News from Orca’s contributors, supporters, and other friends.

May, 2020: Kristyn Dunnion’s short story “Daughter of Cups,” which appeared in our first issue, has been selected for inclusion in Best Canadian Stories 2020, scheduled for release this fall. Dunnion also has a story collection coming out in September 2020 with Biblioasis Publishing. It’s called Stoop City.

July: Snowflakes in a Blizzard is a site devoted to profiling authors and books that typically don’t have a large publisher and marketing budget behind them. During the first week in July they are featuring Orca co-publisher Joe Ponepinto’s book, Mr. Neutron.

May: Our friends at Writer Advice’s are holding their 2019 Flash Fiction Contest. Send Flash Fiction up to 750 words. Entry is $14, and every entry receives a detailed response from award-winning author B. Lynn Goodwin. Deadline: June 1. Details and Submittable Link: www.writeradvice.com.

April: David A. Southard’s first novel, K at Liberation, was released by Books of Some Substance (B.O.S.S.) on April 17. Here is the opening line: “As Najwa Karim awoke one morning from a troubled sleep she found herself transformed in her bed into Franz Kafka.” That should be enough to make anyone with a sense of literary history to want to read it.

April: John Sibley Williams’s third book of poetry, As One Fire Consumes Another, was released April 2 by Orison Books. It’s the winner of the 2018 Orison Poetry Prize. Contest Judge Vandana Khanna said, “These poems rise as invocation, as testimonial to life’s unfiltered beauty, violence, and faith, to the ‘light . . . already in us.’” Williams will do readings throughout his home state of Oregon in May through the end of the year. See his calendar for more.

February: Jacob M. Appel’s seventh collection of stories, The Liars’ Asylum is out now from Black Lawrence Press. The book concerns the frustrations of romantic love in its various guises—a domineering kindergarten teacher for a dashing artificial foliage designer, a suicidal physicist for his star student, a dialysis patient at a sleep-away camp for the camp owner’s daughter—provide the common theme. As always, Appel’s literary short fiction offers a quirky window into the pangs and promise of love.

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