Life In, Life Out by Avital Gad-Cykman
Matter Press announces the release of its ninth title, Avital Gad-Cykman’s Life in, Life Out. This spirited collection of flash fiction deals with war and resistance, parenthood and childhood, passion and longing. There’s the slant of exile in it, as it reflects the author’s situation: an Israeli, living in Brazil and writing in English. These thirty-four stories have been published in places like W.W. Norton’s Flash International Anthology, Los Angeles Review, Salon, and Prism International. Avital’s work has also appeared in Glimmer Train, McSweeney’s Quarterly, and Michigan Quarterly Review.
My Life at First Try by Mark Budman
This semi-autobiographical debut novel chronicles the life of Alex, born in Siberia in 1950, and his dreams of becoming a writer and of meeting Annie, his distant American cousin. As a child, Alex observes a group of foreign tourists do something that non-drunk Soviet adults seldom do: they laugh. Alex yearns to become one of them—a free and happy foreigner. Those aspirations quickly fade as Alex begins to encounter the absurdities and constraints of living in a society where conformity is institutionalized. Hilarious and sometimes sobering, the book’s short chapters chronicle making it through the army, mastering the English language, sex, and meeting the girl of his dreams. In 1980, Alex and his young family finally get the chance to move to America. There he realizes that he is finally a foreigner—not the happy foreigner of his dream, but an alien. Ultimately, Alex finds his own place in the world, despite the fact that having the right “to vote for an elephant or an ass” does not necessarily guarantee self-fulfillment.
Calling New Delhi for Free by Susan O’Neill
Technology first rocked our world when a lightning bolt zapped a bush at the entrance to a cave, and First Man crawled out and stuck his hand into the mystical blaze. Centuries later, we still find technology fascinating, mysterious, distracting, vital and Wow! Shiny!–and it still fries our grasping, hapless human hands, not to mention our grasping, hapless human brains. These short essays are all about that tender point where the finger meets the flame, where the ecstasy and the pain live–and where the sweet, dark humor so often lurks. Most of them simply examine the craziness of everyday life. Some spring from weird travel experiences. Some pick at politics, niggle at religion, worry at war. They’re set in Starbucks, in my kitchen, in Viet Nam, in India, on a Russian train and a Greyhound bus; in Massachusetts, Indiana, Brooklyn and Times Square; in WalMart and Golden Corral, and at the second inauguration of Barack Obama. All have been published somewhere before. In all the pieces, there is a tie to technology, be it as strong as an anchor cable, or as tenuous as a spiderweb. This gives me a lot of leeway–because what, in this modern world, *isn’t* tied to technology? A final disclaimer: you certainly don’t have to be tech savvy to enjoy this book. You just have to be a human being with bandaids on your fingers. Which pretty much describes us all.
86 of the best very short stories from around the world, almost all contemporary though with a few classics, too. Chris Merrill, director of U of Iowa International Writing Program joins Shapard and Thomas as coeditor. Sherman Alexie, Linh Dinh, Randa Jarrar, Franz Kafka, Stuart Dybek, Alberto Chimal, Qui Xiaolong, Natalie Diaz, Naguib Mahfouz, Bess Winter.
I’d Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them by Jesse Goolsby
Jesse Goolsby, whose flash “Highfives and Pitchforks” was published in Vestal Review in 2010, has his debut novel, “I’d Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them,” coming out June 2nd from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Simple Pleasures by A.W. Marshall
Simple Pleasures marks the debut of A.W. Marshall’s curiously addicting fiction. In Marshall’s stories hearts can literally be touched, actually–grasped, and a rolling Head can terrorize a town. Here the power of sex both attracts and repels: lovers fall off a dizzy perch among branches, a plunge that alters the lives of others for decades; the accidental glancing touch of two strangers binds them to an increasingly disorderly life of physical pleasure; and the confluence of a cache of pornographic drawings and mistaken identity allow a man to escape his dreary life. Surprises appear at nearly every turn in these intriguing, original stories, and Marshall orchestrates them beautifully.
—Philip Graham, author of How to Read an Unwritten Language and The Art of the Knock
Condensed to Flash: World Classics edited by Mark Budman and Susan O’Neill
“Condensed to Flash: World Classics” is a work that brings new life to the old classics. It’s an anthology for people who love concise writing that is intense, entertaining and educational. It’s an anthology that brings you the familiar in a new way.
Most classics are far from dry and boring stuff that was left to lie half-forgotten on the dusty back shelves of a school or college library. Still, it’s not a secret that they may lose some of their appeal to busy generations raised with computers and social media. This anthology to the rescue. Although condensed, our stories maintain the essence and allure of the classics while being short, fun, contemporary, engaging, yet deep and witty. Yes, flash literary fiction is even more cool and compelling than zombies, vampires and however many shades of grey are out there.
This anthology features variations on the themes of world classics, each condensed to 500 words or fewer. They are not summaries or CliffsNotes, but literary stories that stand on their own. As Jules Verne said, “You are going to visit the land of marvels.”
Time Fighters: The Shifter Prince by Mark Budman
Time travel, YA romance and dystopia in a totalitarian Eastern European country.
An American exchange student Amber never expected to find herself rescuing a jailed resistance leader—especially in the company of a trouble-making Shifter Prince. Yaroslav never expected to befriend a crazy time-traveler—especially while searching for the True Shield, the key to the resistance leader’s freedom. Neither Amber nor Yaroslav expected to fall for each other. But the secret policeman, an elite shape-shifter himself, expected everything.
RIFT by Kathy Fish and Robert Vaughan
A stunning collaboration from Robert Vaughan and Kathy Fish, two masters of flash fiction, who’ve blended their work together in a vibrant explosion that is all of these things: evocative, heart wrenching, rare in the wild. The stories in RIFT explore the gamut of human connection and conflict, where emotions run deep beneath the surface. Divided into four sections: Fault, Breach, Tremor, and Cataclysm, writers Fish and Vaughan thread together their tales of strange encounters, mishaps, accidents, and disrepair. The world of RIFT is riven, tumultuous, and haunting. In here, danger lurks and the fallible human heart lay exposed and vulnerable. Fish and Vaughan leave their readers spellbound, mystified, and eager for the next story.
THE OTHER MAN is an artistic collaboration by and about gay men and their relationships. If you’ve ever been the other man, had him invade your life, or if you’re just plain curious about this beguiling, sexy and unpredictable creature, then this anthology of personal essays is for you. Twenty–one of our most acclaimed authors–many Lambda Award Winners and Finalists, such as Rob Byrnes, Jeff Mann, TomMendicino, Erik Orrantia, Felice Picano and David Pratt, write candidly about either being the other man, suffering the other man or having their relationships tested by infidelity.