Dzanc Books

Dzanc Prize 2008

Dzanc Books is pleased to announce the opening for submissions to the 2008 Dzanc Prize.

The Dzanc Prize provides monetary aid in the sum of $5,000, to a writer of literary fiction.  All writers applying for the Dzanc Prize must have a work-in-progress they can submit for review, and present the judges with a Community Service Program they can facilitate.  Such programs may include anything deemed "educational"  in relation to writing.  Examples would include: working with HIV patients to help them write their stories; doing a series of workshops at a drop-in youth homeless center;  running writing programs in inner-city schools; or working with older citizens looking to write their memoirs.  All community programs under the Dzanc Prize must run for a full year.

Last year, Dzanc Books awarded the inaugural Dzanc Prize to Laura van den Berg. Laura is currently in the middle of a series of workshops she’s running in the New England prison system.  At the end of Laura's year, an anthology of work by the prisoners she is teaching will be compiled and published by Dzanc.  Laura's story collection, What the World Will Look Like When All of the Water is Gone, will also be published by Dzanc Books in fall 2009.

Eligibility:  The author must be working on literary fiction, and the community service must occur within the United States of America.  All applicants must demonstrate that they are able to do the community service they are suggesting, and are not otherwise offering would-be ideas for consideration. Judging shall give equal weight to the caliber of writing and the Community Service.  .

Timing: The Inaugural Dzanc Prize will be issued for the 2009 calendar year. We will accept submissions from authors from now through November 1, 2008. The announcement of the winning author will be made during the month of December 2008. The announcement will be made via email to the author, on the Dzanc website, as well as sent to trade (P&W, Publisher’s Weekly, Galleycat, etc.).

Submissions: Authors please send your current cv, a description of your Work in Progress, along with a ten page excerpt, and your planned Literary Community Service. These should be sent as MS Word Attachments in an email to prize@dzancbooks.org.

Dzanc Books will be selecting the author who will receive this $5,000 Prize based on a combination of the Work in Progress, and the intended Literary Community Service. It would probably benefit authors who are submitting to become familiar with Dzanc Books and the types of authors we publish, as well as the Educational Programs Dzanc Books sets up and runs.

The winner of the Dzanc Prize will receive a check for $2500 in the month of January 2009. The remaining $2500 will be paid once the Literary Community Service has been completed.

Dzanc Books will make no claims towards the winner and their Work in Progress. If at the time the author has completed the work, they wish to submit it to Dzanc Books, we will be delighted to have a look. Their manuscript will go through the same reading process every other submission goes through.

The submissions for the Dzanc Prize will be reviewed by, and the prize will be awarded by a panel of Steve Gillis, Dan Wickett, Steven Seighman, and Keith Taylor. All writers, including friends and associates of the panel, are eligible for the prize. The integrity and objectivity of Dzanc Books will not be compromised and, given our vast connections to so many great writers, exclusion of any kind would be impossible.

Any questions can be submitted to prize@dzancbooks.org.

The above information can also be found at:  http://www.dzancbooks.org/dzancprize.html

Mention at The Morning News

In his books digest earlier this morning, Robert Birnbaum was kind enough to shine his light on the debut Dzanc Books/Black Lawrence Press title - Steven Gillis' Temporary People - a Fable.

Dzanc Books to Publish Dawn Raffel

Dzanc Books is proud to announce that it will publish a collection of stories by Dawn Raffel in early 2010, entitled Further Adventures in the Restless Universe.  Dawn Raffel has previously published the story collection In the Year of Long Division, and the novel Carrying the Body. Her work has also appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, among them Open City, The Quarterly, Fence, NOON, Brooklyn Rail, O, the Oprah Magazine, Monkeybicycle, Opium, and The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories.

Dawn, currently an Editor-at-Large for More Magazine, has seen her work widely acclaimed.  In the Year of Long Division was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, and Carrying the Body has been critically studied at the University of Paris.  The titles received rave reviews from the likes of Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and The Review of Contemporary Fiction.  She lives just outside New York City with her family.

“Having really enjoyed Dawn’s previous two titles,” Dan Wickett said, “we are thrilled at the opportunity to bring her third title, and second collection of stories, to the reading public.  The addition of Further Adventures in the Restless Universe to what we felt was an already strong 2010 catalogue, and to add somebody of Dawn’s stature to Dzanc’s growing roster of extremely talented authors, is really exciting.  Her writing is one-of-a-kind and this collection will only continue to elevate her reputation.”

Tayari Jones Helps Out

Tayari Jones has set up an eBay auction to help out a mother/son combination in Dunbar Village that recently went through a truly horrifying ordeal (you can read the detail if you visit Tayari's post and click on the link she provides).

What Tayari has done, to keep things literary, after all, her blog is a litblog, is to get authors and publishers involved, and a photographer who takes excellent author photographs.  While Dzanc is a bit late to the effort, we've put together a collection of, well, everything we've got:

Roy Kesey - All Over, Roy Kesey - Nothing in the World, Yannick Murphy - In a Bear's Eye, Steven Gillis - Temporary People (hardcover), and galleys of both Peter Markus - Bob, or Man on Boat, and Louella Bryant - While in Darkness There is Light.

You can bid on it, and the other things Tayari has put together (including having a story critiqued by George Saunders!, or Laila Lalami!, etc.).

Skylight Books!

We just received this via email from the extremely fine folks over at Skylight Books:

Skylight Salon ~A Place for Independent Presses to Meet Independent Minds~ Saturday, April 19, 2008 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Yearning for witty repartée and intellectual stimulation?   How about wine and hors d'œuvres?  Come join us for our new monthly series, Skylight Salon, where our staff shares their faves from small presses and independent publishers. A modern-day mixer for the literary minded. This month we feature: Archipelago Books Dzanc Books Red Hen Press We look forward to tipping our glasses and sharing our favorite books from independent presses with you! Skylight Books in Los Feliz 1818 N. Vermont Ave (between Hollywood Blvd & Franklin) Los Angeles, California 90027 323-660-1175 www.skylightbooks.cominfo@skylightbooks.com

A Little Help for a Literary Journal

Many of you may recall the article in a recent Poets & Writers about how the recent raise in U.S. Postal rates was going to hurt smaller magazines and literary journals - Dzanc Books has stepped in and made a difference for one such journal.

A bit from the article:

"As the Alaska Quarterly Review (AQR) moves into its twenty-sixth year of publication, having celebrated its quarter-century mark with a double issue last fall, founding editor Ronald Spatz should be all smiles. Instead, he is understandably worried that new postal rates, which have increased his mailing costs by around 50 percent, could mean that some small literary publications like AQR might not make it to their next big anniversaries."

At the time, Dzanc's Steven Gillis, wondering what could be done to help, contacted Ronald Spatz and had AQR determine just how much of an effect, monetarily, this Postal increase would have on the journal.  Once Ronald came back with his reply, Dzanc decided to send AQR a donation that would cover that difference for the 2008 mailings of the journal.  The reply?

"The donation will really help AQR!  With gratitude for your extraordinary generosity." - Ronald Spatz

If any Dzanc Books readers would like to help out other literary journals undergoing the same issues as AQR, visit our Support page and make a donation - in the notes section of either a PayPal donation, or a check, list "Lit Journal Postage Issue" and we'll earmark that donation for this ongoing problem literary journals are facing.  And, as a reminder, any such donation is being made to a 501(c)3 non-profit and you'll receive a receipt for tax purposes at the end of the year.

More Authors Sign with Dzanc!

March 18, 2008

(Ann Arbor, MI)  Dzanc Books is very excited to announce the signings of some truly exciting authors and books.  Over the past month or so, we’ve rounded out our 2009 catalogue, and having been overwhelmed by a number of fantastic manuscripts, pushed our projected list through 2010, into 2011.

In order of when they’ll be published:

Peter Selgin’s novel, Life Goes to the Movies, will be published in April 2009.  Peter was recently announced as one of the 2007 winners of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction by the University of Georgia Press, and will see his short story collection, Drowning Lessons, published this fall by them.  Peter also runs an annual workshop each June in Vitorchiano, Italy, and has published By Cunning & Craft: Sound Advice and Practical Wisdom for Fiction Writers.  He is also the fiction editor for Alimentum, and well known for his paintings.  www.peterselgin.com

Henning Koch’s short story collection, Love Doesn’t Work, will be published in June 2010.  Henning, a Swedish writer, who until recently had been living in Italy, was formerly heavily involved in the Swedish film industry as a screenwriter.  After years of seeing his words altered or deleted, he decided to go back to his original writing love – fiction, and to incredible results.  His stories are exciting, and odd, and funny, and one of the stories in this collection will be available soon in the next issue of Absinthe:  New European Writing.

Terese Svoboda’s novel, Pirate Talk, a novel in dialogue will be published in September 2010.  Beckett meets Moby Dick might be the most apt description of this work.  Terese has published widely to date, non-fiction, story and poetry collections, the novel Tin God, which was a University of Nebraska Press Flyover Fiction selected, and most recently with Black Glasses like Clark Kent, winner of the 2007 Graywolf Non-Fiction prize.

Peter Markus will publish his second title with Dzanc, and fourth story collection overall, in February 2011 when We Make Mud hits stores.  This collection will concentrate on his stories of two brothers, the dirty river they live near, mud, fish, stars and everything else that is constant in the world Peter has created and written about so feverishly this past decade.  As it was Peter’s stories that led us to find his novel, Bob, or Man on Boat (June 2008), we are thrilled to be able to publish a collection of the stories.

Dzanc Books is thrilled to be able to publish the fantastic books by these award winning authors and believe they are all excellent additions to the incredible start we have given ourselves with Roy Kesey’s, All Over (Dzanc Books, October 2007), and Yannick Murphy’s In a Bear’s Eye (Dzanc Books, February 2008), not to mention the other titles forthcoming before these new authors reach the shelves.

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All Over a Finalist

All Over by Roy Kesey, our first title, has been named a finalist in the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year short story collection category.  It's been named with some other fine titles and I'm fairly certain that as Roy approaches Ryan Seacrest on the red carpet he plans on stating that while he hopes he wins, it's just an honor to be nominated.

Dzanc to Publish Laura van den Berg!

January 14, 2008 - Ann Arbor, MI—Dzanc Books is proud to announce that it will publish a collection of stories by Laura van den Berg called What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us in late 2009.  Laura’s work, both flash and short fiction, has appeared widely in magazines.  This collection concentrates on her longer stories. 

“I had enjoyed Laura’s writing in the past,” said Dan Wickett, “but when Steve [Gillis], Keith [Taylor] and I all read the fiction she submitted when she won the inaugural Dzanc Prize, we all felt we needed to find out where she was in completing a full manuscript of stories.”  Van den Berg was awarded the Prize for the quality of that fiction sample and her proposal to teach writing to prisoners in the Boston area. It turned out to be great timing as van den Berg’s agent, Katherine Fausset, had just begun submitting the manuscript to publishers. The Dzanc team, equally as impressed with the rest of the collection as with the initial story, made an offer immediately. We are thrilled that this incredible young writer is as excited to have her work become a part of Dzanc’s catalogue as we are to add it.

About Laura van den Berg

A native of central Florida, Laura van den Berg is the editor-in-chief of Emerson College’s literary and arts journal, Redivider, and a Ploughshares staff member. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Indiana Review, The Literary Review, StoryQuarterly, American Short Fiction, and One Story, among others, and has received awards from Glimmer Train and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She previously taught writing at Emerson College, and currently teaches fiction at Grub Street, an independent center for creative writing in Boston.

2007 - Wow

Hard to believe that there's less two weeks left in 2007 as time has just flown by.  Then again, with all that's gone on in this first full year at Dzanc Books, there hasn't been much time for looking out the windows.

A bit of a re-cap for those of you who are interested:

We published our first book, Roy Kesey's All Over, in October.  Without any standard national distribution system, we were able to get All Over into Barnes & Nobles, Borders, Powells, Amazon, and independent booksellers all across the country.  We had Roy come over from his home in Beijing, China, to do a 12 city reading and signing tour.  The book has received great reviews from the Los Angeles Times, The Believer, Rain Taxi, Time Out Chicago and Time Out New York, not to mention January Magazine, and Matt Bell's literary blog.  Recently, Levi Asher, over at Literary Kicks, ended his comments with:

"All Over is one of the better books published in 2007."

The publishing continues early in 2008 with Yannick Murphy's In a Bear's Eye.  This wonderful short story collection has already been excerpted at Critical Mass, reviewed very nicely by Publishers Weekly and has reviews slated for The Believer in February and Elle Magazine in March to name just a few places you'll be able to read about it.

Yannick's book will be followed by Peter Markus' Bob, or Man in Boat, a short novel, then the first annual Best of the Web anthology, Hesh Kestin's trio of novellas, Based on a True Story and Kyle Minor's story collection, In the Devil's Territory.

Our first DWIRP (Dzanc Writer in Residency Program) did wonderful at Community High School in Ann Arbor, MI.  Author, Paul Toth, taught various forms of fiction to a class of eleven eager students.  An anthology was put together of the work of ten of these students and a reading was set up at Shaman Drum Books where each of the students was able to share from their own work.

Dzanc currently has four DWIRP's in progress - a second time around at Community, as well as at The Mack Open School in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti High School in Ypsilanti, MI and the High School of Telecommunication and Technology in Brooklyn, NY.  Dzanc has also set up smaller programs - one day workshops, or once per month workshops, at another handful of schools, completely voluntary upon the writers involved, that are doing similar things on a less intensive nature.  Between the full-time DWIRPs and these other smaller programs, we've been able to bring the excitement of reading and writing to hundreds of during 2007 and plan to continue increasing the number of DWIRPs and students annually.

We've grown, as both OV Books, Black Lawrence Press, and Monkeybicycle have become affiliated with Dzanc - continuing to run status quo editorially while we will run things from the aspect of printing through distributing the works.  This both bumps up the number of titles you'll see via Dzanc per year, and also brings poetry, non-fiction, and translation into the fray right away.  We've also seen our future catalogue grow with plans for titles into 2009 and 2010 with Michael Czyzniewjewski, Suzanne Burns, Robert Lopez, Stefan Kiesbye, and at least one other wonderful young writer that we'll announce in early 2008.

The first Dzanc Prize was awarded, to Laura van den Berg, for her combination of an excellent fiction submission, and her literary community service plan to teach creative writing workshops in the prison system in New England.  She's actually already begun her service, doing a poetry workshop in December and coming out to rave about the experience.  Laura will be back inside the walls an additional 6 or 7 times in the first half of 2008 running similar poetry and fiction workshops and then will work with Dzanc to publish an anthology of work from the prisoners she's taught.

Dzanc has received some fantastic press along the way as well - online, many litbloggers have been kind enough to link to many of our PR announcements, especially Ron Hogan over at Galleycat.  Wired.com had a large article about our ability to grow during this difficult year for independent publishers;  Poets & Writers included Dzanc in their end of year profile on small publishers; and Publishers Weekly most recently had a full page article on Dzanc, referencing 'The Future of Publishing."

This first year has been a great deal of work, fun, and excitement and 2008 is already looking bigger.  Thanks to all of you who visit here, support Dzanc both as a 501(c)3 and by reading our books, volunteering your time, or spreading the word - it's all greatly appreciated!