Skinny Dipping In The Lake Of The Dead

Surprising and funny debut collection from a multi-talented Midwest author.

When Minnesota is invaded by warriors from the ancient world, sixteen-year-old Macy and her family head down the Mississippi by boat to escape from the encroaching madness.

Insightful, beautifully written debut collection.

“A gothic and elegant page-turner.”—The Boston Globe Twenty years ago, Jane Hudson fled the Heart Lake School for Girls in the Adirondacks after a terrible tragedy. The week before her graduation, in that sheltered wonderland, three lives were taken, all victims of suicide. Only Jane was left to carry the burden of a mystery that has stayed hidden in the depths of Heart Lake for more than two decades. Now Jane has returned to the school as a Latin teacher, recently separated and hoping to make a fresh start with her young daughter. But ominous messages from the past dredge up forgotten memories. And young, troubled girls are beginning to die again–as piece by piece the shattering truth slowly floats to the surface. . . .

“Delightful . . . A treat for dictionary hounds and vocabulary-challenged word lovers everywhere.”—Booklist For most of us, these prizewinning spelling bee words would be difficult to pronounce, let alone spell. We asked twenty-one of today’s most talented and inventive writers to go even further and pen an original tale inspired by one of dozens of obscure and fascinating championship words. The result is Logorrhea—a veritable dictionary of the weird, the fantastic, the haunting, and the indefinable that will have you spellbound from the very first page. Including twenty-one stories and the inscrutable words that inspired them: Chiaroscuro: “The Chiaroscurist” by Hal Duncan Lyceum: “Lyceum” by Liz Williams Vivisepulture: “Vivisepulture” by David Prill Eczema: “Eczema” by Clare Dudman Sacrilege, Semaphore: “Semaphore” by Alex Irvine Smaragdine: “The Smaragdine Knot” by Marly Youmans Insouciant: “A Portrait in Ivory” by Michael Moorcock Cambist: “The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics” by Daniel Abraham Logorrhea: “Logorrhea” by Michelle Richmond Pococurante: “Pococurante” by Anna Tambour Autochthonous: “From Around Here” by Tim Pratt Vignette: “Vignette” by Elizabeth Hand Sycophant: “Plight of the Sycophant” by Alan DeNiro Elegiacal: “The Last Elegy” by Matthew Cheney Eudaemonic: “Eudaemonic” by Jay Caselberg Macerate: “Softer” by Paolo Bacigalupi Transept: “Crossing the Seven” by Jay Lake Psoriasis: “Tsuris” by Leslie What Euonym: “The Euonymist” by Neil Williamson Dulcimer: “Singing of Mount Abora” by Theodora Goss Appoggiatura: “Appoggiatura” by Jeff VanderMeer “This book is a logophile’s dream—a left-field collection of stories inspired by winning words from the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Anyone who has ever spent an hour or two happily browsing the pages of a dictionary will find something to love here.”—Kevin Brockmeier, author of A Brief History of the Dead

Kent doesn't believe in monsters. But he knows he saw two gleaming yellow eyes beneath the surface of Cedar Lake when he and his buddies were camping at the lake. When he sneaks out alone a few nights later to investigate, the eyes return -- and they seem to be following him. Kent and his friends are determined to solve the mystery of the Cedar Lake monster. But what they discover one dark summer night is just as surprising as a monster -- and just as dangerous.

The year's darkest tales of terror Here is the latest edition of the world's premier annual showcase of horror and dark fantasy fiction. It features some of the very best short stories and novellas by today's masters of the macabre - including Neil Gaiman, Brian Keene, Elizabeth Massie, Glen Hirshberg, Peter Atkins and Tanith Lee. The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror also features the most comprehensive yearly overview of horror around the world, lists of useful contact addresses and a fascinating necrology. It is the one book that is required reading for every fan of macabre fiction.

Ever idiosyncratic, Fence evades the tedium of the decade with this anthology, co-edited by all thirteen of Fence's editors, past and present, including founding editor Rebecca Wolff and current coeditor Charles Valle; fiction edits Jonathan Lethem, Ben Marcus, and Lynne Tillman; poetry editors Caroline Crumpacker, Anthony Hawley, Katy Lederer, Matthew Rohrer, Christopher Stackhouse, and Max Winter; and nonfiction editors Frances Richard and Jazon Zuzga. In addition to presenting a stunningly eclectic compendium of poetry, short fiction, criticism, and creative nonfiction, much of it by younger writers who appeared in Fence at the beginning of careers that went on to be dazzling, this volume includes reflective essays by editors on their experiences with selected texts, with authors, with the magazine as a collective, and with their own editorial identities, and serves as an indispensable record of the inception and continuation of one of the most influential literary journals of its time.