"Roadside Flowers"

Yellow Grass Field, Chromogenic Print by Karen Bell

Summer is warming up, and for each month I've a story coming out: 

June for the dancing bear in "Surrey with the Fringe on Top" at This Land Press. 

July for photos taken in wartime in "Roadside Flowers" at R. kv. r. y Quarterly.

August for an afternoon at the Berlin Zoo in "Gorilla," forthcoming in Animal Literary Magazine.

Here is JULY! With thanks to Mary Akers at R. kv. r. y Quarterly for publishing "Roadside Flowers," and pairing it with Karen Bell's photograph, "Yellow Grass Field." A stunning straight horizon of tall grasses against a white sky, it's a photo that James, the main character of this story might have taken.

Yet Another Tulsa Story: "Surrey with the Fringe on Top"

Once I went to Tulsa. With my daughter. In the heat of August. Crazy things happened. Horses. Mansions. Praying hands. And I kind of fell a little in love with the place. Its many-sided attitude. And so I wrote a story about Tulsa that won a prize. And then I wrote another story. And if this keeps up, I'll probably end up writing a collection. About Tulsa. Crazier things have happened.

Because of all this, I've discovered a sweet little publication in Tulsa, which includes fiction and poetry and boasts all things Okiecentric called This Land Press. Indeed, they published that second story, dancing bear and all. And here it is! 

SURREY WITH THE FRINGE ON TOP: in which an unlikely hitchhiker catches a ride with a wanderer heading home. New fiction by Karin C. Davidson. 

"We Are Here Because of a Horse" reviewed at Ploughshares

What a nice surprise! A year after publication in Passages North, Issue 34 as theWaasmode Fiction Prize winner, my story "We Are Here Because of a Horse" received a great review from Lyndsey Reese in her Ploughshares blog, "The Best Short Story I've Read in a Lit Mag This Week." The story also got some love from Jill at "Best of the Looks, Best of the Books." Many thanks to both Lyndsey and Jill for (1) reading literary magazines, (2) adding style to the literary world, and (3) writing those wonderful responses!

A little sampling of Lyndsey Reese's review: 

"By describing the city in detail, Davidson introduces us to a narrator who is kind, patient, thoughtful, and insightful. We get to know more about him later, but his first impression of Tulsa lets us know that he isn’t someone who comes to hasty conclusions. He isn’t obsessed with the bottom line, but instead takes a more measured and even view of the world. Considering that much of the early story is stripped of background information about him and his wife, the introduction of the city serves to reveal the narrator and ground us in a physical place."

Considering that much of my writing centers around PLACE, I'm in love with this thorough and very thoughtful review.

(Read the full review at Ploughshares).

There are more Tulsa stories out there! Check out " Imaginary Oklahoma" in the Fiction/Poetry section of This Land Press. Guest writers, from Gina Ochsner and Carolyn Parkhurst to Mary Jo Bang and Jonathan Lethem, tell stories of their own versions of Oklahoma. And the gorgeous Tulsa poetry of Markham Johnson will make you linger insideThis Land's pages.

"The Peterson's Field Guide to the Birds" and the Pushcart Nomination

Having a Pushcart nomination is not the same as pulling a prize out of a Cracker Jack box. It's not just Magnet Man or the tiny pinball machine with those little levers or the super-loud plastic whistle or even the compass, cowboy puzzle, or miniature playing cards. It's not "Oh, look!" and then chomping candied popcorn and peanuts. Nope. Not even close. 

To me, it's much more like waving to all your friends from the Mardi Gras float that's decorated in the theme of your nominated story. Think of the riders, all women, in flowered bathing caps from the late 1960's, throwing valium pills and martini olives instead of strands of glass beads to the crowds. The float itself would be papered in the thin blue airmail stationary and gold stars trimmed with navy and fastened on backgrounds of white surrounded in red. Mardi Gras floats all have titles, and this one's would be: "Good Boys and Gold Star Mothers." The parade would roll on a windy night, and later after the crowds had dispersed and gone on home, the street would be plastered in pages covered in wet blue ink, the Dear Moms and All my loves disappearing under the brooms of the clean-up crews.

And so, yes, this nomination is huge and weighted with honor. And I'm in awe, especially because of the work we all do as writers, to reach a moment like this, which is larger than life and acknowledges the work done. And this is a thank you to the editors at Nomos Review and all my family, friends, and fellow writers -- the most supportive and intensely generous crowd ever!

- an excerpt of "The Peterson's Field Guide to the Birds" -  from my novel-in-progress Sybelia Drive

Lost in the Woods

"For many readers, a happy ending is a requirement. I don't mean a simplistic happy ending, but one that's been earned - by hardship and mishap, by dedicated labor and determination and faith, by good character overcoming bad luck. My own tolerance for happy endings, however, is very low. I don't believe in them. I think this may explain why I approve of short stories, in general, more often than I do of novels. Novels tend toward the restored and offered world; they tend toward happiness, hard-earned and bittersweet as it may be, while short stories tend otherwise. They are less conclusive, less closed, less ordered and unchaotic." - Antonya Nelson - "Lost in the Woods" - The Writer's Notebook