Dzanc Books

Short Story Month Essay Collection

This past May's celebration of the short story produced an extraordinary number of great articles, blog posts and reviews in support of Short Story Month.   We at Dzanc thought what a wonderful resource it would be to compile some of these essays into one publication.   In partnering with Matt Bell of www.mdbell.com, Aaron Burch of Hobart, Steven McDermott of Storyglossia, and our own Dan Wickett at Emerging Writers Network, Dzanc has put together a collection of no less than 160 essays, covering over 320 pages, into one book.  Each essay explores a specific story and/or collection by authors both heralded and overlooked, all deserving of a first - or second, or twelfth - read. As we are all readers and lovers of great writing, the chance to have a compilation of essays that champion some of the great stories and story collections of our time, provides an invaluable tool to turn to when  wondering what to read next.   Dzanc Books - as part of its mission as a nonprofit 501(c)3 press dedicated to bringing literature and lit programs to a wider audience -  will mail you a copy of these Short Story Month Essays for a minor tax deductible donation.  On top of publishing great works of literary fiction, Dzanc Books provides workshops for students in the public schools free of charge.   Our Dzanc Writers In Residency Programs matches writers with students whose schools do not otherwise provide students the opportunity to explore their own creative voices.  Dzanc covers all expenses for these programs, which run several thousand dollars each.  All monies donated to Dzanc for the purchase of our Short Story Month Essays will go 100% to our charitable programs which Dzanc conducts nationwide.   A ten dollar donation will cover our costs (printing and shipping) on our SSME and, understanding these harsh economic times, we wont appeal to you for anything beyond which you can afford.  We believe these essays provide insights and recommendation for books and authors which can be turned to again and again.  Dan and I thank you in advance.  To get your own copy, please visit our support page at http://www.dzancbooks.org/support and make a tax deductible donation of ten dollars or more.  Please email Dan at info@dzancbooks.org if you have any questions. Sincerely, Steve Gillis Dan Wickett Dzanc Books www.dzancbooks.org

A Note From Ben Percy If you fell from the sky and landed on any street corner in this country, you would not know where you were, lost in the concrete maze of Taco Johns, Burger Kings, Best Buys, K-Marts, Wal-Marts. Sometimes I feel similarly adrift and headachey when wandering a chain bookstore, where the same two dozen authors stare out at me from slick dust jackets, where short story collections are difficult if not impossible to find, where novels are weighed down with codes and techno-jargon and brand-name clothes and throbbing euphemisms, where literature sometimes feels as substantial as a Big Mac and fries. Which is why Dzanc comes as a welcome shot of adrenaline to the heart. It is a publishing venture that transcends the bottom-line, that trumpets what the big houses have crassly elbowed aside, that reminds us reading is more than entertainment, that books are more than commodities. Their standard is bad-ass literary excellence, no matter if it can't be tidily packaged or pitched by some agent at a cocktail party where everybody wears black and none of the cheese is yellow. If you look at their line-up of emerging and established rock stars -Yannick Murphy, Terese Svoboda , Kyle Minor, Roy Kesey, Laura van den Berg, and Michael Czyzniejewski, to name a few-it's quite clear that Dzanc is a force. But they're also visionary-with their Best of the Web anthologies-and goodhearted-with their affordable online workshops, their writer-in-residence program, and their prize for literary excellence and community service-not to mention many-tentacled-with their imprints (OV Books, Black Lawrence Press, Monkeybicycle), their new online magazine The Collagist, and of course the Emerging Writers' Network (where the magic began). Folks, we're talking about a homegrown wonder, something to applaud, a bit of a miracle. I'm not at all surprised, but I'm heartened, that Publishers Weekly called Dzanc the future of publishing; the industry should be so lucky. Join me in supporting them. Or else.   Sincerely, Benjamin Percy

The Collagist

Dzanc Books is pleased to announce its newest venture: an online journal called The Collagist. Intent on continuing the Dzanc tradition of bringing extraordinary writing to a wide audience, the first issue of The Collagist will be published on August 15th, 2009, and appear subsequently each month thereafter at www.thecollagist.com.

The Collagist is edited by Matt Bell, with Matthew Olzmann as Poetry Editor. Each month The Collagist will deliver outstanding new short stories, poems, and essays from both emerging and established writers, as well as an exclusive excerpt from a forthcoming novel. Early excerpts will include works from the standard bearers of independent publishing, including Coffee House, Two Dollar Radio, and Unbridled Books. The Collagist will also publish several new book reviews in every issue.

The Collagist is immediately open for submissions in all categories. As you might assume, we suggest you read the books Dzanc and its imprints publish to get a flavor of what writing gets us most excited. Submissions guidelines can be found at www.thecollagist.com/submissions.html.

We thank you in advance for your submissions and your readership, and look forward to sharing this exciting new project with you when our first issue launches in August.

Sincerely,

Steve Gillis
Dan Wickett
Matt Bell
Dzanc Books

The Collagist Submissions

Fiction:

The Collagist will include four short stories in each monthly issue. We will consider all lengths of short fiction, from flash through novella. Send to fiction@thecollagist.com and list “The Collagist - Fiction submission” in the subject line.

Poetry:

The Collagist will include work from four poets in each monthly issue, publishing between 1 and 3 poems per poet. We will consider all types of poetry. Send to poetry@thecollagist.com and list “The Collagist - Poetry submission” in the subject line.

Non-Fiction:

The Collagist will include between one and three essays in each monthly issue, ranging from personal and political essays, to literary criticism. Send to nonfiction@thecollagist.com and list “The Collagist - Non-fiction submission” in the subject line.

Book Reviews:

The Collagist will include two or three book reviews in each monthly issue. We will arrange for these in advance. If you would like to become a book reviewer for The Collagist, please email Dan Wickett at dan@dzancbooks.org. Include in your email two or three of your past reviews, and if there are any specific books you'd like to review, please include those titles as well.

Novel Excerpts:

The Collagist will include one novel excerpt per issue. This will be from a novel due to be published within the next three months. The Collagist will be working with numerous publishers well ahead of time on these. If a publisher would like to suggest a particular title they are publishing, please email Dan Wickett at dan@dzancbooks.org to do so. Please try to do so between six and nine months prior to the book's publication date to have it have a chance of working into our schedule.

DCWS - A Reminder and Some Great Feedback

Dzanc Books is pleased to share some of the feedback we've been receiving regarding the Dzanc Creative Writing Sessions.  



This letter is designed to remind you of our program and invite you to sign up for, or let others know of, what we believe is one of the most innovative online writing workshops being offered today.  If you've got a website, literary journal, literary blog, or any other means of spreading information along, we'd greatly appreciate your sharing the news of this program. 

Since announcing the program less than three months ago, we've provided mentoring help for nearly 100 writers - here is what some of them had to say afterward:

"I can't say enough about how valuable this process has been for me -- and will continue to be as I digest her comments and revise my story.  Her insight, encouragement and suggestions are just what I needed.

I will definitely participate in this program again in the future!  Thanks so much for the opportunity."
 
-- Jennifer Hollmeyer

"I am so glad you guys have this, I cannot tell you how pleased I am."

-- James Moore

"I found the experience quite wonderful."
 
-- Caitlin Hamilton

"Thank you so much for your time and for your words of encouragement.  And thanks especially for being so straight with me -- this is exactly the kind of tough coaching I need."

-- Michael Mussman

"Thanks so much for the in-depth critique . . . Also, I'm applying your no-holds barred editorial style to many of my other stories.  I appreciate your time and insights."

-- John Fox

I wanted to let you and Michele Battiste know that your program through her guidance has been extremely useful for me. I had gotten to a point in my project at which I felt stuck, and I don't have an effective writers group here in Japan to help me. Michele's comments and critique reminded me of some long-standing tendencies that I had forgotten I need to avoid, and she also made some insightful points which were new ideas for me. Best of all, I am reinvigorated and working hard on the project again. Thank you so much for that.

-- Jessica Goodfellow

Another student of the sessions wrote up a really nice review over at HTML Giant.

As a reminder, the DCWS is founded on the principle that many authors' lifestyles do not afford them the opportunity to obtain feedback on their writing - be it where they live, their work schedule, or finances.  We feel that all authors deserve the opportunity to have their work reviewed.  Unlike most of the current workshop opportunities - MFA programs, Low-Residency programs, colonies, online classes, etc. - the DCWS is unique in that it allows the writer to determine the parameters for their own review sessions.  With the DCWS, you sign up for what you want and need, not some pre-determined program.  

The DCWS is set up to provide a one-to-one working relationship with a published author, allowing you the benefits of their experience, in many cases both writing and teaching.  Nearly 100 great authors have already agreed to volunteer their services as mentors in our DCWS program.  The names you'll find in our database include award winning authors and teachers such as:  George Singleton, Myfanwy Collins, Dawn Raffel, Peter Markus, Leora Skolkin-Smith, Katrina Denza, Laura van den Berg, Kevin Wilson, Nancy Cherry, Jeff Parker and Mike Czyzniejewski. From this list, writers paying to participate in the DCWS may select an available author to work with. Participating writers will then have their work critiqued and can discuss in detail their writing and any other areas of writing in general they wish to explore with their DCWS author.  

The DCWS will utilize email to reduce the difficulties writers such as yourself have when looking to find feedback on your work.  Our workshops  remove the limitations of both time and distance as you'll send your work and questions to your mentor when and where you have access to the internet.  Each participant will determine how many hours of mentoring they need, as well as how to progress - you asking specific questions about your work, or you asking for your manuscript to be edited (10 pages per hour), or simply looking for a back and forth conversation about your work after the mentor you select has read the work.  

The program is being offered at an extremely low rate - many of the instructing authors volunteering their time to Dzanc do similar work as freelancers and charge much greater rates than are being offered here through the DCWS.  Other workshops and writing programs charge a lump sum of several hundred dollars up front.  Not only does the DCWS allow you to control and target your expenses, but 100% of the money brought in by Dzanc by our DCWS goes to supporting the writing programs we run for students grades 4-12.  These additional programs - currently being run nationally by Dzanc - are offered free of charge to students who would not otherwise be able to afford and experience these sort of writing programs.

The DCWS sessions are set up in hourly blocks and can be ordered as follows:

1 hour   - $20
2 hours - $30
4 hours - $50

The DCWS eliminates your need to travel to a university.  It also eliminates your need to lay out a few hundred dollars up front for an 8 or 10 week online course.  It allows you to jump in and out when you are available, and also allows you to select from the list of authors that have generously volunteered their time to this project.  A full list is available at our website.  This list includes published novelists, short story writers, flash fiction writers, poets and non-fiction writers. If you don't feel the need to select a specific author, we'll simply assign a writer to you.  

For more information on our Creative Writing Sessions program, please send an email to info@dzancbooks.org.

In order to sign up now, head over to visiting the DCWS page at our website http://www.dzancbooks.org/creative.html and select your author.  After deciding how many hours to work with your mentor, click on the Paypal button that corresponds to that number, and fill in the mentor name in the appropriate field and we'll get you started.   

Sincerely,

Steven Gillis
Dan Wickett
Dzanc Books
www.dzancbooks.org

Best of the Web 2009 plus Special Offer!

And here we have it, the who, the from where, and all that fun stuff.  The following is the list of authors, titles and journals involved for the stories, flashes, poems and essays that will be in Best of the Web 2009.  We thank the many (296 by our current count) online journals and their editors for the great material they’ve published, as well as for taking the time to nominate specific titles and help publicize this anthology series in general – we appreciate your many efforts!

 

The 2009 is now available for pre-order (it will be in stores in late June) at the Dzanc website for $18.00.  We are also currently running a special, pre-order the Best of the Web 2009 anthology AND the Best of the Web 2008 and one of them is 50% off (only $30 total)!

 

The line-up for Best of the Web 2009:

 

Waqar Ahmed – The Right Passenger – Anderbo
Arlene Ang – I’m Not Supposed to Wear This Gorilla Costume – Juked
Arlene Ang – Alopecia and the grizzly bear – Arsenic Lobster
Michael Baker – Absent Without Leave – Convergence Journal
Marcelo Ballve – Macedonio Fernandez:  The Man Who Invented Borges – The Quarterly Conversation
Marge Barrett – A Floater on the Course – Hot Metal Bridge
Carmelinda Blagg – Geographies – Avatar Review
Benjamin Buchholz – New Joe – StoryGLOSSIA
Blake Butler – Landlord – Memorious
Blake Butler – 2 Stories – Action Yes
Jimmy Chen – The Unrealistic Philosopher – Prick of the Spindle
Amy L. Clark – Forearm and Elbow – Juked
Amber Cook – Little Mother – Toasted Cheese
Bill Cook – Little Witches – Summerset Review
Michael Czyzniejewski – On the Other Hand – Waccamaw
Darlin’ Neal – Powwow – Wigleaf
Matthew Derby – January in December – Guernica
Ryan Dilbert – Anything Was Anything – FriGG
Stephen Dixon – No Knocks – failbetter
Alex Dumont – Second Sunday – Fawlt Magazine
Claudia Emerson – Photographer – The Cortland Review
D.A. Feinfeld – Amputation – Entelechy:  Mind & Culture
Marcela Fuentes – An Ugly Man – Vestal Review
M. Thomas Gammarino – The Fridge – The Adirondack Review
Cassandra Garbus – Colors – The Cortland Review
Molly Gaudry – The American – UpRightDown
Anne Germanacos – When He Died – Elimae
Matt Getty – When My Girlfriend Lost the Weight – FriGG
Todd Hasak-Lowy – Silver and Blue – Five Chapters
Karen Heuler – Ball Lightning – Oxford Magazine
Ash Hibbert – More Than Just a Stolid Pump – Journal of Truth and Consequence
Philip Holden – Two Among Many – Cha:  An Asian Literary Journal
Roy Kesey – Krazy – Hot Metal Bridge
Hari Bhajan Khalsa – I Would Tell You – Avatar Review
Tricia Louvar – Bounty – Smokelong Quarterly
Peter Markus – Our Father in the Belly of the Fish – failbetter
Michael Martone – Four Alabama Seasons – failbetter
Heather Killelea McEntarfer – Catching Hell – Terrain
Lindsay Merbaum – Cannibal Love – Our Stories
Corey Mesler – Rock Paste – Cezanne’s Carrot
Laura Mullen – Spectogram/Repairs – Tarpaulin Sky Press
Joseph Olschner – The Dance of Curb Chickens – Arsenic Lobster
Jeff Parker – The Boy and the Colgante – Waccamaw
Elise Paschen – Hive – Valparaiso Poetry Review
Elizabeth Penrose – Hives – Abyss & Apex
Kate Petersen – To All Those Who Say Write What You Know – Brevity
Glen Pourciau – Belly – Hobart
Sam Rasnake – Chamber Music – BOXCAR Poetry Review
Jonathan Rice – Amongst the Cares – AGNI Online
Tom Sheehan – Knickers – Wheelhouse Magazine
Claudia Smith – Babyfat – NOÖ Journal
Lynn Strongin – Hidden Child #9 – The Centrifugal Eye
Terese Svoboda – How Catholic – Brevity
Jon Thompson – Melville and Bartleby:  Facing the End of an Audience – Identity Theory
Davide Trame – The Stare – Convergence Journal
Donna D. Vitucci – Mandible – Front Porch Journal
Helen Wickes – The World As You Left It – AGNI Online
Kathrine Leone Wright – Why – Brevity
Jordan Zinovich – Theodolite’s Survey – Big Bridge

Congratulations to the authors and journals above for writing and publishing fantastic work last year!

Kyle Minor = Tom Hanks

Jason Sanford, the man behind the Million Writers Award, has dubbed Kyle Minor (In the Devil's Territory) the Tom Hanks of the online writing world as the 2008 Notable Stories list has been unveiled and Kyle appears on the list four times with stories that he'd published in Freight Stories, Plots With Guns, and Pindeldyboz. 

Congrats to Kyle and props to Jason for his continued devotion to the Million Writers Award.

A Really Nice Gesture

Shane Jones has found an extra copy of his great chapbook, I Will Unfold You With My Hairy Hands (2008, Greying Ghost), and has put it up for auction at his blog.  Thing is, the initial press run sold out, and now that Shane is building up his audience with Light Boxes, there is some demand for such an item, and there are no current plans for reprinting.

The really nice gesture part of this auction?  Shane is going to donate whatever funds he raises with this auction to Dzanc Books.  Details?  Here.

And here is my review (scroll down to number 20) of the chapbook.  And if I didn't mention it enough in the post, it's a really beautifully made chapbook.

Dzanc Creative Writing Sessions

Dzanc Books - the award winning, trend setting, culturally cutting-edge nonprofit press, yes 'that'  Dzanc – is pleased to announce the opening of our newest inspiration:  the Dzanc Creative Writing Sessions.   This letter is designed to introduce you to our program and invite you to sign up for what we believe is one of the most innovative online writing workshops being offered today.

The DCWS is founded on the principle that many authors’ lifestyles do not afford them the opportunity to obtain feedback on their writing – be it where they live, their work schedule, or finances.  We feel that all authors deserve the opportunity to have their work reviewed.  Unlike most of the current workshop opportunities – MFA programs, Low-Residency programs, colonies, online classes, etc. - the DCWS is unique in that it allows the writer to determine the parameters for their own review sessions.  With the DCWS, you sign up for what you want and need, not some pre-determined program. 

The DCWS is set up to provide a one-to-one working relationship with a published author, allowing you the benefits of their experience, in many cases both writing and teaching.  Nearly 100 great authors have already agreed to volunteer their services as mentors in our DCWS program.  The names you’ll find in our database include award winning authors and teachers such as:  George Singleton, Myfanwy Collins, Dawn Raffel, Peter Markus, Leora Skolkin-Smith, Katrina Denza, Laura van den Berg, Kevin Wilson, Nancy Cherry, Jeff Parker and Mike Czyzniejewski. From this list, writers paying to participate in the DCWS may select an available author to work with. Participating writers will then have their work critiqued and can discuss in detail their writing and any other areas of writing in general they wish to explore with their DCWS author. 

The DCWS will utilize email to reduce the difficulties writers such as yourself have when looking to find feedback on your work.  Our workshops  remove the limitations of both time and distance as you’ll send your work and questions to your mentor when and where you have access to the internet.  Each participant will determine how many hours of mentoring they need, as well as how to progress – you asking specific questions about your work, or you asking for your manuscript to be edited (10 pages per hour), or simply looking for a back and forth conversation about your work after the mentor you select has read the work. 

The program is being offered at an extremely low rate – many of the instructing authors volunteering their time to Dzanc do similar work as freelancers and charge much greater rates than are being offered here through the DCWS.  Other workshops and writing programs charge a lump sum of several hundred dollars up front.  Not only does the DCWS allow you to control and target your expenses, but 100% of the money brought in by Dzanc by our DCWS goes to supporting the writing programs we run for students grades 4-12.  These additional programs – currently being run nationally by Dzanc - are offered free of charge to students who would not otherwise be able to afford and experience these sort of writing programs.

The DCWS sessions are set up in hourly blocks and can be ordered as follows:

1 hour   - $20
2 hours - $30
4 hours - $50

The DCWS eliminates your need to travel to a university.  It also eliminates your need to lay out a few hundred dollars up front for an 8 or 10 week online course.  It allows you to jump in and out when you are available, and also allows you to select from the list of authors that have generously volunteered their time to this project.  A full list is available at our website.  This list includes published novelists, short story writers, flash fiction writers, poets and non-fiction writers. If you don't feel the need to select a specific author, we'll simply assign a writer to you.   

For more information on our Creative Writing Sessions program, please send an email to info@dzancbooks.org.

In order to sign up now, head over to visiting the DCWS page at our website and select your author.  After deciding how many hours to work with your mentor, click on the Paypal button that corresponds to that number, and fill in the mentor name in the appropriate field and we’ll get you started.  

Sincerely,

Steven Gillis
Dan Wickett
Dzanc Books
www.dzancbooks.org

Dzanc Books Signs Jonathan Baumbach to New Book Deal

         

Dzanc Books to Publish Jonathan Baumbach

February 18, 2009 - Ann Arbor, MI—Dzanc Books is proud to announce that it will publish a novel by Jonathan Baumbach in early 2011, entitled Dreams of Molly.  Johnathan is the author of 14 books of fiction, including You, or The Invention of Memory, On The Way To My Father’s Funeral: New and Selected Stories, B, a novel, D-Tours, Separate Hours, Chez Charlotte and Emily, The Life and Times of Major Fiction, Reruns, Babble and A Man to Conjure With. He has also published over 90 stories published in such places as Esquire, Open City and Boulevard.

Jonathan, co-founder of The Fiction Collective in 1973 (it was reinvented as FC2 in 1988), the first fiction writers cooperative in America, has seen his work widely praised.   His short stories have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, O.Henry Prize, and The Best of Tri-Quarterly.  The New York Times Book Review referred to him in 2004 as “. . . an underappreciated writer. He employs a masterfully dispassionate, fiercely intelligent narrative voice whose seeming objectivity is always a faltering front for secret passion and despair."

“Jonathan Baumbach is one of the true paterfamilias of independent-minded writers.”  Steve Gillis said, “A staple in the literary scene for over forty years, Baumbach's latest novel,  Dreams of Molly, is a wonderful addition to his oeuvre.  A love story as only Baumbach can write,  Dreams of Molly  is filled with the longings and lingerings, sex and deprivation, humor and heartache as well as the New York nuances that have driven Baumbach's fiction from the start.   We at Dzanc are very excited to publish this newest work from a true American original.”

About Dzanc Books

Dzanc Books was created in 2006 to advance great writing and champion those writers who don’t fit neatly into the marketing niches of for-profit presses. As a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization, Dzanc Books not only publishes literary fiction, but works in partnership with literary journals to advance their readership at every level. Dzanc is also fully committed to developing educational programs in schools, as well as supporting literary community service projects with its Dzanc Prize program.

For more information on Dzanc Books and its mission, imprints, books, authors, awards, and programs, please visit www.dzancbooks.org.

* * *

Short Story Collection Contest Results

DAVID GALEF WINS FIRST DZANC SHORT STORY COLLECTION CONTEST

February 2, 2009, Ann Arbor, MI—Dzanc Books is pleased to announce that David Galef, Professor of English at Montclair State University, is the winner of our short story collection contest.  Galef’s manuscript, My Date With Neanderthal Woman, was selected from more than 100 submissions.  This collection will be published in October 2011.

 

Keith Taylor, Editor and Consultant at Dzanc Books, notes:  “Galef’s stories, whether longer or as tiny one-page wonders, can contain both humor and fear. In this work the ordinary slips easily into the allegorical, then into the dream and sometimes into the nightmare, often leaving the reader with moments of narrative that will stick like a sharp-edged image from a memorable poem or painting. Galef’s vision blossoms in a twenty-first century America, but its roots stretch back to the terror behind the oldest folk legends.”

The short list of finalists also included collections from Jennifer Spiegel, Sam J. Miller, William Orem, BJ Hollars, and Lise Saffran.

ABOUT DAVID GALEF

DAVID GALEF has published fifteen books: the novels Flesh, Turning Japanese, and How to Cope with Suburban Stress; the short-story collection Laugh Track; two children’s books, The Little Red Bicycle and Tracks; two translations of Japanese proverbs, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees and Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk; a work of literary criticism, The Supporting Cast; an edited anthology of essays called Second Thoughts: A Focus on Rereading; a critical edition of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles; a co-edited anthology of fiction called 20 over 40; the poetry collection Flaws, and, most recently, the poetry chapbook Lists and the fiction chapbook A Man of Ideas and Other Stories. In addition, he has written over seventy short stories for magazines ranging from the British Punch to the Czech Prague Revue, the Canadian Prism International and the American Shenandoah. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, The Village Voice, Twentieth Century Literature, The Columbia History of the British Novel, and many other places. His awards include a Fulbright fellowship, a Henfield Foundation grant, a Writers Exchange award from Poets & Writers, and a Mississippi Arts Council grant, as well as residencies at Yaddo and Ragdale. A co-founder of the M.F.A. program in creative writing at the University of Mississippi, he is now a professor of English at Montclair State University.  To interview David, please contact Dan Wickett at dan@dzancbooks.org.

 

ABOUT DZANC BOOKS, SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS, AND OUR NEXT CONTEST

 

Dzanc Books was created in 2006 by Steven Gillis and Dan Wickett to advance great writing and to champion those writers who do not fit neatly into the marketing niches of for-profit presses. As a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization, Dzanc Books not only publishes literary fiction, but works in partnership with literary journals to advance their readership at every level. Dzanc is also fully committed to developing educational programs in schools and organizes workshops and Writer-In-Residence programs in Michigan and elsewhere to meet that goal.

 

Dzanc Books is very committed to the short story and publishing collections.  Three of the KC Star’s top ten story collections this year were published by Dzanc Books or one of our imprints (BLP, OV Books) and between these three houses there will be at least 8 collections published in both 2009 and again in 2010.

 

Dzanc Books is holding a second short story collection contest beginning immediately.  Details can be found at http://www.dzancbooks.org/submissions.html.

 

For further details and more information on Dzanc Books, its mission, titles, authors, awards, and programs, please visit www.dzancbooks.org .

 

# # #

Kodi Scheer Wins 2008 Dzanc Prize

December 8, 2008, Ann Arbor, MI—Dzanc Books is pleased to announce that Kodi Scheer of Ann Arbor, Michigan is the winner of the second annual $5,000 Dzanc Prize.   Scheer was selected from more than 100 applicants for both the quality of her fiction writing, as well as her proposal to serve as a writer-in-residence in the Complementary Therapies Program at the Comprehensive Cancer Center, in Ann Arbor.  For her community service, Scheer will conduct  three 10-week workshops at the University of Michigan Hospital for cancer patients, caregivers and hospital staff.  We at Dzanc found Kodi’s conviction in the importance of providing the tools for self-expression to cancer patients and their care givers a monumentally significant undertaking.  Kodi’s work will help people going through an extremely tough time find a means of expression and a way to share their experiences. Throughout the workshop there will be an exploration of connections to friends, family, illness, and language. Scheer, a University of Michigan English Literature teacher, will begin her service in 2009 with half of the prize awarded in January and the other half awarded once the service is completed.

Steven Gillis, Publisher of Dzanc Books, notes:  “Kodi's writing has a touch of the old soul in it.  She is a great storyteller, while at the same time conveying a deep rooted wisdom.  To be honest, Kodi was a finalist last year and - other than the obvious excellence of our first winner, Laura van den Berg - we at Dzanc didn't want to appear prejudiced by favoring a hometown writer.  We did ask Kodi - and the other 2007 finalists to submit their proposals again, and this year, with new writings, Kodi's material rose quickly to the top out of some 100 national submissions, to where we couldn't ignore the excellence of her work or her wonderful community project. ”

Scheer, a native of Blairstown, Iowa, and graduate of the Universities of Iowa and Michigan, is currently working on a short story collection, Gross Anatomy, and plans to complete that. She says, “I'm honored to be selected for the 2008 Dzanc Prize and grateful to Dzanc for the opportunity to complete my manuscript while giving back to the community.  I'm thrilled to start teaching workshops at the Comprehensive Cancer Center, where I'll help patients, caregivers, and staff find small moments of closure and provide an outlet for personal expression.”

ABOUT KODI SCHEER

Kodi Scheer teaches English Literature at the University of Michigan, where she received the 2008 Prize in Creative Writing for outstanding MFA thesis.  Her stories have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review and Quarterly West.  Currently, she is completing a collection of short fiction tentatively titled Gross Anatomy.  To interview Kodi, please contact Dan Wickett at dan@dzancbooks.org.

ABOUT DZANC BOOKS AND THE DZANC PRIZE

Dzanc Books was created in 2006 by Steven Gillis and Dan Wickett to advance great writing and to champion those writers who do not fit neatly into the marketing niches of for-profit presses. As a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization, Dzanc Books not only publishes literary fiction, but works in partnership with literary journals to advance their readership at every level. Dzanc is also fully committed to developing educational programs in schools and organizes workshops and Writer-In-Residence programs in Michigan and elsewhere to meet that goal.

In 2007, to further its mission of fostering literary excellence, community involvement, and education, Dzanc Books created the Dzanc Prize, which awards $5,000 annually to a writer working toward completion of a novel or short story collection who is also interested in bettering their community through literary community service. For further details and more information on Dzanc Books, its mission, titles, authors, awards, and programs, please visit www.dzancbooks.org .