Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Hard To Find: An Anthology of New Southern Gothic Fiction


My short story, Tallulah, which was published originally in Stylus Lit magazine out of Australia, has been included in this anthology Hard To Find, edited by Meredith Janning, an editorial assistant at Stephen F. Austin State University Press. 

Meredith earned her BA in Mass Communication from SFA in May of 2021 and is set to receive her MA in Publishing in May of 2023. Hard to Find: An Anthology of New Southern Gothic is the result of her love of the Southern Gothic and is particularly inspired by Flannery O’Connor’s work.

Publisher: Stephen F. Austin State University Press

ISBN: 9781622889457. Number of pages: 160. Dimensions: 229 x 152 mm

Here is a link to the book from Waterstones: 

https://www.waterstones.com/book/hard-to-find/meredith-janning/9781622889457

Here is a link to it from Amazon: 

https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Find-Anthology-Southern-Gothic/dp/1622889452

And here is a link to it from Barnes and Noble:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hard-to-find-meredith-janning/1142714980

This is from the book's listing online:

In its own way, the American South is riddled with elements of the gothic genre. Instead of empty, isolated castles it has small towns, though just as haunted, just as full of secrets. The Southern Gothic is a clash between the old and the new, tradition and breaking the cycles its people are, or should be, ashamed of. It's grotesque and violent, surreal and symbolic but it makes people listen. It's about calling people to change or be forgotten. In the past, this genre had writers like O'Connor, Faulkner, Allison, and Williams, but these ideas and experiences are just as present today as they ever were.

Hard to Find: An Anthology of New Southern Gothic is an anthology focused on giving writers an opportunity to shed light on the issues faced by the people of the American South today, whether those are new issues or just new ways of taking on the same ghosts. How do you define the South? What makes Southern people different? Has anything really, truly changed from its history?

This is from the book's introduction by Joe R. Lansdale: 

https://joerlansdale.com/

"As Charlie Parker, better known as the 'Bird' said about his love of country music, 'It’s the stories, man, it’s the stories.' We will call these stories neither snail nor escargot, but what is clear is they wear the lanyard of Southern Gothic dangling around their necks. Beneath the lanyard is the skin, blood and bones of all good fiction."

Find more about Joe here:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/58971.Joe_R_Lansdale

And here:

https://nocturnalrevelries.com/2022/04/03/joe-r-lansdales-best-short-stories/

Joe R. Lansdale, pictured above.

Find him her too: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/l/joe-r-lansdale/


Lastly, here you'll find Chelsea Riley's upcoming review of the anthology at the Southern Review of 
Books: 

https://southernreviewofbooks.com/2023/07/14/books-to-celebrate-in-july-2023/hard-to-find-meredith-janning/

                                                

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