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The purpose of this meme is to share a book we have really enjoyed or loved reading, whether a recent one or whether we read it way back when. A book WE think you should perhaps add to your reading list. It’s fun, and I know there are loads of awesome books out there we are all missing out on. Sharing is Caring!
To Begin Again
Vic Fortezza
Jen Knox is the author of Musical Chairs and To Begin Again (2011 Next Generation Indie Book Awards winner, short stories and Readers Favorite Award for Women's Fiction). In May of 2011, she won the Global Short Story Award. In 2012, her short story Types of Circus was chosen as one of Wigleaf's Top 50.
Jen earned her MFA from Bennington's Writing Seminars. She works as a creative writing professor at San Antonio College and is a mentor for PEN American Center's Prison Writing Program. For four years, she served as a fiction editor at Our Stories Literary Journal.
Some of Jen's short stories and essays have been published or are forthcoming in Annalemma Magazine, Bartleby Snopes, Black Fox, Eclectic Flash, Flashquake, Foundling Review, Fwriction, Gargoyle, The Global Short Story Competition, Houston Literary Journal, Long Story Short, Metazen, Midwest Literary Magazine, Narrative Magazine, PANK, Pure Slush, Ramshackle Review, Short Story America, Slow Trains, SLAB, Superstition Review, and THRUSH.
Book club information and updates about Jen's work can be found at: http://www.jenknox.com/
The best literature is that which gets life right. This is the case with Jen Knox's story collection, To Begin Again. She is a young author with keen insight into the human condition. She is plumbing her psyche for meaning, one that unites all humanity. She seems to be hunting, searching for the literary holy grail -- the elusive great American novel that resides deep within everyone. Are the stories fiction, non-fiction? It doesn't matter. They ring with universal truths. Three pieces in particular demonstrate the author's prowess. Each deals with the aged. In Absurd Hunger, a man in a mental facility is encouraged by a doctor to write letters to his dead wife, which he at first believes is idiotic. In Solitary Value, two words shouted by a taciturn old woman create intrigue among the residents of an old age home. The final story, Disengaged, poignantly captures the fragmenting mind of a 92-year-old woman, especially in her remembrance of a wounded hand. It is heart-breaking and chilling. I would have rated the book higher if not for the occasional error: pedals rather than petals, mediation rather than meditation; failure to eliminate the original word after a change, i.e., recommended/ran. Readers should not be deterred by this. Even best sellers have them.
I had the privilege of hearing Miss Knox read at the KGB Bar in Manhattan. I will cherish the signed copy I purchased. She is a rising star and All Things That Matter Press is to be commended for putting her work into print.
I had the privilege of hearing Miss Knox read at the KGB Bar in Manhattan. I will cherish the signed copy I purchased. She is a rising star and All Things That Matter Press is to be commended for putting her work into print.
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