Category Archives: Books

Dorothy Allison to Select Winner of Twisted Road Publications Short Fiction Contest

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. —(April 8, 2015) Are you twisted? Twisted Road Publications announced on the first day of the Association of Writing Programs (AWP) Conference that it is celebrating the great storytelling tradition of the American South with a contest aimed at finding the next William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers, or Tennessee Williams. Winners will receive cash prizes and publication in a Southern Gothic short story anthology to publish in 2016.

For Twisted Road Publications, “Southern Gothic” refers to the southern literary tradition of gritty and sometimes disturbing tales examining the lives of flawed or marginalized characters that point out the conflicts and contradictions of society. Call it Southern Gothic, Grit-Lit, Rough South, or simply weird. Entries do not necessarily have to be set in the south, nor do authors need to be of southern origin or residence. Salem, Mass., author Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, for example, set in New England, certainly fits the bill.

allison1-133x180Bestselling author Dorothy Allison will select the final winners of the Twisted Road Publications Southern Gothic Fiction Short Story Anthology Contest.

Allison’s first novel “Bastard out of Carolina” was a finalist for a National Book Award, won an ALA Award and became an award-winning movie. She has won numerous other awards and was described by the Boston Globe as “one of the finest writers of her generation”.

In 1998, Allison founded The Independent Spirit Award, a prize given each year to an individual whose work with small presses and independent bookstores has helped to sustain that enterprise. She also serves on the Advisory board of the National Coalition Against Censorship and Feminists for Free Expression, and the advisory board of the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award, a prize that is presented annually to a science fiction or fantasy work that explores and expands on contemporary ideas of gender.

For contest rules and submission guidelines visit our Contests page.

Sneak Peek Our First Release of 2015: Sewing Holes

Here are some of the things advance readers have said about Sewing Holes, due to release on March 23rd.  And here is the video trailer to give you a sneak peek:  Sewing Holes Videocvr

Connie May Fowler, Author of Before Women had Wings and
How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly
“With infinite grace, Sewing Holes explores love and loss, spirituality and crisis, redemption and forgiveness. Honey is a mesmerizing character who tells her story with such plucky, clear-eyed, no-nonsense wisdom that you never want the novel to end. Darlyn Finch Kuhn has written one fine, uplifting debut novel. Read it, celebrate it, and buy copies for your friends, for this is a book that reminds us what the true nature of love is all about.”

Sena Jeter Naslund, Author of Ahab’s Wife, Four Spirits, Abundance, and The Fountain of St. James Court, or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman
“In her debut novel Sewing Holes, Darlyn Finch Kuhn has written an authentic and touching account of growing up in the 1970s that ties life in Jacksonville, Florida, to the national traumas of that era. Despite her tempestuous home environment, young Honey strives to reach adulthood with her honest heart and loving spirit intact. It’s a generous tale of maturation that all young girls and their mothers and fathers should read. Sewing Holes helped me to a greater understanding of my own childhood and youth.”

Bob Kealing, Author of Calling Me Home; Tupperware, Unsealed; and Kerouac in Florida
“In the tradition of Carson McCullers and Rick Bragg, Darlyn Finch Kuhn writes with an acute sense of romanticism, confusion and heartache that is childhood and family life in the American South.  Her flair for detail helps the reader understand why it is such a definitive place.” 

 

 

New Addition to the Family

We are proud and excited to announce our next “Coming Attraction,” due out in Spring 2015: Sewing Holes by Darlyn Finch Kuhn.

darlyn_pic_lowresA poet known for her saucy style and engaging readings, Darlyn Finch Kuhn is also a gifted storyteller. Her work has appeared in literary journals, newspapers, and online. Her poems have been featured on Poetic Logic on WMFE-FM, and been read by Garrison Keillor on the Writers Almanac. She was interviewed on World Radio Paris. She has been a repeat winner of the Mt. Dora Festival of Art and Literature, Cultural Liaison for the Society of American Travel Writers Institute, and the eponymous “Scribbler,” of the Scribbles lit-newsletter.

Darlyn’s novel, Sewing Holes, tells the story a girl growing up in the 1960s and 70s in a family with a volatile mother, a loving but very ill father, a brother who flees the country to evade the draft, a foster sister whose life is consumed by waiting for her “real” parents to return, and a best friend who likes to beat her up.  She survives on stories and games she shares with father, particularly the one about “sewing holes” – creating beauty out of what seems to be nothing.