Anne Valente Wins Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Contest

May 31, 2012, Ann Arbor, MI--Dzanc Books is pleased to announce that Anne Valente is the winner of our 2011 short story collection contest. Valente's manuscript, By the Light We Knew Our Names, was selected from more than 250 submissions. This collection will be published in October 2014.

Steven Gillis, Publisher and Co-Founder at Dzanc Books, notes: "Anne's writing is unique as she has the capacity to create stories that are at once magical--with baby giraffes gift-wrapped and given as  birthday presents--and at the same time entirely believable and personal. The characters in each of Anne's stories are real people, fully developed and fleshed out, and yet the tales told are also brilliantly imaginative and like no others."

"I just wanted to express how absolutely thrilled I am to be among the authors that Dzanc has published and  will publish, " Valente reacted. "I have been an admirer and avid reader of Dzanc's books for many years, and I couldn't be happier that my collection found a home with such an incredible press. Truly, this is a wonderful honor."

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Anne Valente's fiction appears or is forthcoming in Hayden's Ferry Review, CutBank, Sou'wester, Freight Stories and Bellevue Literary Review, among other journals, and her work was selected as  a notable story in Best American Non-Required Reading 2011. Originally from St. Louis, she currently lives in Ohio where she teaches writing and literature.

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The short list of finalists consisted of collections from Tetman Callis, Pete Duval, Jessica Hollander, Ben Jahn, Pedro Ponce, Michael Sheehan, Stephen Tuttle, Anthony Varallo, Richard Weems, and Kellie Wells.

The long list of finalists also included collections from Thomas Barret, Tanaz Bhathena, Daniel Chacon, Amy Clark, Josh Denslow, Gary Fincke, Scott Garson, Lisa Gornick, Katherine Hester, Patrick Hicks, Tom Hopkins, Jamie  Iredell, Randa Jarrar, Andrea Kneeland, Victoria Large, Sarah Malone, Megan Martin, Susan McCarty, Kate Milliken, Donald J. Modica, Andy Mozina, Daniel Mueller, Devin Murphy, Phong Nguyen, Paul Pedroza, Micah Perks, Caroline Picard, Liz Prato, Nick Ripatrazone, Terry Rogers, and Daniel Torday.

Dzanc Books to Publish Robert Coover

May 29, 2012 - Ann Arbor, MI—Dzanc Books is proud to announce that it will publish The Brunist Day of Wrath, the sequel to Robert Coover’s award-winning debut novel, The Origin of the Brunists, in September 2013. Dzanc Books will also publish an as yet untitled Coover short story collection in September 2014. The Dzanc rEprint Series will be publishing ten of Coover’s backlist titles to eBook form beginning in August 2012 and running on up through August 2013. Titles include the aforementioned award-winning The Origin of the Brunists; Pricksongs & Descants; The Public Burning; Spanking the Maid; Gerald's Party; A Night at the Movies, or You Must Remember  This; Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears; Pinocchio in Venice; John's Wife; and Ghost Town.

Robert Coover has published fourteen novels, three short story collections, and a collection of plays since The Origin of the Brunists received the The William Faulkner Foundation First Novel Award in 1966. At Brown University, where he has taught for over thirty years, he established the International Writers Project, a program that provides an annual fellowship and safe haven to endangered international writers who face harassment, imprisonment, and suppression of their work in their home countries.  In 1990-91, he launched the world's first hypertext fiction workshop, was one of the founders in 1999 of the Electronic Literature Organization, and in 2002 created CaveWriting, the first writing workshop in immersive virtual reality. Michiko Kakuntaini of The New York Times has said “Of all the postmodern writers, Robert Coover is probably the funniest and most malicious, mixing up broad social and political satire with vaudeville turns, lewd pratfalls, and clever word plays that make us rethink both the mechanics of the world and our relationship to it.” Coover has also received awards from the Lannan Foundation, American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Endowment of the Arts, and the Rea Lifetime Short Story Award.

Dzanc's Executive Director, Dan Wickett, said of the acquisition:  "We are thrilled to be able to bring out both new and past work from Robert Coover, a favorite author of ours here at Dzanc Books for many years. To be able to bring back many of his older works to a new readership is extremely exciting and to see him return to West Condon and the Brunists after all these years with a simply fantastic novel is something we’re very happy to be a part of."

This signing was made through Robert Coover’s agent, Georges Borchardt. For more information, contact Dzanc Books Executive Director Dan Wickett at dan@dzancbooks.org or 734-756-5701.  

Dzanc Releases First Four of Merrill Joan Gerber's eBooks

Merrill Joan Gerber is exactly the type of author we had in mind when we created the Dzanc Books rEprint Series. One of our goals with the series is to bring back great works of literature in eBook format and find a new readership and discussion for these works and authors.   Merrill Joan Gerber's outstanding body of work deserves the attention that the eBook format will offer her.

Gerber has published over a dozen critically acclaimed books. She’s frequently had her writing compared to greats such as Bellow and Roth. She’s had stories selected for both the Best American Short Story series and the O.Henry Prize anthology series. She’s had a novel win a Pushcart Editors’ Book Award and another receive the Ribalow Award from Hadassah Magazine for the “best English-language book on a Jewish theme.” The L.A. Times listed her Anna in the Afterlife as a Best Novel of 2002. Cynthia Ozick has called Merrill Joan Gerber "one of the masters."

Today Dzanc Books publishes the first four of sixteen eBooks of Merrill Joan Gerber’s writings, all sixteen of which will available by the end of June 2012:

Anna in Chains

Anna in the Afterlife

The Kingdom of Brooklyn

This is a Voice from Your Past

All four of these titles are available from Dzanc’s website for the low price of $20 for a limited time: http://www.dzancbooks.org/merrill-joan-gerber-reprint/ and they will also soon be available from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and all other retail outlets where eBooks can be purchased.

DISQUIET International Literary Program Still Accepting Applications

The second annual DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal is still accepting entries for its July 2012 session. Join George Saunders, Kim Addonizio, Joshua Knelman, Christine Hume, Deb Olin Unferth and many others for a life-changing two weeks in one of the most captivating cites in the world. 

In addition to innovative and challenging two-week workshops in fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, Disquiet also offers one-week workshops in songwriting with indie legend Dan Bern, and photo-documentary storytelling with Pulitzer prize-winning photographer Deanne Fitzmaurice. In addition, we'll be hosting an exciting group of contemporary Portuguese and North American writers, and editors from Dzanc Books, Open Letter, Ninth Letter, and Guernica, for readings, craft talks, tours, and much more.

Visit our website for details or contact disquietinternational@gmail.org.

Dzanc Holiday Sale!

No need to wait for Black Friday this year to begin your Holiday Shopping—we've got everything you might want here at the Dzanc Website. First up, we heavily suggest a gift subscription to the Dzanc Books eBook Club—you can buy those on your list a 3 month, 6 month, or 12 month subscription at rates that are substantially lower than the price of buying 3, 6 or 12 eBooks. The next year's selections will see story collections and novels by newcomers and classic authors like Nadine Gordimer and Stephen Dixon, alike. From what we hear, a hot discount this year will be eReaders of all types. Get your eBook subscription now and then on Friday go out and find the device of your choice to give away as well.

Maybe the person on our list is a writer looking for critical help? Gift a Dzanc Session—an 8 or 10 week online class that begins in January with many options to choose from including multiple poetry workshops, multiple fiction workshops and even one on how to finish up your chapbook—or maybe a one-time Dzanc Creative Writing Session—a 1, 2, or 4 hour critique from one of many published authors or editors. Dozens of works that have gone through the DCWS have seen their way to publication with great words of credit to the program coming from their authors.  Any orders placed for these sessions will receive the gift book or eBook of their choice as well.

The person on your list a big reader? Send them some Dzanc titles, Buy One, Get One Free for the Holidays! Simply order one, and enter a note with the title of your free title (of equal or lesser pricing)—this works for both print and eBooks. And as a shopping bonus, every print book you buy (including your free one) that has an eBook available will see you getting that eBook emailed to you immediately. There are further deals on books here, including several gift bundles, with additional savings! And if you buy books written by Jeff Kass, Kyle Minor, Michael Czyzniejewski, Matt Bell, Peter Markus, or Steven Gillis, you can even get them signed for that special person you are buying for! Any orders of their books will receive the eBooks by email with a question of how you want the print books signed.