Dzanc Books

Congratulations to Laura van den Berg

Laura van den Berg’s Story Collection Selected as B&N Discover Great Books Pick

 July 23, 2009 - Ann Arbor, MI —Dzanc Books is excited to announce that Laura van den Berg’s short story collection, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, has been selected by Barnes and Noble to be a Discover Great Books pick for the Holiday season.  The collection is set to be published by Dzanc in mid-October and both Laura and Dzanc are excited to have What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us continue to receive this sort of recognition.

The title story of Laura's collection will appear in The Pushcart Prize XXXIV: Best of the Small Presses (November 2009, Pushcart Press).  Laura has also had another story from What The World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us included in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2008 (2008, Houghton Mifflin), and yet another that will be in Best New American Voices 2010 (October 2009, Mariner Books).  As for Dzanc Books, Laura's selection continues the high regard their books have received lately, in particular their short story collections.  The Kansas City Star included 3 collections published by Dzanc or their imprints in their Top 10 Story Collections of 2008.  Two Dzanc collections also won medals in last year’s IPPY Awards.

Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief had this to say about What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us: 

“Laura van den Berg finds the tension between science and magic and walks it like a tightrope.  Any reader will be glad to have found it.”

About Laura van den Berg

Laura van den Berg was raised in Florida and earned her MFA at Emerson College. She is the recipient of scholarships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers' Conferences, the 2009 Julia Peterkin Award, and the 2009-2010 Emerging Writer Lectureship at Gettysburg College. Her fiction has or will soon appear in One Story, Boston Review, Epoch, The Literary Review, American Short Fiction, StoryQuarterly, Best American Nonrequired Reading 2008, Best New American Voices 2010, and The Pushcart Prize XXIV: Best of the Small Presses, among other publications. The winner of the Dzanc Prize, Laura’s first collection of stories, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, will be published by Dzanc Books in October 2009.

DZANC BOOKS TO PUBLISH BEST OF THE WEB ANTHOLOGY SERIES

Dzanc Books is excited to announce plans to publish an annual The Best of the Web anthology series starting in 2008. This print anthology will compile the best fiction, poetry, and nonfiction that online literary journals have to offer in an eclectic collection in the manner of other broad-ranging anthologies such as The Pushcart Prize anthology, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and Best American Short Stories.

The Best of the Web anthology will be the first comprehensive print anthology to represent the vast array of contemporary online literature on an annual basis, bringing the world of web journals to a greater audience.  Nathan Leslie, Fiction Editor for The Pedestal Magazine, Editor-in-Chief of The Potomac, and the author of five short story collections, and will serve as the series editor. In addition, each year a guest editor will be selected by Nathan and Dzanc's publishers, Dan Wickett and Steve Gillis.  Nathan has sent emails to editors of every conceivable online literary journal, asking for nominations of what they consider their three best works by September 15, 2007. Nathan and the publishers will also be scouring for exceptional writing on the web. Nathan Leslie will answer additional questions from journal editors at [email protected].

Dzanc Books Seeks African Fiction

June 21, 2007

To Whom It May Concern:

To further its mission as a top-tier publisher of literary fiction, Dzanc Books is determined to become a gateway for writers of African origin. Beginning in 2007, Dzanc plans to acquire works by African writers to publish in North America.

Dzanc is aware of the exciting writing that has been trickling from Africa to the States.  Sadly, though, it has been a trickle and from everything we hear and read there are many wonderful African writers whose work is not being made available beyond the borders of Africa.

We know there are thriving writing communities in Kenya, Nigeria, and elsewhere and that authors in these communities are publishing great material, but not seeing it find a home in the North American publishing world.  We at Dzanc would like to change that.

We are in the process of developing contacts in these regions to help us get the word out that we are very interested in receiving manuscript submissions.  Authors may contact us directly as well by sending manuscript submissions through our website and writing us with attached materials at [email protected].

Please feel free to share this information and if you know people who are interested in contemporary African literature, or  writers of African origin looking for a North American publisher, we would be thrilled to hear from them.  We look forward to reading the submissions and hope to share more news of our efforts soon.

Best wishes,

Dan Wickett

Executive Editor and Publisher

Steve Gillis

Founder and Publisher

Dzanc Announces More Books by Kesey

The following is from our Press Release, issued today.  June looks to be a busy month for Dzanc - expect at least three more announcements about titles that will be coming before the end of 2009!

"June 11, 2007

Dzanc Books is extremely proud to announce we will be publishing more works by Roy Kesey.  Following up on the publishing of Roy’s extraordinary debut short story collection, All Over (Dzanc Books, October 2007), Dzanc has signed Roy to a 2-book deal, as well as a contract to re-issue Roy’s novella, Nothing in the World.

In the spring of 2009, Dzanc will publish Roy’s debut novel, tentatively titled Pacazo, and follow up the following spring with his second short story collection, Bloodwood. 

Dzanc Books is excited to be signing Roy long-term, and following in an exciting lineage of the publishing industry – that of the ongoing editor/author relationship.  We love the idea that four years after opening our doors, one will be able to find four titles by a single author published with Dzanc Books on the spines. 

To do so with Roy Kesey is simply frosting on that cake.  George Saunders referred to Kesey’s writing as “beautiful and powerful … mythic, vivid, heart-rending.”  Lee K. Abbott said “For those keen to know the next generation of the American short story, consider All Over…”  With short stories in over 50 different journals, including the likes of Other Voices, Alaska Quarterly Review and The Georgia Review, not to mention his story “Wait,” originally published in The Kenyon Review, and soon to be included in Best American Short Stories 2007, Roy has established himself firmly in the minds of the reading public.

Currently living in Beijing, Roy writes two regular columns – “Dispatches From Roy Kesey, an American Guy Married to a Peruvian Diplomat Living in China,” for the McSweeney’s website, and “Little-Known Corners,” which appears monthly in That’s Beijing. 

Dzanc Books is delighted to be able to continue to expose Roy’s writing to a continuously growing audience with these new titles."