The Fam Roundup: December 2020

Though we may be excited to put 2020 behind us, we can’t let it go without first celebrating all the amazing accomplishments our contributors and staff achieved in December!

Books

• Meghan Phillips’ chapbook Abstinence Only is now available from Barrelhouse

• Jason B. Crawford’s first full-length collection will be published by Sundress Publications

• K-Ming Chang’s short story collection Resident Aliens will be published by One World Literary

• Sara Lippmann’s collection Doll House will be re-released by 7.13 Books

• Alina Stefanescu’s manuscript dôr has won the 2021 Wandering Aengus Press Book Award and will be published later this year

• Anna Vangala Jones’ debut collection Turmeric and Sugar will be published by Thirty West Publishing House

Publications, Interviews, and Reviews

• Kathy Fish’s story “Bear Walks into a Bar” won Copper Nickel’s Editors’ Prize

• Michelle Ross’ story “Confession” found a home in Pithead Chapel

  • Her piece “The Special” was published in Tiny Molecules

• Pithead Chapel published C.C. Russell’s piece “Imaging”

• Kristine Langley Mahler’s piece “Shadowbox” was published in Pithead Chapel

  • Speculative Nonfiction published her piece “Out Line: A Proposal that Won’t Be Accepted”

  • She has work in the latest print issue of CutBank

• Meghan Phillips’ poem “Five Months Pregnant, I Trip on a Sidewalk in DC” appeared in Autofocus

• Poetry editor William Fargason was interviewed in Diode

  • His poems “Notes on Depression” and “Nesting” found a home in Under a Warm Green Linden

  • Valparaiso Poetry Review published his poem “On Dishes and My Father”

• Davon Loeb’s piece “When Steve Urkel Played Soccer” appeared in CRAFT

  • His essay “Retirement” was published in Porcupine Literary

• Elisa Gabbert’s poem “The Idea of Beginning” was published in Sporklet

  • Her piece “How Poets Use Punctuation as a Superpower and a Secret Weapon” appeared in The New York Times

• K.C. Mead-Brewer’s story “The Hidden People” won CutBank’s Montana Prize in Fiction

  • Her story “Another Morning” was published in Fractured Lit

• Raven Leilani was profiled in Vogue UK

• Amorak Huey had two poems published in the latest print issue of Barstow & Grand

  • The Rumpus published three of his poems

• Sudha Balagopal’s story “Ganges, 1975” found a home in The Sunlight Press

  • The Daily Drunk published her piece “Transcript: Call Center Interaction with Customer #2137”

• Former contributing editor Christopher Gonzalez’s story “And Another And Another And Another Glass of Rosé” appeared in Catapult

  • He described his year in reading in The Millions

• Whale Road Review published Cathy Ulrich’s piece “And I Still Remember How Your Hands Were So Much Larger Than Mine”

  • Two of her pieces appeared in Omelette Mag

  • “You Were Always Coming Home” was published in EX/POST

• Devin Kelly’s piece “Self Care in the Land of A Thousand Horses” found a home in Hobart After Dark

• Tommy Dean’s story “We Knew She’d Become a Stranger” was published in Bending Genres

• Megan Giddings wrote about her year in reading for The Millions

• Jennifer Wortman’s story “Jumping the Shark” appeared in Okay Donkey

• Lunch Ticket published K-Ming Chang’s story “Nagano”

  • Her pieces “Eating Pussy” and “Homophones” were published in New Delta Review

  • She was interviewed in Honey Literary and Hazlitt

• Tabitha Blankenbiller’s essay “Nightmares Before Christmas” found a home in The Rumpus

• Claire Rudy Foster’s short story “Girl with a Pearl Earring” is now available for pre-order from Interlude Press

  • Their piece “La Baleine” appeared in Cleaver Magazine

  • They interviewed Polly Hall for Foreword Reviews

• Rejection Letters published Dave Housley’s story “Skunk”

• Six poems by Todd Dillard appeared in ucity review

• Assistant fiction editor Anna Cabe’s piece “Feel Better in a Flash” found a home in Slate

• Brandon Taylor’s piece “Is Taylor Swift the World’s Most Powerful Psychic” was published in The Cut

  • The Cut also published his piece “All the Time I Wasted Trying to Please Indifferent Men”

• Pidgeonholes published Sara Lippmann’s “Lessons from a Distance: On Obsession and Time and Imperative”

• Editorial assistant Daniel Garcia’s piece “Endlessly” found a home in So to Speak

• Flash reader Janelle M. Williams’ story “A Sam Cooke Affair” was published in Shenandoah

• Bluestem Magazine published a series of micros by Scott Garson

• Steven Duong’s poem “The Ape God Addresses Mononoke” appeared in Hobart After Dark

  • AGNI published his poem “Ode to Playboi Carti in the Year of the Dog,” as well as an interview

• Meg Pokrass’ piece “Bob is Gone, a Garden Gnome Mystery Story” found a home in New Flash Fiction Review

  • X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine published her piece “Before the Father/Daughter Jailhouse Dance”

  • Tiny Molecules published her piece “Broken Ride”

• Gabrielle Griffis’ flash “The Botanist” appeared in Wigleaf

• The Rupture published Erin Slaughter’s piece “Crescendo”

• Ariel Francisco’s book A Sinking Ship is Still a Ship was reviewed in The Rupture

• David Byron Queen’s story “Mercy” was published in New World Writing

  • His flash “Experts” was published by Okay Donkey

• Kim Magowan’s piece “Cancel Culture” appeared in the latest issue of Atlas and Alice

  • Her micro “Holy Ghost” appeared in Tiny Molecules

• No Contact published Chloe N. Clark’s piece “Supernova”

• Fiction reader Janelle Bassett’s story “Less Cheek, More Throat” was published in No Contact

  • Her story “You With You” found a home in SmokeLong Quarterly

• Fiction reader Exodus Oktavia Brownlow’s essay “When the World Was Ending, We Wore the Cornrows. We Twisted Our Coils, and We Waited” was published by Hobart

• Mandana Chaffa’s review of Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s book World of Wonders was published in the latest print issue of Rain Taxi Review

• Contributing editor Tyrese Coleman interviewed Ijeoma Oluo for Electric Literature

• Wigleaf published Ellen Rhudy’s flash “Parallels”

• Flash contest judge Bryan Washington’s story “Katy” appeared in The Guardian

  • His piece “My Year in Takeout Orders” was published in The New Yorker

• Alina Stefanescu’s essay “Awl” found a home in World Literature Today

• W. Todd Kaneko had work published in the latest print issue of Poetry Northwest

• Tyler Barton and Erin Dorney’s list “Meet 2020’s Most Nonessential Santas” appeared in Hobart

• Hobart published Sarah Fawn Montgomery’s essay “Hug Your Mad”

Awards, Honors, and News

• K-Ming Chang, Leesa Cross-Smith, Bryan Washington, Nate Marshall, Raven Leilani, Brandon Taylor, Chloe N. Clark, Amber Sparks, and Megan Giddings all made NPR’s Best Books of 2020 list

• Gina Chung’s story “Commute” was first runner-up in Los Angeles Review’s Short Fiction Contest

• Gina Chung was a finalist for Black Warrior Review’s 2020 Flash Contest

• torrin a. greathouse was the runner-up for Black Warrior Review’s 2020 Poetry Contest

• Elisa Gabbert made Electric Literature’s Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2020 list

• Raven Leilani, Brandon Taylor, and Bryan Washington made Electric Literature’s Favorite Novels of 2020 list

• Mary South, Amber Sparks, and Julian K. Jarboe made Electric Literature’ Favorite Short Story Collections of 2020 list

• Raven Leilani and Brandon Taylor made The Guardian’s Best Books of 2020 list

• Raven Leilani and Ilana Masad made InStyle’s Best Books of 2020 List

• Raven Leilani won The Center for Fiction’s 2020 First Novel Prize for Luster

• Raven Leilani’s Luster has been longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the PEN/Hemingway Debut Novel Award

• Mary South’s You Will Never Be Forgotten has been longlisted for the PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection

• Melissa Wiley’s Skull Cathedral: A Vestigial Anatomy has been longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Speilvogel Award for the Art of the Essay

• Raven Leilani’s Luster made Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2020 list

• Raven Leilani, Mary South, and Julian K. Jarboe made Literary Hub’s 65 Favorite Books of the Year list

• Mary South and Leesa Cross-Smith made Largehearted Boy’s Favorite Short Story Collections of 2020 list

• Former poetry editor Marianne Chan and Nate Marshall made Largehearted Boy’s Favorite Poetry Collections of 2020 list

• Former poetry editor Marianne Chan’s collection All Heathens was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle’s 2020 Leonard Prize

• Jules Hogan was one of the winners of Pithead Chapel’s 2020 Larry Brown Short Story Award

• Tyler Barton won The Southampton Review’s 2021 Short Fiction Prize, and Tommy Dean was a finalist

• Megan Giddings made Vulture’s 10 Best Books of 2020 list

• Flash reader Jules Archer, Chloe N. Clark, and Todd Dillard made Independent Book Review’s 32 Impressive Indie Press Books from 2020 list

• Flash reader Jules Archer is judging Thirty West’s Fifth Annual Chapbook Contest, deadline 3/12

• K-Ming Chang and Julian K. Jarboe made Autostraddle’s 67 of the Best Queer Books of 2020 list

• Memoir editor Krys Malcolm-Belc, Marcos Gonsalez, Threa Almontaser, Courtney Cook, Elizabeth Gonzalez James, Cortney Lamar Charleston and Leesa Cross-Smith made The Rumpus’ “What to Read When 2021 is Just Around the Corner”

• Nefertiti Asanti, Marie Baleo, and Erin Slaughter have been longlisted for PANK’s Book Contest

• Leesa Cross-Smith was longlisted for the 2021 Joyce Carol Oates Prize

• Brandon Taylor’s novel Real Life is to be adapted into a film by Kid Cudi

• Brandon Taylor’s Real Life is the Foyles Fiction Book of 2020

• Brandon Taylor made LGBTQ Reads and Time’s Most Anticipated Books of 2021 lists

• Assistant flash editor Eshani Surya was a semifinalist for the 2021 Key West Literary Seminar’s Marianne Russo Award for novel in-progress