Contest Winners Announced

Contest Winners Announced

Issue Four is Just Around the Corner

Writers in the Wild

Dear Readers,As is usual this time of year, I came back from AWP with a bag full of new books and print journals I'm excited to stack on my table next to my three other TBR stacks. I just finished one novel and now I hope to start the short story collection an editor from another press signed for me at the book fair. If not that, I'll start the award-winning essay collection I got last year, or possibly one of the print editions of a lit mag I submitted to six months ago (fingers crossed forever and always).What I find so compelling about buying books directly from their publishers, sometimes with their authors standing right there ready to answer questions, is how personal it can be. I think the isolation of the last few years has made me eager to reconnect with other writers, to reach out to the actual living human beings behind the books and see that these are works of art that come from years and years of practice, not from some mystical plane or a series of seances with the bones of Allen Ginsburg arranged on the floor with a fifth of something Irish nearby. People worked really hard on the books that stack my shelves, and there's no better reminder of that than meeting an author in person and seeing how excited they are when someone picks up a copy of their years of dedication and leaf through its pages.It's been good to talk with writers again, in person and not just via email. It's been good for me, at least, to see that the people I look up to are not that different from myself. While tabling at AWP, one of my favorite essayists walked by with a plastic cup of AWP-wine in one hand. We made eye contact and I smiled too big and they waved while looking away, and that was GOOD! Successful, well-published authors can be socially awkward! Maybe there's hope for me yet!Buying books from real people is also a survival tactic, a way of rekindling the community-building practices that we set aside in the last few years and that corporations like Amazon threaten to do away with. We're real people making real books, telling real stories and really listening to each other. I imagine it's good for authors to meet their once and future audience in person, too, to know that book sales beyond the numbers will reach someone and linger.I look forward to more moments like this. I look forward to reading more, writing more, and talking shop with all of you one way or another. What have you been reading? What have you been working on? I'm all ears. 

Flash Contest Winners Announced

We have the final results of our 2022 Flash Fiction Contest!Our first place, grand prize winner is Eileen Tomarchio, for "Rings Like Trees."In second place, we have Kevin Wranovix for "Bamboo Soup," and in third place, Sarah Sousa for "Nebula." Please join us in congratulating our winners, and in giving a round of virtual applause to our two runners-up: Luke Tennis for "Starfish" and Cole Chamberlain for "Take Shape." We're also grateful to Sara Lippmann for judging this year's contest, and I also want to express our gratitude to our esteemed fiction editor Michelle Ross and our fiction team for their hard work.You can look forward to reading the contest winners in Issue Four, which will go live April 15. 

In the meantime, I hope you keep writing. The world needs it.

Peace,Keene ShortEditor-in-Chief

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

BOOK REVIEW

SHOOT THE HORSES FIRST

reviewed by

CATHERINE HAYES

"They are moments that history may have deemed unworthy and forgettable, but Angstman’s collection of stories shows that real life cannot be categorized so plainly."

 

NEW FROM THE ATTIC

THE VIEW FROM MAINE \\ March, 2023

by

BARBARA RIDDLE

"Outside, the wind is rattling tree branches; inside, the drafts are rattling my blinds. I’m wearing about six layers: two long-sleeved shirts, a fleece vest, a thick hoodie with a zip front, and a heavy ribbed cardigan."

BOWINGby Tim Skeen

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