Circe's Bicycle

by Tara Campbell

“Circe’s Bicycle by Tara Campbell is a small wonder. Smart, funny, and thought-provoking, this book contains all the magic and surprise of a genie’s bottle. Open it up and you’d best be prepared to fly.” —Kathy Fish, author of Rift (with Robert Vaughan), Together We Can Bury It, & Wild Life “In this shapeshifter of a collection, poems melt off the page or morph into short stories, stories start off as one thing and wind up quite another, teeth march down streets and women are abducted by giant bees and secreted away to hidden islands. A playfully constructed collection that delivers real emotion in an often strangely wrapped package.” —Dave Housley, author of Massive Cleansing Fire, If I Knew the Way I Would Take You Home, & Commercial Fiction “A journey into the fantastic, the whimsical, and the what-if, Campbell’s writings constantly surprise and delight.” —Tara Laskowski, author of Bystanders (winner of the Balcones Fiction Prize) & Modern Manners for your Inner Demons “From her first microfiction piece, ‘Monkey Roast,’ I knew I was in for something special. Tara Campbell brings a unique magic to her work, not just in words but in form. She keeps the reader anticipating, ‘What next? What next?’ A must read.” —Gay Degani, author of Rattle of Want, What Came Before, & Pomegranate Stories

Genres: Poetry

52 pages, Paperback

Published March 12, 2018

About the author

Bio: Tara Campbell is an award-winning writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University's MFA in Creative Writing. Publication credits include Masters Review, Wigleaf, Electric Literature, CRAFT Literary, Uncharted Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, and Escape Pod/Artemis Rising.

She's the author of the eco sci-fi novel TreeVolution, two hybrid collections of poetry and prose, and two short story collections from feminist sci-fi publisher Aqueduct Press. Her sixth book, City of Dancing Gargoyles (SFWP), is a finalist for the 2025 Philip K. Dick Award and is on Reactor Magazine’s “Best Books of 2024” list and Locus Magazine's 2024 Recommended Reading List.

She teaches creative writing at venues such as Johns Hopkins University, Clarion West, The Writer's Center, and Hugo House. Find her at www.taracampbell.com

Reviews

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Circe's Bicycle by Tara Campbell is a small wonder. Smart, funny, and thought-provoking, this book contains all the magic and surprise of a genie's bottle. Open it up and you'd best be prepared to fly."

[Caroline Bock · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gem—a short wonder of surreal, fantastical, tender poetry and flash and short stories—Circe's Bicycle— is a book where mermaid's smoke cigarettes and lure us in, and where author Tara Campbell answers where words go. If you are looking at the "hybrid" collections—how writers put together collections of poetry, flash and short stories, this book is worth reading. I'll also add that Tara is a fellow DC writer, a talented one, and I like to support local writers, do you? If you are from the DMV area, a writer, or an enthusiast of experimental writing, this is worth it—

Read on! TGIF!
Caroline

[Marlena Chertock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tara Campbell is a master of the eerie. Her speculative flash draw you in and is so believable, even when mermaids are swimming in lakes and moths are transforming into bees. She's able to move from poem to story, effortlessly, eloquently. Read this collection -- then read it again, because speculative fiction is meant to be enjoyed more than once.

[Vonetta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Same as with TreeVolution, Campbell can get me to read and enjoy genres I usually wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. In that book, it was sci-fi; in Circe’s Bicycle, it was poetry and off-beat flash fiction that sucked me in and kept me going, page after page. I wish it was longer!

[Roger Bradbury · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful stories and poems, especially "We Are Twenty-Six." I met Tara at the Louden County Book Festival. We traded our efforts to write light fantasy. I hope she enjoyed mine as much as I did hers.

[Raima Larter · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of weird and fanciful tales and poems. A quick read, full of great writing by a very skilled author! Check out this latest offering by the extremely talented Tara Campbell.

[Gabby Gilliam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Freedom Bras was by far my favorite piece. I enjoyed the poetry more than the hybrid/flash fiction pieces.