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We have six months worth of updates on book deals, publications, interviews, awards, and other accomplishments from SmokeLong contributors and staff, so take a deep breath and dive in. If you’ve previously written for SmokeLong, please submit your news for future updates via our Submittable form.
CONTRIBUTORS
Meredith Alling (“Scooter”) has a short story collection, Sing The Song, forthcoming with Future Tense Books in November.
Steve Almond (five SmokeLong stories) has a story, “Okay, Now Do You Surrender?” featured in the newly-released Best American Mystery Stories 2016. Additionally, his story “Dritter Klasse Ohne Fensterscheiben” was selected as a notable story in The Best American Short Stories 2016.
Jules Archer (“Hard to Carry and Fit in a Trunk”) has a story, “Everlasting Full,” in Literary Orphans’ Chicago issue.
Jami Attenberg (“The Off-Season“) has a novel, All Grown Up, forthcoming with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in March 2017. An excerpt, “Indigo Gets Married,” is available in Guernica.
A.A. Balaskovits (“An Old Woman with Silver Hands”) has a short story collection, Magic for Unlucky Girls, forthcoming with SFWP Literary Awards in April 2017. The collection was previously named the grand prize winner of the 2015 Santa Fe Writers Project Awards, chosen by Emily St. John Mandel.
Matt Bell (three SmokeLong stories) released the short story collection A Tree or a Person or a Wall with Soho Press in September. His story “Toward the Company of Others,” published in Tin House, is featured in the newly-released Best American Mystery Stories 2016.
Justin Brouckaert (“This Is What I Know about Being Gigantic”) published his chapbook of Drake-inspired breakup prose poems, Skin, with Corgi Snorkel Press.
Randall Brown (former Smokelong lead editor) has a story, “Something to Do with Horses,” in Literary Orphans’ Chicago issue.
Tara Campbell (“Universe, Multiverse, Miniverse“) has a novel, TreeVolution, forthcoming this fall with Lillicat Publishers.
Dan Chaon (“The Hobblers” and “Raymond Carver“) has a crime mystery novel, Ill Will, forthcoming in May 2017 with Penguin Random House.
Leland Cheuk (guest editor) published his short story collection Letters from Dinosaurs with Thought Catalog Books.
Joyce Chong (“On Frayed Ends and Open Doors“) placed as a runner up in Noble / Gas Qtrly’s 2016 Birdwhistle Prizes with her poem “Attrition.”
Leesa Cross-Smith (“Sometimes We Both Fight in Wars“) published the short story “Out of the Strong, Something Sweet” with Paper Darts.
Justin Lawrence Daugherty (“The Dead Are Not Hungry” and “Blood”) was a finalist for the Madeleine P. Plonsker Emerging Writer’s Residency Prize offered by Lake Forest College in conjunction with &NOW Books.
Gay Degani (former SmokeLong content editor) has a story “Brotherly Love” in Literary Orphans’ Chicago issue.
Dana Diehl (“Swallowed”) has a short story collection forthcoming from Jellyfish Highway in December.
Zachary Doss (“The Village with All of the Boyfriends”) won Puerto Del Sol’s 2016 Fiction Contest. He also recently had a story, “The Blood Mouth,” in Passages North, and two stories in Wigleaf.
Lara Ehrlich (“Foresight”) has a story, “Stone Fruit,” in Literary Orphans’ Chicago issue.
Scott Fenton (“Eighty-Eight Minutes at Sea”) has a short story, “Sweet Lydia Davenport,” published in Amazon Day One and a story, “The First Boyfriend,” in Green Mountains Review.
Matt Fogarty (“White Smoke”) published the short story and novella collection Maybe Mermaids & Robots Are Lonely with Stillhouse Press.
Kendra Fortmeyer (“Leonardo or Lenin or Princess Diana”) has a debut novel, Hole in the Middle, forthcoming from Little, Brown in summer 2017.
Molly Giles (“My X” and “Seahorse Sex”) has a story, “Eskimo Diet,” in Wigleaf.
Kat Gonso (“Puberty”) has a story, “Butcher Paper,” in Literary Orphans’ Chicago issue.
Kelle Groom (“Jimmy Wasabi, Juan Juan and the Toaster Oven“) recently published six new pieces: short story “25 Reasons to Attend the Gala” in Map Literary, poem “Hour” with No Tokens, poem “Incurable” in Provincetown Arts Magazine, poem “Taxonomies” in Vinyl, essay “Six Ships” in BROAD! Magazine, and AWP panel talk “Blood & Water: Poets Writing Nonfiction” on the AGNI blog.
Sarah Hilary (“Two Minute Silence“) won the Theakstons Old Peculier crime novel of the year award for her book Someone Else’s Skin.
Ashley Hutson (“At Sea” and “At Night, By the Creek”) signed with Zoe Sandler at ICM Partners. Ashley also has a new story, “An Explanation of Guilt,” out with Sundog Lit.
Kathryn Kulpa (“Bricolage”) published her flash chapbook Girls on Film with Paper Nautilus’ Vella Chapbook series.
Hillary Leftwich (“The Flash That Haunts Us“) has a story, “The Difference Between a Raven and a Crow,” in The Airgonaut.
Carmen Maria Machado (“On the Mirror and the Echo”) has a debut short story collection Her Body & Other Parties forthcoming from Graywolf Press in fall 2017.
Jen Michalski (“Roots” and “Conjugation“) released her novel The Summer She Was Under Water with Queen’s Ferry Press.
Mary Miller (three SmokeLong stories) received a starred review from Publishers Weekly for her story collection Always Happy Hour, which is forthcoming in January 2017 with Liveright Publishing.
Angela Palm (“Ways to Make Money in Prison”) has a memoir, Riverine, out now with Graywolf Press.
Claire Polders (“Copycat” and “Flash Addiction“) published an essay, “The Empty Space in Front of Your Hand,” with Green Mountains Review.
Santino Prinzi (“Coming Out to Flash Fiction“) released his debut flash fiction collection, Dots, with The Nottingham Review.
Michelle Ross (“Of All the Animals in the Aquarium”) won the 2016 Moon City Fiction Award for her manuscript There’s So Much They Haven’t Told You, which will be published in spring 2017.
Melissa Scholes Young (“Storage”) has a novel, Flood, forthcoming from Hachette in 2017. She also published a reported essay, “Navigating Campus Together: First Generation Faculty Can Steer First Generation Students to Success,” with The Atlantic.
Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (“Six Ways to Break Her”) released “Strange Monsters,” a music-and-words collaboration of fiction and poetry set to contemporary jazz.
Bud Smith (“Junior in the Tunnels”) has a collection forthcoming with Maudlin House in 2017, which will include his SmokeLong story. He also has six new pieces out: “Boss” and “Two Daydrinking Stories” with Hobart, “Reviews of My Life” at Barrelhouse, “Roast Beast” with Maudlin House, and “Grapes” at Real Pants.
Art Taylor (“Up, Up and Away“) has a story, “Rearview Mirror,” featured in the newly-released Best American Mystery Stories 2016.
Tori Telfer (“The Archetype”) has a nonfiction book, Lady Killers, forthcoming from Harper Perennial.
An Tran (guest editor) received a notable mention in The Best American Short Stories 2016 for his story “A Clear Sky Above the Clouds,” published in Southern Humanities Review.
Kara Vernor (“David Hasslehoff Is from Baltimore“) has a chapbook, Because I Wanted to Write You a Pop Song, out now with Split Lip Press. She also recently published two sex ed fictions: “If You’re a Girl…” with Minola Review and “How Much Tongue When Kissing?” with Your Impossible Voice.
Anne Weisgerber (“Summer Baby” and “Flash Fiction as Language Art“) was recently nominated for Best of the Net for her short story “How to Meet Marc Chagall,” originally published in The Airgonaut. She will also be reading at the FBomb NYC Best Small Fictions reading at The KGB Bar Red Room on Oct. 22.
Kevin Wilson (“Blue-Suited Henchman, Kicked Into Shark Tank“) received a notable mention in The Best American Short Stories 2016 for his story An Arc Welder, a Molotov Cocktail, a Bowie Knife, published in Ploughshares.
STAFF
Managing Editor Christopher Allen’s story “The Air Between Us” is publishing today at Juked. His story “My Little Cuckoos” recently won third place in the 2016 Literal Latte Fiction Awards. His other recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in FRiGG and Chicago Literati.
Blog Editor Tyrese Coleman’s flash essay “Why I Let Him Touch My Hair” was published in Brevity’s special issue examining lived experiences of race, racism, and racialization.
Interview Editor Karen Craigo’s chapbook Escaped Housewife Tries Hard to Blend In will be released in November from Hermeneutic Chaos Press.
Staff Reader Josh Denslow was a finalist for the 2016 Moon City Fiction Award.
Staff Reader Sherrie Flick’s flash fiction “Chest Out” was published in New World Writing. Additionally, the Ploughshares blog reviewed her new collection of short stories, Whiskey, Etc. Her story “After the Fall,” written with Sam Ligon, was the first collaborative feature at New Flash Fiction Review.
2016 Kathy Fish Fellow Shasta Grant’s chapbook Gather Us Up and Bring Us Home was selected as the first runner-up in the Turnbuckle Chapbook Contest and is forthcoming from Split Lip Press in June 2017. Shasta has recently published stories in Hobart, matchbook, Pithead Chapel, and Third Point Press.
Art Director Ashley Inguanta’s photography is featured in the current issue of Ghost Parachute.
Editor Tara Laskowski’s essay “Why Parents Should Take Their Children to Literary Readings” was published by Publisher’s Weekly. She recently interviewed Christopher Irvin in “On Writing Violence” for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Additionally, Blog Editor Tyrese Coleman interviewed Tara for The Rumpus about her short story collection Bystanders.
Blog Editor Virgie Townsend’s essay “I’ve known two convicted child sex offenders. But I refuse to parent by fear” was published by the Washington Post.
Finally, we are both saddened and excited to announce that today is Executive Editor and 2013-2014 Kathy Fish Fellow Megan Giddings’ last day at SmokeLong. Megan has accepted a position as co-Fiction Editor of The Offing. Although we will miss her keen editorial eye and professionalism, we look forward to seeing the work that she’ll do at The Offing. Please join us in thanking her for her service to SmokeLong.