Amy Lee Lillard's Blog, page 4
May 21, 2024
Out today! Exile in Guyville
Exile in Guyville is now avaiable at all your favorite bookstores!
Exile in Guyville is the winner of the 2022 BOA Editions Short Fiction Prize.
Chelsea G. Hunters, author of A Certain Hunger, says: “Exile in Guyville takes you on a deeply poetic journey of women in exile. Women out of time, women out of place, women out of their minds, and women out of luck leap from this haunting, beautiful, slender short story collection that stays with you long after you close the book. This is a terrific collection of sneakily powerful writing and an unfettered, wild imagination.”
Gwen E. Kirby, author of Shit Cassandra Saw, says: “This collection is explosive and inventive, balancing humor and horror as each story explores the ways in which women’s identities are built, broken, and rebuilt. I would happily be exiled with these complicated, stubborn, fierce, indomitable women!”
May 15, 2024
Book Events!
Join me at some wonderful independent bookstores for these events!
May 20, Virtual
Writers and Books (NY)
In conversation with BOA Editions Publisher and Executive Director Peter Conners.
June 5, In-Person
Beaverdale Books (Des Moines, IA)
In conversation with Erin Johnston (Broads and Books Productions)
July 11, In-Person
Prairie Lights (Iowa City, IA)
In conversation with Erin Johnston (Broads and Books Productions)
April 29, 2024
New Review in Miracle Monocle for Exile in Guyville
Miracle Monocle, the excellent literary magazine from the University of Louisville, has given Exile in Guyville a rousing review:
"Exile In Guyville is not only a triumph within Lillard’s catalog, but it's also some of the best work I’ve read in years. It tactfully balances its gut-wrenching traumatic narratives and deeply nuanced characters on the thin line between eventual reality and speculative fiction. At every turn, Lillard provoked constructive thought and continuously challenged me to wrangle with the dark nature of the stories while somehow also keeping things infinitely entertaining."
The collection is available May 21. Pre-order now!
March 12, 2024
Starred Review in Foreward for Exile in Guyville
Exile in Guyville has earned a starred review from Foreward Reviews!
"Within its compact length of six stories, Amy Lee Lillard’s collection Exile in Guyville packs a major punch with its hard-hitting science fiction that centers women’s perspectives. Sometimes darkly humorous and sometimes just plain dark, it troubles what-if scenarios in stylish, visceral, and often witty prose...Confronting sinister implications and flirting with horror, the short stories in Exile in Guyville are intense and cathartic
as their women struggle against the ever-present combination of technology and subjugation."
The collection is available May 21. Pre-order now!
March 7, 2024
Starred Review in Publisher's Weekly for Exile in Guyville
Exile in Guyville has earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly!
"Each of these six enthralling speculative shorts from Lillard (Dig Me Out) explores female agency to powerful effect. Several offer dark views of the future. Women are imprisoned and subjugated in both “Blackbird,” set in a gendered internment camp, and in the title story, about living women who are displayed in a museum and the new curator determined to effect change from within. The heroine of “Typical Girls” is implanted with an oppressive AI companion marketed as a tool to improve women’s lives. “Corporeal” explores the idea of alternate realities and alternate selves, while the quiet “Wintersong” delves into the dissolution of a relationship. The final story, “Things You Say,” sends the collection out on a slightly more hopeful note, showing women reclaiming their agency, inspired by their Riot Grrrl idols. Brief but mighty, this packs a hefty punch."
The collection is available May 21. Pre-order now!
Starred Review for Exile in Guyville
Exile in Guyville has earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly!
"Each of these six enthralling speculative shorts from Lillard (Dig Me Out) explores female agency to powerful effect. Several offer dark views of the future. Women are imprisoned and subjugated in both “Blackbird,” set in a gendered internment camp, and in the title story, about living women who are displayed in a museum and the new curator determined to effect change from within. The heroine of “Typical Girls” is implanted with an oppressive AI companion marketed as a tool to improve women’s lives. “Corporeal” explores the idea of alternate realities and alternate selves, while the quiet “Wintersong” delves into the dissolution of a relationship. The final story, “Things You Say,” sends the collection out on a slightly more hopeful note, showing women reclaiming their agency, inspired by their Riot Grrrl idols. Brief but mighty, this packs a hefty punch."
The collection is available May 21. Pre-order now!
February 16, 2024
Coming this summer: Midwest Weird
This summer, we at Broads and Books Productions are launching Midwest Weird, an audio literary magazine featuring weird fiction and nonfiction by Midwestern writers.
Whether it's surreal fiction, strange nonfiction, or everything weird in between, Midwest Weird is the podcast home for stories that stick with you.
Submit your work!
Do you write strange stories? Do you know someone who does?
We’re looking for weird work from writers based in the Midwest. We’re especially looking for work from writers who are women or nonbinary, part of the LGBTQ, BIPOC, and disabled communities, and/or other underrepresented writers.
We’re also looking for writers who are excited about creating audio versions of their work. Midwest Weird is expanding the notion of a literary magazine, and what creators of today can do.
Learn more at MidwestWeird.com.
Stay up to date
Want to be the first to know when Midwest Weird launches? Sign up at MidwestWeird.com for updates!
What else you got?
Check out Broads and Books Productions for more podcasts. And check out my other work, including two books coming out this year!
January 10, 2024
Available Now: Wyrd Woman Podcast
Now available: All episodes of the audio drama and fiction podcast Wyrd Woman!
What is Wyrd Woman?
Wyrd Woman is a fiction podcast from Broads and Books Productions. The show is written, produced, and performed by me. All nine episodes are out now!
What's it about?
When an isolated woman starts recording her dreams of strange women, things get weird. Over nine nights, reality becomes fantasy, past and future meld, and fate binds and beckons.
Why are these women – old, broken, unnatural, mad, and ugly – appearing in her dreams? Why must difference always mean danger? And what happens when these women come together, connecting across time and space as worlds die?
How do I listen?
Listen to all nine episodes of Wyrd Woman for free at:
The player below Wyrd Woman Podcast website Apple Podcasts Spotify ...or your favorite podcast playerI'm hooked; now what?
Like the show? Tell a weird friend. And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or another podcast player, be sure to rate the show. If you're really digging it, write a short review. Soon, all the weirdos will feel the love!
What else you got?
Check out Broads and Books Productions for more podcasts. And check out my other work, including two books coming out this year!
December 15, 2023
New Excerpt: I Am Not a Woman I'm a God (Shenandoah Literary)
I'm currently submitting a novel to presses, a novel about chosen families, aging and mortality, and the meld of fiction and reality. And Shenandoah Literary Magazine has published an excerpt!
Read an excerpt from I Am Not a Woman I'm a God (Shenandoah Literary Magazine)
December 6, 2023
Pre-order now! A Grotesque Animal
You can now pre-order A Grotesque Animal at all your favorite bookstores!
Melissa Faliveno, author of Tomboyland, says: “"This is a book that bares both teeth and soul. A bold and unabashed call to name our stories and ourselves, to take off the masks we’ve been taught to wear and live without shame. A book for the weird women—the queer women, the disabled women, the childfree and witchy women, who resist and refuse the narratives they’re given about what their bodies should be, who write their own stories, and who claim a new language for their lives."
Stay tuned for more!
