Category: fiction

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Madville’s 2025 Pushcart Prize Nominations

Screen capture from the Pushcart Press Website. It shows the logo of a man pushing a cart and has a block of text about the press. http://www.pushcartprize.com/index.html

The 2025 Pushcart Prize

Madville has made our nominations for the 2025 Pushcart Prize. The prize will be awarded in several categories for short pieces. It was a hard decision, because we published such amazing work this year. The Pushcart Prize accepts six nominations per small press or magazine and “any combination of poetry, short stories, essays, memoirs or stand-alone excerpts from novels.”

Our editors weighed in on their favorites, and this is what we chose:

“James and Jim Ponder Enough” by Jim Minick from his poetry collection The Intimacy of Spoons (Madville 2024).

“Sorry” by Laura Last from the anthology, Fantastic Imaginary Creatures, edited by Gerry LaFemina (Madville 2024).

“Neighbors Helping Neighbors” by Julie Liddell Whitehead from her linked story collection, Hurricane Baby (Madville 2024).

“Shelley and the Slipping Away” by A. Rooney from the linked story collection, The Lesser Madonnas (Madville 2024).

“The children turn themselves into ICE” by linda ravenswood from her poetry collection, a poem is a house (Madville 2024).

“Bird Call Koan with Glossary” by Yiskah Rosenfeld from her poetry collection, Tasting Flight (Madville 2024).

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Midwest Book Review likes The Monosexual

The Monosexual, a novel by Dean Monti. The cover is on a beige, worn looking background with red lettering for the title and author name and blue lettering for a novel. A pattern of red, pink, and blue blobs in the center is meant to represent sushi.

We have a new review of The Monosexual by Midwest Book Review. (Have we mentioned Midwest Book Review lately? We are grateful to them for always supporting small publishers.)

The Monosexual from Madville Publishing is especially and unreservedly recommended for community and college/university Contemporary Literary Fiction collections.

–Clint Travis for Midwest Book Review

The Monosexual by Dean Monti

Madville Publishing
9781956440898, $20.95, PB, 222pp

https://www.amazon.com/Monosexual-Dean-Monti/dp/1956440895

Synopsis:

The Monosexual by novelist Dean Monti is the story of Vincent Cappellini, an obsessed ultra-monogamist who struggles when his relationship with the love of his life abruptly ends. Twice-burned (once in love and once by the sun) Vincent faces a host of challenges to his self-appointed sense of identity. Sunburn, bad sushi, a Sinatra karaoke contest, and the road rage fury of a woman scorned are but a few of the trials Vincent will endure while facing the ultimate test to his monosexuality — a new woman in his life.

Critique:

Through his remarkably distinctive and narrative driven storytelling style, author Dean Monti raises his original and deftly crafted novel to an impressive level of literary excellence with a riveting and fun read for those with an interest in absurdist fiction laced with dark humor. While available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99), The Monosexual from Madville Publishing is especially and unreservedly recommended for community and college/university Contemporary Literary Fiction collections.

Editorial Note:

Dean Monti started writing at age two, but nothing legible until age five. Since then, his fiction has appeared in several literary journals in print and online. His critically-acclaimed novel, The Sweep of the Second Hand, was published by Academy Chicago Publishers and reprinted in paperback by Penguin. In addition to other novels, he is the author of several full-length and one-act plays and has had works staged in Chicago and Norfolk, Virginia. His short story “Why Dogs Don’t Talk” was adapted as a stage play and short film. Additionally, Monti has also taught creative writing at Columbia College in Chicago and at College of DuPage.

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Wild Wind – we know who’s in

Cover for Wild Wind:Poems and Stories Inspired by the Songs of Robert Earl Keen edited by Sandra and Ron cooper with a preface by Willy Braun of Reckless Kelly. The cover shows an abstract, multi-colored painting of a guitar with white lettering superimposed over it.

Wild Wind: Poems and Stories Inspired by the Songs of Robert Earl Keen

edited by Sandra Johnson Cooper and Ron Cooper, with a preface by Willy Braun of Reckless Kelly

Coming November 19, 2024

This anthology of poems and short stories is an homage to Texas singer/song-writer Robert Earl Keen, who stands in the songwriter/storyteller tradition of Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, John Prine, and Keen’s contemporaries Lyle Lovett and James McMurtry. The poems and short stories here are each inspired by Keen’s songs, some expansions of themes of Keen’s songs, others move in creative directions suggested by the characters in his work. Keen’s songs are impressive for their literary sensibility (he was an English major at Texas A&M University) and have influenced many songwriters as well as authors of fiction and poetry.

Contributors:

  • Preface: Willy Braun
  • Poetry: Alan Birkelbach – Rick Campbell – Greg Clary – Andy Coat – Rupert Fike – Carl Freeman – Carol Kraus – karla k. morton – Jeff Newberry – Garrison M. Somers
  • Fiction: Heath Bowen – Michael Cody – Ron Cooper – Sandra Cooper – Patrick Michael Finn – Scott Gould – Donna Wojnar Dzurilla – Bobby Horecka – Patti Meredity
  • Memoir: Kim Davis­­
  • Screenplay: Janna Jones

South Carolina natives Sandra Johnson Cooper and Ron Cooper have lived in Florida since 1988 and have been fans of Robert Earl Keen for nearly as long. They both teach at the College of Central Florida where Sandra specializes in American literature, and Ron specializes in philosophy and world religions.

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Sticks & Bricks: Stories from the Wrong Side of the Tracks

Cover from The Wrong Side of the Tracks: Stories, formerly known as Sticks and Bricks. Cover shows a girl peering through a chain link fence at boxcars sitting on a siding with graffiti painted on their sides.

So many people have been patiently waiting for news of the selection progress with Sticks & Bricks. At last, the editors, have given us the go-ahead to share a longlist with everyone, with heartfelt apologies because family emergencies intruded, and kept the selection process on hold for too long. We won’t be able to fit all of these into the book, but at least submitters can check this list to see if their submission is still under consideration.

Biographies for the three editors of this anthology, with small thumbnail photos for Luanne Smith, Michael Gills, and T.E. Wilderson

The Longlist (and a name change)

Submitted work for THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS: STORIES

  • Hallmark Town—Linda Heuring
  • A Day In the Life of a Five Year Old Pool Player—Francine Roderiguez
  • Paquete—Dan Timoskevich
  • Backyards—Catherine Alexander
  • All the Lonely People—Alex Stein (lyrics issue)
  • King of the Lake—Christine Rice
  • Dogs Always Bark—Melissa Chordas
  • A White Girl, A Horse, Two Cats and a Dog—Deborah Meltvedt
  • The Lesser Countries—August Tarrier
  • Witnesses—April Asbury
  • Human Statues—Leslie Johnson
  • Settle—Troy Bernardo
  • Diorama—Steve Tem
  • Street Sermon Annie—Vali Hawkins-Mitchell
  • Gonna Like It in the Jailhouse—Polar Levine
  • Whatever Happened to the American Dream—Don Robishaw
  • By the Grace—Gayle Bell (flash fiction)
  • Jets—R. Louis Fox
  • Gina and the Werewolf—Hadley Moore
  • Federico and His Boy—Victoria Ballesteros
  • Canary—Virginia Pina (pen name Watts)
  • Private Duties—Madeleine Mysko
  • The Angel of Lead Belly’s—John Mauk

Solicited Work for THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS: STORIES

  • Hunger—Pirette McKamey
  • Fast Hands, Fast Feet—Maurice Carlos Ruffin
  • Afterglow—Steph Post
  • Some Get-Back—Eric Miles Williamson
  • Leaving Early—Penn Stewart
  • Grit—Jesse Waters
  • Hard Shoes—Steve Gutierrez
  • The Short Story—Steve Gutierrez
  • Palette—Chavisa Woods
  • Kitty Rose—Jana Sasser (J.C. Sasser)
  • Flowchart—Kim Addonizio
  • Christmas Story of the Golden Cockroach—Ana Castillo
  • Old Dogs—Bonnie Jo Campbell
  • Amusement—Joe Haske
  • TBD—Elizabeth “e.” Stuelke
  • Tea Training—Zary Fekete (Zaqary)
  • The Bride Beneath my Bed—Lee Zacharias
  • TBD—Chavisa Woods
  • The Main Game—Chris Offutt
  • Barbie-Q—Sandra Cisneros
  • TBD—Manual Munoz