Books published by Dzanc Books

A posthumous collection of short stories and fragments from novels unfinished at the time of his death. This collection shows, once again, that Gay was a master of Southern Gothic, with tales that are dark and atmospheric and written with finely crafted prose.

Author is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner ofthe Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, recipient of an NEA Fellowship andOhio Arts Council FellowshipTwo previous Dzanc titles, Late OneNight and The Mutual UFO Network, were wellreviewedAuthor has strong connections to universities,booksellers, and review outlets across the Midwest, with access to the book'sintended readersBased on a true crime in the 1840s. Betsey Reedwas hanged in Lawrenceville,Illinois, for the murder of her husband?the first woman in the USexecuted by hangingWell-known author with strong connections to theregional and national writing community, a long history of successful events,and good pull with booksellers and festival organizersNational galley mailing, with an emphasis on majornational review outlets that have previously covered Lee's workFestival and conference appearances, includingAWP, the Ohioana Book Festival, and MIBA eventsOutreach to MIBA and GLIBA, with nominations aimedat a Midwest Connections and Great Lakes Great Reads pickTargeted galley mailing and outreach to author'slocal papers, including The Columbus Dispatch, The Sumner Press, TheLawrenceville Daily Record, The Olney Daily Mail, The VincennesSun-Commercial, andColumbus AliveTargeted bookstore mailing concentrated on theGreat Lakes and Midwest regionsTargeted galley mailing to review outlets thatpreviously covered Lee's work and have strong connections to the press,including PopMatters, Alternating Current, Crazyhorse, The CoachellaReview, Electric Lit, Lit Hub, Poets & Writers, Largehearted Boy, TheMedium, Brooklyn Rail, The Rumpus, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Barrelhouse,Shelf AwarenessBook club outreachUniversity reading series promotion and courseadoption pushMajor awards pushElectronic galleys available on Edelweiss

Winner of the Dzanc Books Prize for FictionAn Indies Introduce pick"e;Hugely important, hauntingly brutal-Englehardt has just announced himself as one of America's most talented emerging writers."e; -Kirkus starred reviewBloomland opens during finals week at a fictional southern university, when a student walks into the library with his roommate's semi-automatic rifle and opens fire. When he stops shooting, twelve people are dead.In this richly textured debut, John Englehardt explores how the origin and aftermath of the shooting impacts the lives of three characters: a disillusioned student, a grieving professor, and a young man whose valuation of fear and disconnection funnels him into the role of the aggressor. As the community wrestles with the fallout, Bloomland interrogates social and cultural dysfunction in a nation where mass violence has become all too familiar.Profound and deeply nuanced, Bloomland is a dazzling debut for fans of Denis Johnson and We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Anchored by a wooden ring, an award-winning poet explores her life through the lens of three intertwined elements: the story of a mentally ill aunt in an abusive marriage; a high-school romance with a boy who eventually dies of a heroin overdose; and an extramarital affair characterized by an otherworldly connection.

Winner of the Dzanc Diverse Voices PrizeLA SYRENA. For me home is in the water. When I go to the sea I want to swim forever and never look back. But I know I would die and the earth needs me on shore. My home is Syria and Syria for me is like the sea. I want nothing more than to jump in and swim around forever. In Syria I am declared wanted, like so many of us displaced lunar divas. The longing I feel is the deepest kind. It could crack the whole earth open. I am a Lumerian from Ancient Sumeria, a southern space creature in a northern world, LA SYRNENA, zhe is my destiny. In this collection, each poem flows like water on the page. The author weaves in stories ¿ mantras ¿ revolutionary messages ¿ the movement of arabic letters ¿ the memory of Sumerian cuneiform. This book is a hybrid creature between poem-story-form that crosses genres like it crosses dimensions. In this work, you are the mermaid. You are the forever migrant, a traveler between the oceanic and the extraterrestrial, across continents and planets. You are a time traveler, and you speak many languages. You are LA SYRENA, conjuring your own space to feel free.

Winner of the Dzanc Prize for FictionA work of brilliant and innovative historical fiction, Asylum delves into the disturbing and seductive relationship between a young hysteric named Augustine and renowned nineteenth-century French neurologist J.M. Charcot. As Charcot risks his career to investigate the controversial disease of hysteria, Augustine struggles to make him acknowledge their interdependence and shared desires¿until a new lover, M., drives them all to the brink of fracture.Drawing upon the medical photography, hypnotic states, and ¿grand demonstrations¿ that accompanied Charcot¿s research, Asylum traces the deterioration of the dynamic between doctor and patient as they transform from mutually entranced creators to jealous and spurned paramours, to fierce rivals, and finally to bitter enemies. Told in lyrical, feverish, and sometimes delirious prose, Nina Shope delivers a captivating narrative at the crossroads of Mary Shelley and Donna Tartt.

Winner of the 2020 Dzanc Short Story Collection PrizeIn Water and Blood, the nameless narrator, a survivor of abuse, tries on other women's stories like she is trying on their clothes. There is the nun who learns to swim decades after witnessing her biological sister's drowning in the Ohio River. The rape victim whose deathbed statement is interwoven with the imagined voice of the rapist. The young girl who is sent to stay with her alcoholic grandfather while her parents care for a sick child. Out of scraps of reclaimed history and imagined memories, the narrator creates a garment of women's stories for herself-overlapping the seams between fact and fiction, doing what women do: cleaning and restitching the wounds of trauma, making a life with the things that are left over after everyone else has taken what they need.