The Winner of our Sixth Annual Chapbook Contest Is...

...Shampoo Horns by Aaron Teel of Austin, Texas.

Contest judge Randall Brown selected Shampoo Horns out of a field of 104 submissions, and the chapbook will be published this coming July. You can sign up to receive the chapbook automatically when it launches by becoming a supporter here.

Thank you to all the authors who submitted—we had a terrific field of entrants this year.

The five finalists are:
First runner-up: Electives & Requisites by Marc Sheehan of Grand Rapids, MI
Second runner-up: Honey Work It Out by Nicolle Elizabeth of Boston, MA
Reprieve and Other Stories by Amy Bergen of Columbus, OH
From Here to There by Tyler Gillespie of Chicago, IL
Bottle Ghosts by Charlotte Porter of Island Grove, FL

The five semi-finalists are:
Block Party by Dorothy Albertini of Poughkeepsie, NY
Anthropocene by Berit Ellingsen of Norway
Rory Gilmore Wants to Fight by Joseph Goosey of Ponte Verde Beach, FL
This Is What Your Pile of Shoes Reminds Me of by Marie Potoczny of Richmond, VA
Out of the Wreckage by Ethel Rohan of San Francisco, CA

Congratulations to all of them!

Selling the best

Check it out. Rose Metal Press has two books on the 2011 Bestsellers List at Small Press Distribution. The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction edited by Tara L. Masih weighs in at number six, and They Could No Longer Contain Themselves by Elizabeth Colen, John Jodzio, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Sean Lovelace and Mary Miller weighs in at number 60. SPD is offering 40% off these and the other 98 bestselling titles of 2011 here. Add to cart!

Pete Michael Smith reviews Betty Superman for New Pages...

...and according to him:

"Betty is complex, and the format of this book (the winner of Rose Metal Press’s fifth annual Short Short Chapbook Contest) allows for those complexities to exist in a way that a novel could not. A novel would be given to explanation and exposition and some sort of superstructure in the time-space continuum that Tiff Holland has no need for. Instead, we are free to move from third husbands to animal carcasses to lesbian aunts and the men they love. Our time in the transvestite beauty parlor is all too short, and yet, I’m happy to move on to Shakespeare in gardening hats and domestic assault."

You can read the whole lovely review right here. Thanks, Pete!