Surreal South
Surreal South, Vol. 1, edited by Pinckney and Laura Benedict
Cover art by Adela Leibowitz
ISBN: 978-0-9793049-7-2
Paperback, 380 pp.
Welcome to the Surreal South, the dream of the nation within the nation, the world within the world, shadowed by all the unmitigated horrors and illuminated by all the dubious glories of its distant and ill-remembered past, a puzzle, a slightly gruesome enticement, a boundless ambiguity, an enduring paradox, and an endless source of myth.
This inaugural issue contains dream stories, horror stories, monster stories, insanity, magical realism, the distorted, the peculiar, the impossible, the irrational.
Contributors include Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Olen Butler, Ron Rash, Tom Franklin, Ann Pancake, Chris Offutt, Beth Ann Fennelly, Katie Estill, Jacinda Townsend, Greg Johnson, George Singleton, Lee K. Abbott, Julianna Baggott, Brad Vice, Benjamin Percy, Kyle Minor, William Gay, Dean Paschal, Daniel Woodrell, Pinckney Benedict, Laura Benedict, Rodney Jones, Jon Tribble, Andrew Hudgins, Joy Beshears Hagy, Susan Woodring, and Kathy Conner.
About the editors:
LAURA BENEDICT is the author of the novel, Isabella Moon. Her short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and several anthologies. Her second novel, Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts, is available in hardcover from Random House. For the past decade she’s worked as a freelance book reviewer for The Grand Rapids Press in Michigan and other newspapers. She lives in Southern Illinois with her husband, Pinckney Benedict.
Press 53 . PO Box 30314 . Winston-Salem, NC 27130 Email us.
PINCKNEY BENEDICT grew up on his family’s farm in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. He has published two collections of short fiction and a novel. His stories have appeared in, among other magazines and anthologies, Esquire, Zoetrope All-Story, the O. Henry Award series, the New Stories from the South series, Ontario Review, the Pushcart Prize series, and The Oxford Book of American Short Stories. He is the recipient, among other prizes, of a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Literary Fellowship from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts, a Michener Fellowship from the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award, and Britain’s Steinbeck Award. He is a professor in the English Department at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois.
Visit Laura Benedict's personal website at www.laurabenedict.com
or visit her MySpace at www.myspace.com/laurabenedict
Visit Pinckney Benedict's MySpace at www.myspace.com/pinckneybenedict
Surreal South is published every odd year (how apropos).
Literate Yourself! TM
Authors for Surreal South '09 Announced
The stories that will appear in Surreal South '09, due out October 2009, have been chosen by Pinckney and Laura Benedict after a lengthy reading period and selection process. Press 53 wishes to thank and congratulate the authors who submitted for making Pinckney's and Laura's job as editor so difficult. The following is a list of authors whose stories will appear in Surreal South II. Story titles will be announced later.
Alex Lumans
Becky Hagenston
Dan Mueller
Heather Fowler
J.T. Ellison
Jedidiah Ayres
Jessica Glass
John McManus
Josh McCall
Josh Woods
Kurt Rheinheimer
Kyle Minor
Lee Abbott
Melanie DeCarolis
Michael Garriga
Michael P. Kardos
Okla Elliott & Raul Clement
Oscar Hokeah
Sheryl Monks
Steve Patten
Tantra Bensko
