Sarah Court and The Hair Wreath and Other Stories Now Available

Sarah Court by Craig Davidson and The Hair Wreath and Other Stories by Halli Villegas are now available in trade paperback and eBook formats from ChiZine Publications (CZP) and online retailers.

The third and fourth of CZP’s Fall 2010 titles, these two short story collections not only illustrate ChiZine Publications’ celebration of dark urban fiction, but also their flexibility of format.

Sarah Court is a collection of vignettes, and unlike the other collections CZP has produced, are all interconnected, focusing on the disconnect between neighbours, and even close families in the throes of suburbia. Reading more like a novel, it examines the strange, often twisted lives of the residents of the block of Sarah Court, “smudging the line between comedy and horror” Chuck Palahniuk notes, whose own novel, Haunted, is—in format—reminiscent of Sarah Court.

The Hair Wreath and Other Stories follows Sarah Court in the thematic vein of urban supernatural horror. It is also the first book CZP has produced by an author who not only works as an editor for the press, but is also head of Tightrope Books, based in Toronto. “It’s great what can come out of the relationships you build between small presses!” Co-publisher Sandra Kasturi says. “That’s something you wouldn’t be able to see with the bigger houses.”

ChiZine Publications’ size not only enables these healthy cross-publisher relationships, it gives them more freedom in terms of experimenting with formats established publishing houses often don’t use, such as the novella and the short story collection.

“We’re really lucky,” Co-Publisher Brett Alexander Savory says. “Being able to do this gives not only the authors a greater chance of exposure, but also gives us a chance to explore these genres in a snappy, easily digested format.”

Both books will be available in trade paperback editions as well as DRM-free eBooks in Kindle, ePub, and PDF formats. As always, CZP is offering a 30% discount off the cover price for all trade paperbacks purchased directly from them. Links on where to order both books can be found on their site at http://www.chizinepub.com.