Fox writes:

The style here is richly but delicately lyric, a web of resonating filaments. The risk of such writing is tenuousness, a failure to grasp the reader’s mind tightly enough to make a deep impression. But Berdeshevsky’s muscularity of observation and precision of detail override the risk. One brief example of that precision: two women in “Le Serveur” stroll “with a turquoise shared umbrella” – why those adjectives in that order? Wouldn’t we usually say “a shared turquoise umbrella”? But no, this isn’t a colorful umbrella, it’s a shared umbrella, made real by its color. The order is accurate.

And:

For some readers such perspective might seem a liability, as if only male writers are allowed a gender-oriented sensibility, as if a profound exploration of feminine experience belongs to a lesser literature. I remember a friend’s poetry workshop experience some years back in which the much-laurelled male poet running the show derided her poem about her mother’s death as too limited in subject matter, while extolling a male student’s verse about the shock of his first awareness of his father’s penis as “universal.” It’s time we got this straight. Women who write about women are no more parochial than men who write about men. Moby-Dick is about all of us; so is powerful work in which the perspective and characters are female. Some important knowledge is – or ought to be – just plain unisex. Berdeshevsky offers such important knowledge to anyone who will take it.

You can purchase the issue here and you can explore Berdeshevsky’s work further at her website.

Of her characters, Steinberg says:

I guess they risk being ridiculed, objectified, humiliated, unprotected, seen as “confessional,” seen as too girly, seen as stupid, seen as too provocative, seen as unimaginative. Same things the female author risks.

I didn’t answer the second part, I just realized. What is risky for a woman to say?

I don’t think it’s as much about subject matter, as it is about style. I think it’s risky to be direct.

Our next reading period opens August 15th, 2013. Matt Roberson will judge the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Contest. And we are pleased to announce that Sam Lipsyte will judge the 2013 Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize.

Michelle Richmond has won the FC2 Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize for her collection The Hero of Queens Boulevard and Other Stories. A special thanks to this year’s judge, Rikki Ducornet. The Doctorow prize includes publication by FC2 and $15,000.

Luke Goebel has won the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Contest for his collection Fourteen Stories None of Them are Yours. Goebel’s prize-winning manuscript was selected by Jeffrey DeShell. The Sukenick prize includes publication by FC2 and $1,500.

The 2013 prizes will open for submissions on August 15th. For more information please visit www.fc2.org.

FC2 is hosting two readings at this year’s AWP conference in Boston, and we’ll also be present at the conference book fair with recent/classic FC2 titles in tow.

FC2 On-Site Reading:

An FC2 Fiction Reading: a reading in anticipation of FC2’s forty-year anniversary in 2014. Participants include Kate Bernheimer, Sarah Blackman, Matt Kirkpatrick, Matthew Roberson, Joanna Ruocco, and Melanie Rae Thon, among others. When: Saturday, March 9. 12:00 pm. – 1:15 p.m. Where: Room 207, Level 2. Hynes Convention Center.

FC2 Off-Site Reading:

FC2 Innovative Fiction Prize Reading: FC2 presents winners of the Catherine Doctorow and Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prizes. Participants include Amelia Gray, Patrick Lawler, Joanna Ruocco, and Sarah Blackman. When: Wednesday, March 6. 7:00 p.m. Where: The Field Pub. 20 Prospect Street, Cambridge, MA 02139. www.thefieldpub.com.

And here are some select events featuring FC2 authors:

Modern Fairy Tales and Retellings. (Anjali Sachdeva, John Crowley, Kate Bernheimer, Kelly Link, Jane Yolen) When: Thursday, March 7. 9:00 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. Where: Room 107, Plaza Level.

A Cappella Zoo: A Reading of Magical Realism and Slipstream. (Laura Miller, Amelia Gray, Erin Stalcup, Mary Lou Buschi, Jack Kaulfus) When: Thursday, March 7. 9:00 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. Where: Room 203, Level 2.

Dancing about Architecture: Writing at the Intersection of Language, Art, and Music. (Michael Mejia, Gretchen Henderson, Katherine Whitcomb, Jeffrey DeShell, Debra di Blasi). When: Thursday, March 7. 10:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. Where: Room 201, Level 2.

Samuel R. Delany & Kit Reed: A Reading & Conversation, Sponsored by Wesleyan University Press. (Matthew Cheney, Kit Reed, Samuel R. Delany) When: Thursday, March 7. 3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. Where: Room 210, Level 2.

University of Massachusetts MFA Program for Poets and Writers Reading. (Sabina Murray, Peter Gizzi, Noy Holland, James Tate, Dara Wier) When: Thursday, March 7. 4:30 p.m. – 5:45 p.m. Where: Room 203, Level 2.

12 Good Readers (Jack Christian, Heather Christle, Amelia Gray, Ben Hersey, Dorothea Lasky, Ella Longpre, Scott McClanahan, Ariana Reines, Abraham Smith, Dana Ward, Carolyn Zaikowski) When: Thursday, March 7. 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. Where: Cantab Lounge. 738 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139.

Their Peculiar Ambitions: A Night of Presidential Fiction Readings at AWP! (Amelia Gray, Tara Laskowski, and others) When: Thursday, March 7. 8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. Where: The Sweetwater Tavern. 3 Boylston Place, Boston, MA 02116.

Post-Genre Lit: Form in the 21^st Century. (Lacy M. Johnson, Nick Flynn, Lidia Yuknavitch, Kazim Ali, Stephen Elliott) When: Friday, March 8. 9:00 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. Where: Room 103, Plaza Level.

Origins of Contemporary Fabulist Fiction. (Alta Ifland, Brian Evenson, Josip Novakovich, Peter, Grandbois, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum) When: Friday, March 8. 3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. Where: Room 310, Level 3.

The Literary Legacy of Andre Dubus. (Matthew Batt, Andre Dubus III, Melanie Rae Thon, Nancy Zafris, Bruce Machart) When: Friday, March 8. 4:30 p.m. – 5:45 p.m. Where: Room 102, Plaza Level.

Fairy Tale Review Table. The Yellow Issue, guest edited by Lily Hoang, is hot off the press and will available at the Fairy Tale Review Table (R22) at the AWP Conference Book Fair.

Margo Berdeshevsky has written a beautiful “Letter From Paris,” replete with stunning lyricism and photographs.

In Publisher’s Weekly, Susan Steinberg offers a defense of experimentation in art and literature: “What Happened To Experimental Writing?”

And, at Full Stop, Daniel Green wrote a wonderful review of Noy Holland’s most recent FC2 title, Swim For The Little One First.

One of my all-time favorite poets is Margo Berdeshevsky, a longtime figure on the literary, artistic, and dramatic scenes in the U.S. and abroad (she currently lives in Paris). Her latest book, Between Soul and Stone, is incredible. This may sound trite, but I can’t help but identify Berdeshevsky’s work as being like a gossamer web: intensely beautiful, painstakingly crafted into textually dense strands of poetic light. This is not an easy book to read. It demands, it rewards, every ounce of your reading attention. It is also deeply transformative. If nothing else, you’ll emerge from your reading with a more exalted sense of what beauty means in our lives. That someone can think, and write, like this is a gift to us all.

You can read Faatz’s entire list of favorites here. And don’t forget to check out Berdeshevsky’s Between Soul and Stone (Sheep Meadow Press) and and Beautiful Soon Enough (FC2).