might have imagined nearly a decade ago, when Fiction Attic first began accepting submissions.
The goal of Fiction Attic, as always, is to be relevant, interesting, and utterly unique. We refer you to the meaning of attic, which explains pretty much everything:
attic salt (phrase): a poignant, delicate wit, peculiar to the Athenians
attic (noun): a story or room directly below the roof of a building
attic (adj) : characterized by purity, simplicity, and elegant wit
Join me at the San Francisco Public Library on Tuesday, Sept. 28, for a celebration of To Kill a Mockingbird. The evening will begin with a screening of the short documentary Scott, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of 50 Years of To Kill a Mockingbird, by Mary McDonagh Murphy. Then Andrew Sean Greer, Jewelle Gomez, and I will sit down for a panel moderated by Oscar Villalon to talk about the book. I’ll talk about my visit down to Monroeville a few months ago, when I watched the annual local production of To Kill a Mockingbird on the courthouse lawn that inspired the town’s most revered resident, Harper Lee.
This event is also in commemoration of the American Libraries Association’s annual Banned Books Week. Event details here.
I’ll be doing a couple of events in Miami this weekend. On Friday, Sept. 10, at 7:00 p.m., I’ll be reading at the CAS Gallery (1210 Stanford Drive) at the University of Miami to kick off the Goran Reading Series, which celebrates Lester Goran’s 50-year teaching tenure at the University of Miami. On Saturday, Sept. 11, I’ll be conducting a community workshop in flash fiction at Books & Books in Coral Gables. Both events are free and open to the public, but the Books & Books event is filling up fast, so reservations are recommended (see below). If you’re a long-lost friend, or a reader down Miami way, please stop by and say hello.
From Books & Books:
“Join bestselling author Michelle Richmond for a workshop in which she’ll share her secrets and tricks in crafting vital, mesmerizing flash fiction. With in-depth exploration of samples, writing exercises, and an open discussion not only of fundamentals of fiction but of the broader writing world. Free and open to the public, but space is limited, so please reserve early. RSVP to jalison@miami.edu.”