Press 53 . PO Box 30314, Winston-Salem, NC 27130-0314
Press 53 is located at
The Community Arts Cafe
411 W. Fourth St
Winston-Salem, NC 27101
Surreal South
Surreal South, Vol. 1 (2007)
edited by Laura & Pinckney Benedict
Cover art by Adela Leibowitz
9 x 6 aperback
$19.95
LAURA BENEDICT is the author of the dark suspense novels Isabella Moon and Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts, as well as the forthcoming novel, The Devil's Oven, an Appalachian Horror. She also edits the Surreal South: an Anthology of Short Fiction series with her husband, Pinckney Benedict. Her work has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads, and a number of other anthologies. She lives in the southernmost wilds of a midwestern state, where she is surrounded by coyotes, bobcats, and many other less picturesque predators. Visit Laura Benedict's personal website at www.laurabenedict.com
PINCKNEY BENEDICT grew up on his family’s farm in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. He has published three collections of short fiction, including Miracle Boy and Other Stories (Press 53), 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.
About the editors:
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.
Surreal South is published every odd year on Halloween (how apropos).
Surreal South '09
edited by Laura & Pinckney Benedict
Cover art by Minna Svensson
9 x 6 paperback
$19.95
Meet Our Cover Artists
2009 cover artist Minna Svensson is a photographer and mixed media artist who enjoys working with digital art and collages. With her witty, playful imagery, Minna creates whole universes of mystical fables, often of the eerie, little, bizarre kind. She finds paradoxes utterly fascinating and likes to play with these in her work, which gives her a unique style that floats around somewhere in the borderland between fairytales and horror stories. At the moment Minna is studying art and film in Gothenburg, Sweden. In the future she wants to explore all the wonders of this world, expand her artistry, and live in the South in an old ghost house with a front porch. To see more of Minna's work visit: www.obsceneteaparty.com or contact her at: kuchimallan@gmail.com.
2007 cover artist Adela Leibowitz's works are a masterly combination of light-quality and imagery and she arrives at both through inspiration: "A flash will go off of a still image, usually very quickly in my head. I see a very strong image, and it can happen anywhere. It usually does not work for me to begin a painting if that did not happen." The archetypal images and symbols which form the subject matter of these paintings must surely originate within the personal unconscious of the artist and in her perceptions into the collective unconscious of humanity. Her work represents a very significant and welcome addition to contemporary painting. Visit her online at www.adelaleibowitz.com
Surreal South '11 is here. It's an odd year. It's Halloween. It's time for another great volume of stories!
“This is the third and, in our humble opinion, the best, densest, and most exciting edition of the Surreal South anthology series. When we began this series, with the original Surreal South in 2007 (we did not know then, though we hoped, that it would be followed by Surreal South ’09 and now this third volume), we wished to put together a book that in some sense bridged the gap between work that is perceived as ‘literary’ and work that is perceived as ‘genre.’ The first category is, as we take it, defined primarily by the excellence of its execution and the loftiness of its ambition. The second category is demarcated by its accessibility (indeed, its addictive quality) and its concentration on plot and pacing.
“This volume of profoundly weird stories is, we believe, an almost-perfect nexus of the literary and the genre. The stories it contains offer brilliant prose and unabashed plots. They are highly intelligent and compulsively readable. And they all celebrate ghosts and monsters. We really like ghosts and monsters. We’re betting that you do too.”
From the editors, Laura & Pinckney Benedict
Surreal South '11 features stories from the following authors
A.K. Thompson
Alexander Lumans
Anne Valente
Anthony Neil Smith
Brad Green
Gregory Wolos
J.T. Ellison
James O’Brien
Jedidiah Ayres
Jim Walke
John Horner Jacobs
John McManus
Josh McCall
Julia Patt
Josh Woods
Laura Benedict
Marilyn Moriarty
Mark Fleming
Michael Kardos
Nik Korpon
Pinckney Benedict
Reuben Hayslett
Robert Busby
Robert Hill Long
Ron Lands
Rose Bunch
Sheryl Monks
Sophie Littlefield
Susan Woodring
Victor Schultz
Surreal South '11
edited by Laura & Pinckney Benedict
cover art by Stephanie Bracciano
30 great stories, one excellent anthology!
ISBN 978-1-935708-46-9
9 x 6 paperback, 336 pages
$19.95
Buy all Three Volumes and Save!
Order the original Surreal South ('07), Surreal South '09, and Surreal South '11 and save $14.85.
$45 for all three volumes!
Coming soon to Kindle, Nook, and other e-readers!
2011 Cover artist Stephanie Bracciano was born and raised in rural Michigan and has always had an appreciation for nature and wide-open spaces. She began her photography career in 2003 at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan. There she was fortunate to have great professors who helped her transform and grow as an artist. In 2007, she earned her A.S.S. in Photographic Technology. Also that year, she won an emerging artist contest at the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair for her complex photomontages. In 2008, she was awarded a Presidential Scholarship to attend the Savannah College of Arts and Design in Savannah, Georgia. In 2010, she graduated with high honors and received her B.F.A. in Photography.
Surreal South '09
Minna Svensson
Gothenburg, Sweden
"Tiny Gatekeeper"
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.
Contributors include: Alexander 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 K. Abbott, Melanie DeCarolis, Michael Garriga, Michael P. Kardos, Okla Elliott & Raul Clement, Oscar Hokeah, Sheryl Monks, Steve Patten, and Tantra Bensko
