Out This Week

This week is a busy one over here at Unreliable Narrator headquarters. First, while it was scheduled for August, issue 56 of Fiction hit the stands this week. It features my story Casey, about a young man's relationship with a waitress during one Cape Cod summer. And just because I grew up on the Cape and worked as a prep cook in the summers as a kid does not mean this is an autobiographical piece...Mom.

Liz enjoying the issue:

Elsewhere, Becky Tuch over at the Review Review posted my review of the lit mag Inkwell to help celebrate her website redesign and launch. As a bonus, this issue of Inkwell features a story by E.B. Moore, who you may know from her affiliation with Beyond the Margins and Grub Street. Find out what I thought of her story.

Then, if you haven't yet read my new interview with Phil Beloin, Jr., click here to learn more about the inner workings of a crime fiction writer and his experiences publishing his first novel, The Big Bad.

Oh, and go order it from Amazon while you're at it. You can read an earlier interview I did with him on this blog here.

Writing Group Plug - Autumn Edition

Short notice (especially if you live on another continent), but tomorrow night get yourself over to Porter Square Books to hear novelist and poet E.B. Moore read from her latest book, New Eden. I've taken Grub classes with E.B., and earlier this year enjoyed the benefit of her calming, practical commentary during our writing group discussions. She's a wonderful reader, and she writes in a vivid, evocative, concise style.

Porter Square Books is located at the Porter Square Shopping Center, 25 White Street, Cambridge. Reading starts at 7 PM. Christine Tierney the opens the reading.

Writing Group Plugs

Two weeks ago the new book of poetry, New Eden, A Legacy, by E.B. Moore (which I had pre-ordered earlier this year), arrived in the mail. E.B. Moore is in my writing group, so it was a delight to receive a fellow writer’s work delivered to my condo’s doorstep (okay, mail room—no actual steps in front of my door).


Poet and novelist Ann Killough says, “New Eden is a wonder. The story of Moore’s great-grandmother’s disastrous 19th-century exodus West from her Old Order Amish community in Pennsylvania is detailed in a sequence of short poems and letters.” I’m familiar with Ms. Moore’s work as a novelist, as she has been working on a beautifully crafted, lyrical narrative that covers some of the same themes, locales, and time period as New Eden. I can’t wait to immerse myself back into her stories. She also designed the lovely cover image.

New Eden is published by Finishing Line Press, out of Kentucky. Get your copy while supplies last.

Upcoming Books

E.B. Moore is not the only writer in my group to come out with a book. Actually, two others are set to release novels in the coming year.

While its U.S. publication date is six months away, I figured it’s not too soon to tout Randy Susan-Meyers' The Murderer’s Daughters, to be published by St. Martin’s Press in January 2010.


The Murderer’s Daughters concerns two young girls who witness the murder of their mother at the hands of their father, and the effects of this act throughout their adult lives. Great hook. The book’s garnering a lot of interest in the publisher world. It's positioned to be a major hardcover next year and is also being published in France, Germany, Holland, Israel, and the UK. Can you say international book tour? Read my interview with Randy from this past March.

Pre-order it now!

Here’s the Dutch cover:


Then there's Iris Gomez’s novel, Try To Remember, to be published in May 2010 by Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Book Group). I’m relatively new to Iris’ work, but have been blown away by everything I've read. Her writing is lyrical, evocative, and honest.

Try To Remember is about a Colombian teenager living in the strangely evolving cosmopolis of 1970s Miami. She desperately tries to love her increasingly mentally ill father as he drives her family into poverty, and towards possible deportation. Another great hook. Keep an eye on amazon--the book should be available for pre-order later this year.

Here’s her cover:


Thanks to Iris for supplying me with her book's description, and to both Randy and Iris for supplying their cover images.