Category: Giveaways

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The Perpetual Motion Machine by Brittany Ackerman — October giveaway

*** Winner selected! Congratulations to Melanie in Allegan, Mich.! ***

Growing up, I wished I had an older brother — The cool, reckless kind that took me along on his crazy adventures and introduced me to new, adult things I didn’t yet know about — and also the protective kind that took me under his wing and made sure nothing bad happened to me.

Those idealized yet contradictory qualities — Is it possible to find both in one brother? Desirable? That’s what I thought about while reading Brittany Ackerman’s brief memoir-in-essays, The Perpetual Motion Machine.

This book tells the story of Brittany and her older brother Skyler’s childhood — a fairly idyllic, placid upbringing, punctuated by sudden moments of crisis, like when the siblings’ mom goads young Skyler to ice skate faster and faster, until he crashes and busts up his face.

And then, of course, the kids start growing up. Skyler finds drugs and addiction, with Brittany following suit — except Brittany finds her way back while Skyler falls further into depression, repeatedly threatening suicide.

The Perpetual Motion Machine was the winner of the Red Hen Press 2017 Nonfiction Award, and comes out on Nov. 20, 2018! The Los Angeles launch reading happens at Book Soup on Dec. 7, 2018 — when I and Nicelle Davis will join Brittany to celebrate her new book. Hope to see you there!

I’m giving away a copy of The Perpetual Motion Machine to one of my readers! All current email subscribers will be automatically entered to win the copy. Subscribe now if you’re not yet getting my occasional newsletters. The giveaway closes Nov. 20, 2018 at 11:59 pm PST. US addresses only.

Come back later this month to read an interview with Brittany Ackerman.

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Coldwater Canyon by Anne-Marie Kinney — September giveaway

*** Winner selected! Congratulations to Ryan in San Diego, Calif.! *** 

A thing about Los Angeles: Even after you’ve lived in this metropolis for decades, there are areas that will remain entirely foreign to you — even while they feel vaguely familiar because you’ve driven through them a bunch of times. I can conjure up an image and aesthetic and stereotypes of many L.A. neighborhoods without having any real clear sense of what it might be like to live there.

Which is to say — If you’re curious about what it might be like to live in the valley, pick up Anne-Marie Kinney’s Coldwater Canyon. Of course, this novel describes one unique person’s  experience of the valley — Shep, a former Midwesterner who landed in Los Angeles after serving in Desert Storm, who suffers from Gulf War syndrome and lives off his disability checks while hanging out with a buddy at a liquor store and stalking a girl he believes to be his daughter.

Sleepy strip malls with failing stores that serve as fronts for shadier businesses, wide and empty sidewalks punctuated by the occasional grocery cart-pushing denizen, some mute and benign, others loud and frightening. Coldwater Canyon takes you all over Los Angeles, really, from a line of actors signing up to serve as extras on TV shows, to a tiny theater hosting an experimental theater piece, to a well-secured studio lot, guards running around with headpieces.

The novel comes out from Civil Coping Mechanisms on October 4, 2018, and I’m giving away a galley copy of Coldwater Canyon to one of my readers! All current email subscribers will be automatically entered to win the copy. Subscribe now if you’re not yet getting my occasional newsletters.

For a second chance to win, comment on this post below, recommending your favorite exit off the 101 — or any other freeway. The giveaway closes September 30, 2018 at 11:59 pm PST. US addresses only.

Come back later this month to read an interview with Anne-Marie Kinney.

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The Southern Review, Summer 2018 — August giveaway

*** Winner selected! Congratulations to Lauren in Los Angeles! ***

This month’s giveaway is a little different! Instead of a novel, I’m giving away a copy of the latest issue of The Southern Review — a fantastic literary journal that just happens to have a short story of mine in it.

It’s called “Alone or Someone Else,” and is about a girl who gets pregnant after a one-night stand with an action film star. Here is what one person on Twitter said about it:

If you were at the Hot Dish reading in Echo Park earlier this month, you heard me read the beginning of the story. This is what my poet friend Lauren tweeted after the reading.

Thanks Lauren! But you don’t even have to buy my book to read this story; you can just hope to win! All my current email subscribers will be automatically entered to win the copy of the journal. Subscribe now if you’re not yet getting my occasional newsletters.

For a second chance to win, comment on this post below, recommending a favorite short story you think I should read. The giveaway closes August 31, 2018 at 11:59 pm PST. US addresses only.

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Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong — July giveaway

*** Winner selected! Congratulations to Juli in Los Angeles! ***

Goodbye, Vitamin is one of those novels that sound super depressing when you read the back cover — but then ends up being funny and full of joy and love when you start turning the pages!

Which is to say — I realize the premise of Goodbye, Vitamin sounds bleak. Ruth, a 30-year-old who just got dumped by her fiance and feels lost and sad, moves back in with her parents in Los Angeles — partly to help her father who has Alzheimer’s, partly just to escape her life.

There’s wry humor, though, even in the melancholy moments. To help her dad cope with no longer being able to continue his job as a professor, Ruth conspires with one of his former students to organize a fake class. Through mischief, hilarious subversion, and a hell of a lot of maneuvering, and the pair manage to make the charade work — until they get busted.

In the end this novel is about family and connection — what keeps people together, how we’re able to forgive, why we make sacrifices for each other, what makes it all worth it.

Goodbye, Vitamin just came out in paperback — and thanks to Picador, I’m giving away a copy to one of my readers! All current email subscribers will be automatically entered to win the copy. Subscribe now if you’re not yet getting my occasional newsletters.

For a second chance to win, comment on this post below, naming your favorite vitamin. The giveaway closes July 31, 2018 at 11:59 pm PST. US addresses only.

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Catalina by Liska Jacobs — June 2018 giveaway

*** Winner selected! Congratulations to Jane in Beverly Hills, Calif.! ***

You know those times when you feel like you’ve totally fucked your life up — so you may as well fuck it up more? Give in to that impulse vicariously by reading Catalina.

Catalina stars Elsa, a thirty-something woman who leaves SoCal for NYC, has an affair with her boss at MoMA, and gets “downsized.” To recover from all that, she decides to return to LA for a weekend trip to Catalina with college friends — a group that includes her ex husband, his new girlfriend, a predatory and entitled rich guy, and some other problematic personalities. Throw a bunch of booze, pills, and random hook-ups into the mix and things get really dramatic and stressful on this vacation —

I’m giving away a copy of Catalina to one of my readers! All current email subscribers will be automatically entered to win the copy. Subscribe now if you’re not yet getting my occasional newsletters.

For a second chance to win, comment on this post below, recommending your favorite California getaway spot. The giveaway closes June 30, 2018 at 11:59 pm PST. US addresses only.

Come back mid-month to read an interview with Liska Jacobs.

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I’ll Tell You In Person by Chloe Caldwell — May 2018 giveaway

*** Winner selected! Congratulations to Janis in Columbus, OH! ***

What happens when you write a book of personal essays? A lot, apparently, according to Chloe Caldwell, who writes this about her first essay collection, Legs Get Led Astray: “I sometimes wonder what would have happened had I not published that essay collection, because almost all of my best friends, and everyone I’ve slept with since then, I met through that book.”

I haven’t read that book yet, but I read the above quote in Chloe’s most recent essay collection, I’ll Tell You In Person, which I loved. These essays are intimate and freewheeling and hilarious stories that run the gamut, from going to the homes of random craigslist guys who’ve agreed to buy her steak to snorting heroin to try and cope with really bad cystic acne.

It’s a book that kind of makes me want to try writing personal essays — except I still don’t get why you wouldn’t just meet the guys who’ve agreed to buy you steak at a steakhouse, which makes me think maybe I have too pragmatic a brain to write crazy essay collections like this one.

But I can’t wait to read the rest of Chloe’s books.

I’m giving away  a copy of  I’ll Tell You In Person to one of my readers! All current email subscribers will be automatically entered to win the copy. Subscribe now if you’re not yet getting my occasional newsletters.

For a second chance to win, comment on this post below, recommending a nonfiction book you like. The giveaway closes May 31, 2018 at 11:59 pm PST. US addresses only.

Come back mid-month to read an interview with Chloe Caldwell.