After waiting impatiently for Daniel Orozco’s debut story collection, J.T. Bushnell finds that it exceeds all expectations. Bushnell calls these stories “full of satire and absurdity and insight.”

Alissa Nutting has “story” written in ink on every page of Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, her lively, well-imagined, and jaw-droppingly smart prize-winning debut. Imagine Donald Barthelme writing smart feminine narratives, Mary Gaitskill sans the kinky sex, or Margaret Atwood turning to dry, Colbert-style humor, and you may start to get an idea of what to expect.

When The Clash asked the question “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” Jennine Capó Crucet had an answer. In How to Leave Hialeah, Crucet’s debut short story collection, characters wrestle with how the places they’re from shape their identity, how to grow beyond them, and why leaving is sometimes the only answer. In this interview, Melissa Scholes Young and Jennine Capó Crucet discuss the influence of setting and place in fiction, the intoxicating pull of hometowns, and the realities of the American Dream.

Tim Z. Hernandez’s Breathing, In Dust rips along like one of the trains whose wheels sing Catela, Catela, Catela, Catela as they churn through the San Juaquin valley. In twenty linked, ferociously compact short stories and a lyrical prologue, Hernandez sings of Catela too, triumphantly bringing this fictional farming community to life.

Last week we featured Knuckleheads as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to:

Artsieladie.com (@ArtsieladieHome)
Adelphi MFA Program (@Adelphi_MFA)
Mark Staniforth (@markbooks)

To claim your signed copy of this collection, please email us at the following address:
winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com
If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and [...]

This week’s featured title is Knuckleheads, by Jeff Kass. Published in April by Dzanc Books, this is Kass’s first collection. He is also the author of a chapbook of poetry, Invisible Staircase, a chapbook of essays, From the Front of the Room, and a one-man poetica performance, Wrestle the Great Fear. Kass teaches creative writing [...]

Forrest Anderson on the semester he “caught fire as a writer,” when Ron Rash handed him a life-changing copy of Dale Ray Phillips’s debut, My People’s Waltz. Anderson describes the exquisite moments of grace in the collection when “all of the bad things to come are brewing on the horizon but haven’t yet managed to fully snag the family.”

This week’s featured title is Valerie Laken’s story collection Separate Kingdoms, which we’re pleased to announce has recently been longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award! Laken was born and raised in Rockford, Illinois. She majored in English and Russian at the University of Iowa, then worked and studied in Moscow, Prague, Krakow, [...]

Last week we featured Josh Weil’s novella collection The New Valley as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to:

Edward Jarrett (@Edwardjarrett)
Daan Kogelmans(@TheVoidComic)
J.L. Clyde (@ninsiana0)

To claim your signed copy of this collection, please email us at the following address:
winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com
If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please [...]

Nobody advised Josh Weil to write three novellas for his first book, The New Valley, but that’s what he did. Mary Westbrook and the author talk about the stories behind the novellas and how well-intentioned advice can lead writers astray.