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From Whitney Collins, the award-winning author of Big Bad, come twenty-three new dark and derelict (and hilarious) tales about-you guessed it-love. With Ricky, Collins applies her sharp eye, black humor, and generous heart to love stories (and the stories we tell ourselves about love). Among the wacky, tacky, lovesick, and lovelorn characters are: Ilona, the misanthropic mother and unhappy fiancé who is increasingly transfixed by a rash of local shark attacks; Imogen, the sperm bank client who cultivates the love she madly desires inside herself; and Aurora Flood, the coma survivor on a mission to plant a sacred seed from the Olive Garden. Blending elements of southern gothic, speculative fiction, and horror, Ricky & Other Love Stories is political and personal, bitter and sweet: ultimately, a lot like love.
About the author
Whitney Collins is the author of BIG BAD, which won the 2019 Mary McCarthy Prize, a 2022 Gold IPPY, and a 2021 Bronze INDIES. Whitney earned a Distinguished Story by The Best American Short Stories 2022. She also won a 2020 Pushcart Prize, a 2020 Pushcart Special Mention, the 2020 American Short(er) Fiction Prize, and the 2021 ProForma Contest. Her stories have appeared in American Short Fiction, AGNI, The Idaho Review, Gulf Coast, The Pinch, Grist, The Best Small Fictions 2022, Tiny Nightmares: Very Short Tales of Horror (Catapult), and Fractured Literary Anthology 3, among others. She received her MFA from the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing and lives in Kentucky with her sons.
Summary
From Whitney Collins, the award-winning author of Big Bad, come twenty-three new dark and derelict (and hilarious) tales about—you guessed it—love.
With Ricky, Collins applies her sharp eye, black humor, and generous heart to love stories (and the stories we tell ourselves about love). Among the wacky, tacky, lovesick, and lovelorn characters are: Ilona, the misanthropic mother and unhappy fiancé who is increasingly transfixed by a rash of local shark attacks; Imogen, the sperm bank client who cultivates the love she madly desires inside herself; and Aurora Flood, the coma survivor on a mission to plant a sacred seed from the Olive Garden. Blending elements of southern gothic, speculative fiction, and horror, Ricky & Other Love Stories is political and personal, bitter and sweet: ultimately, a lot like love.
Foreword
- 7-city tour planning in Lexington, KY, Louisville, KY, St. Louis, MO, Memphis, TN, Lakeville, CT, Asheville, NC, and New York, NY (all of which Collins has connections to and in).
- Significant bound galley printing for booksellers and reviewers. Additional eGalley distribution to media, booksellers, and librarians through Edelweiss and targeted e-mailings.
- Co-op available
- National advertising targeting Poets & Writers and The Believer
- National print campaign targeting major trade and national publications, including Salon, HuffPost, and McSweeney’s, all of which Collins used to write for.
- Social media campaign
- eBook available at time of print publication
- Promotion through author website: http://www.whitneycollins.com/
