Announcement

Amy’s poetry chapbook, Advice from Household Gods, arrives in September 2008. It’s to be published by Longleaf Press.

Interviews

Bookslut interviews Amy.

[Kelly Spitzer] ‘Three Versions of the Truth’ was published by Press 53, a small press out of North Carolina. What made you decide to go with a small press for this collection, and what was it like working with the staff? Did they help you refine your collection in any way?

[Amy] The editors of Press 53 are alumni of Salem College, where I teach, so I was acquainted with them, and they asked to see the collection. The press allows authors’ input into the layout and cover of the books, which I appreciated. As far as editing goes, the editors made some small comments but pretty much took a hands-off approach as far as the manuscript itself.

A small press doesn’t have the kind of budget for advertising and promotion that a commercial press does, but I’ve known people who’ve fallen through the cracks at commercial publishers and have had to take on most of the promotion duties themselves, so I don’t think that working with a small press is necessarily a disadvantage in this area.

One thing that’s been kind of odd for me arises out of the fact of being an extremely regional writer living in an entirely different region of the country. Geographically, someone living in North Carolina would be a “Southern writer,” but, of course, I’m a Plains writer. While I was fortunate to get reviews in two of the local papers (Winston-Salem and Greensboro), the readers who’ve seemed most interested in the book are people in Nebraska. I try to do something to promote the book whenever I go back to Nebraska, but promotion might have been easier if I actually lived in Nebraska, where the potential readers are.

The Southeast Review has an interview with Amy. An excerpt from the interview–

Originally I was calling the collection Why We Are the Way We Are. She said that title sounded like several others she’d heard recently and suggested changing it Three Versions or Strange and Dangerous Things. I’d found that certain readers had trouble remembering the exact title “Why We Are the Way We Are” (they’d say, “Why We Are Who We Are” or “What We Do and Who We Are” or something like that), so I decided to go with Three Versions of the Truth. Thematically, I think it makes sense for the collection as a whole, since a concern with truth/untruth/fact arises in many of the stories: Who’s the father of the baby in “Dr. Faustus in Lincoln”? Who killed Custer in “Comanche’s Story”? How much of the Fanny story in “Transubstantiation” is “true”?

What Others Say About Three Versions of the Truth

The stories in Three Versions of the Truth have a sweep and range that is remarkable for a first collection–from heartbreaking historical accounts to hilarious tales of contemporary manners–while at the same time they are clearly part of a singular, cohesive vision. Amy Knox Brown imbues her world with a devilish sense of humor and a deep, intelligent compassion; hers is a unique and memorable new voice that readers will treasure.

—Dan Chaon, author of Among the Missing and You Remind Me of Me

Amy Knox Brown’s wonderful story collection, Three Versions of the Truth, is cause for celebration. She is a gifted writer with an incredible range in style and subject from a lonely man coming to terms with what’s missing in his life to a teenage girl witnessing all too closely her parents’ breakup, and many, many others in between. Her characters are alive and compelling; each story is a satisfying world to be entered and explored. Ms. Brown’s native Nebraskan landscape flourishes on these pages-descriptions you want to read slowly and then again-but so does the domestic landscape of each and every home she enters, and most importantly the emotional and psychological landscape as her characters find their way time and time again to a satisfying resolution. Amy Knox Brown is a very talented writer who blends beautiful lyrical passages with a sharp wit and great sense of humor.

—Jill McCorkle, author of Carolina Moon and Creatures of Habit

These beautifully written stories, haunted by the past, are imbued with such an almost palpable sense of Nebraska, but like all the best fiction set in a particular region, Three Versions of the Truth plumbs universal truths of the human condition. Alive with closely observed, memorable characters in wise stories that are by turn funny and lyrical, Three Versions of the Truth is an important debut.

—Angela Davis-Gardner, author of Plum Wine and Forms of Shelter

Amy Knox Brown’s fiction is as full of beauty and grit as the Great Plains where much of it is set. Historical figures come to life in Three Versions of the Truth-Sitting Bull, Custer, Charlie Starkweather-as do the folks living their lives outside the scope of history’s lens, those ordinary folks from the world we know, or thought we knew, before Brown turned it inside out with her sharp wit, her careful observing, and her need to know the truths of the human heart. These stories, finely crafted, are luminous. They leave us more alive than we ever dreamed we could be.

—Lee Martin, author of The Bright Forever

Book Tour

See Amy at Tuscany Organic Coffee House — January 17th @ 7:00 p.m.

Tuscany Organic Coffee House
2100 Cloverdale Ave.
Winston-Salem, NC
Contact: Kerry Heveroh (336) 721-110

More tour dates…