Sara Greenslit's voice

It was fitting earlier this month that, as we received the last entries for our 5th Starcherone Fiction Prize contest, a previous winner should show up in Buffalo for a reading of her work. Sara Greenslit won our 3rd contest, and her prizewinning novel, The Blue of Her Body, is now available from starcherone.com in advance of its official release in April.

The Blue of Her Body is summarized in four words on our website: LOVE LANGUAGE ANTIDEPRESSANTS FALCONRY.

That gives you an idea, but doesn't prepare you for the striking beauty of Greenslit's language as it scopes the territory of human suffering, hacks its way through the pharmaceutical thicket of attempting a cure, or engages the uncanny non-humanness of a large bird's talons and black eyes. As novelist Elizabeth Sheffield has said about The Blue of Her Body, “Language is a bird in this novel - at times warm, close, pulsing in the hand, at others flying, soaring in the space of the unsayable." Sara's reading, her first in several years as she finishes veterinary school at the University of Wisconsin, was powerful and evocative, playful and alert. But don't just take my word for it. Here's a link to a recording of Sara's recent reading at Medaille College in Buffalo. It's about 25 minutes long and tells better than I can what is so wonderful about her work.

A last word about our 2007-08 contest (#5) before I go. It's come in as our 2nd biggest ever, with 189 entrants. Some 20 of these took advantage of our book special in entering, purchasing our previous two contest winners' books (Sara's, plus Nina Shope's Hangings) at discount. Four straight years, running a blind competition, we have selected debut authors -- brand new voices -- an exciting and rewarding outcome for me personally. We hope our next winner makes us just as proud. Look for an announcement of the finalists on this site in early July, and for an announcement of the winner one month later, as selected by final judge Lance Olsen.