A Starred Review in Publishers Weekly!

Liliane's Balcony by Kelcey Parker just received one. "Readers skeptical of the short form or the experimental shape of a multi-voiced, time-jumping narrative have nothing to fear. Parker deftly weaves each character's spidery thread into a rich meditation on the natural and built worlds, the lasting and the passing. The present echoes the past that thrums beneath the roar of the falls, and Parker delivers a symphony of histories both real and imagined," it says. You can read the whole thing here. 

And if you've been wondering what the soundtrack for Kelcey's book might sound like, you can find out here in the Book Notes Series from Largehearted Boy where Kelcey sets her story to songs by The National, Nina Simone, The Modern Lovers, and more.

Also, in this past week's Chicago Tribune, Courtney Crowder did a lovely write-up of Kim Henderson's chapbook The Kind of Girl, including quotes from contest judge Deb Olin Unferth and Kim's former writing teacher Daniel Mueller at the University of New Mexico who says, "I'm guessing she struck most people as painfully shy, and yet the voice of her stories was so self-possessed, articulate, nuanced, and wise, the gift so pronounced, that one felt in the presence of a living breath contradiction. ... What I love most about Kim's stories, then and now, are how deeply felt they are, and how honest." You can read the whole thing here. Thanks, Courtney! 

Booklist and the Utne Reader...

...like Rose Metal Press books, and will tell you as much. Katharine Fronk, writing in Booklist, says of Kelcey Parker's Liliane's Balcony "Not unlike Fallingwater's structure, which masterfully balances the man-made with the natural, Parker sculpts and controls myriad, nearly unwieldy elements to construct a driven plot that illuminates the perched house and those who live within it." Thanks, Katharine!

And Christian Williams writing in the Utne Reader, says of B.J. Best's But Our Princess Is in Another Castle, "While Best is certainly a fine advocate for categorizing video games as visual art, he excels at capturing the essence of adolescence in But Our Princess. Using video games as a jumping off point for his poignant memories of growing up in Wisconsin, Best masterfully blends the reality of those memories with the fantasy worlds from his favorite games." You can read the whole thing here. Thanks, Christian!

Verse Wisconsin's Lisa Vihos has similar words of praise for B.J.'s book, writing, "I must state here and now that I know very little about this particular realm of cultural subtext. I did not spend hours on Saturday afternoons playing Donkey Kong, or shut out the world on the drive to the grocery store glued to my Gameboy with Mario’s fate in my hands. I have never been up until 2 a.m. eating cold pizza and playing Grand Theft Auto. And yet. And yet. These things seep into consciousness. There is something that resonates here." You can read it all here. Thanks, Lisa!

And last but not least, Inside IU from Indiana University South Bend where Kelcey teaches, has this write-up of her new book here. 

Early October Roundup

The leaves are changing all over the trees and the reviews are going up all over the internet of the latest two Rose Metal Press titles, Kim Henderson's The Kind of Girl and Kelcey Parker's just-released Liliane's Balcony: A Novella of Fallingwater.

Dennis James Sweeney reviews the former at HTML Giant, writing of Kim's award-winning chapbook that "Rose Metal Press put out a collection here with a similar appeal: spectacularly written, thematically complex, and/but formally comprehensible." You can read the whole thing here. Thanks, Dennis! 

And the Pittsburgh City Paper recommends not one but two upcoming readings from the latter here, suggesting that the book's focus on Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture will make it of particular interest to Pennsylvania residents.

Gemma Alexander also has a wonderful review of Liliane's Balcony in the latest issue of Bookslut here in which she writes: "When a book plays with its shape as much as Liliane's Balcony does, it is tempting to focus on form. But like the house in which it is set, Parker's novella-in-flash contains a genuinely touching human story -- several, actually -- equally deserving of attention. At its core is the lifelong failed marriage between Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann, who commissioned Fallingwater as a weekend house. Parker incorporates documented events and actual letters written by Edgar to Liliane into an intimate fictional vision of Liliane's lonely life in her dream house over the water. Cantilevered off of this central narrative is a collection of vignettes in the voices of contemporary tourists viewing the house." Thanks, Gemma! 

Last but not least, Talking Writing, which published an excerpt of Kelcey's novella back in 2010, published another excerpt from it this week, which you can read here.  You can order the book and read the whole thing yourself here. Add to cart!