Epistolary, the Art of Letters (Anthology)

Epistolary: the Art of Letters (anthology) via Porkbelly Press & Sugared Water (limited edition)

Epistolary is a 60 page anthology in limited edition (125). The cover art is a collage of gouache, tissue, ink, and paper. The binding is sewn by hand with heavy thread. | $9.50

the special edition anthology: a sweet treat

Epistolary is a special edition outside of the regular submission period & subscription. We asked for the “intimate and specific, letters full of evocative language, short, funny notes, or passionate remembrances,” fictional or poetic, unsent or scrawled on a postcard, inspired by a submission to Sugared Water that we just couldn’t refuse (see: “Morocco Mon Amour”).

Some of the snippets you’ll read are true, some invented, but all are intended for some kind of audience. It’s a little bit like sneaking a look inside someone’s journal, or wandering through a garden of secrets.

The art of letter writing is one that’s fallen out of fashion, and it’s with a nod to just this sort of archaic (or nostalgic!) practice that we bind by hand and produce our magazine in limited edition. We adore the physicality of a book you can hold in your hands, hand to a stranger, or gift to a loved one. We want you to secret us away or post us across an ocean—carry us. This edition is our fond epistle to you, dear reader.

XO,

Sugared Water
& Porkbelly Press

Contributors

Lori Brack, Marilyn Cavicchia, Emily Rose Cole, Kelly DuMar, Ruth Foley, Karen George, Mary Hammerbeck, Barbara Harroun, Joy KMT, Ross Losapio, Fayroze Lutta, Sarah McCartt-Jackson, Meredith McDonough, Lisa Megraw, P. Andrew Miller, Joe Nicholas, Julia Park Tracey (& Doris), Jonathan Travelstead, & Meg Tuite.

Love Letter to Biology 250, Chella Courington

Love Letter to Biology 250 (Chella Courington)

Love Letter to Biology 250 is a chapbook of micro fictions by Chella Courington. This manuscript pinged our nerd-brains when we first read it, flirting with obscure tidbits from Biology lectures—those things we remember because they’re strange—crafted into really tiny stories. | $7 open edition cover

The cover is printed on Epson matte professional paper, each trimmed and bound by hand, finished with a hand-cut title flag typed (old school!) on kraft brown paper. The artwork, “Jelly Flyby,” is watercolor+ink on paper (9 x 12 inches) by Jonathan Rountree, one of our in-house artists.

Excerpt from “Preferring a Clean Virgin:”

The male dark fishing spider climbs her Amazonian body, his legs under a third her size, her abdomen mountainous, fourteen times heavier than his, and he rocks her, side to side, his pedipalps engorged until the blood pushes too hard against arterial walls, curling him against her. Stuck to her, he’s consumed by her. The number and size of their offspring increased by his sacrifice.

What others are saying about Love Letter:

“This collection is a work of freshness that is always surprising and never disappointing. Courington manages to do fascinating things with common images and she gives those images new life in a pleasing and sometimes disturbing oblique sort of light. Her terse, intense, and honest stories are presented in an earthy narrative voice in language full of longing and desire. These stories are both playful and provocative and can leave a reader almost breathless at times. Combined, the stories make up witty but also quite serious and worthwhile explorations.” —Pamelyn Casto, editor of Flash Fiction Flash Newsletter

“Like a scientist in her laboratory, Chella Courington is careful and precise as she dissects the specimens before her. But Courington’s prose, like her eye, is enveloping, passionate yet also crystalline, hard and clean and clear, rewarding the discerning reader with these multifaceted gems.” —Robin Lippincott, author of In the Meantime

About the Author

Chella Courington is Professor of Creative Writing at Santa Barbara City College. Her prose and poetry have appeared in numerous journals including The Los Angeles Review, lo-ball magazine, Gargoyle, The Tusculum Review, and Danse Macabre. In 2011 Courington published Paper Covers Rock, a flipbook of lined poetry, Indigo Press; Girls & Women, a chapbook of prose poetry, Burning River; and Talking Did Not Come Easily to Diana, an e-book of linked microfiction, Musa Publishing. Her work has been honored by Camroc Press Review, The Collagist, Qarrtsiluni, and Main Street Rag, and nominated for Best of the Net and Best New Poets Anthologies.

About the Cover Artist:

Jonathan Rountree (BFA Studio Art, Northern Kentucky University) is an aspiring world-traveler seeking to explore the intricacies of this realm armed with clay, camera, canvas, and paper.