Atelier26 Books is thrilled to announce acquisition of the brilliant short story collection People Like You, the debut title by Portland writer Margaret Malone, for publication in late 2015 or early 2016.
Malone’s writing has appeared in The Missouri Review, Oregon Humanities Magazine, Coal City Review,
Swink, Nailed, latimes.com, and elsewhere, including recently the Forest
Avenue Press anthology The Night, and the
Rain, and the River. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Oregon
Arts Commission and Literary Arts, two Regional Arts & Culture Council
Project Grants, and residencies at The
Sitka Center and Soapstone. A
Dangerous Writers alumnus, Malone has a degree in Philosophy from Humboldt
State University and has taught creative writing as a visiting artist at Pacific
Northwest College of Art. She lives with her
husband filmmaker Brian Padian and two children in Portland, where she co-hosts
the artist and literary gathering SHARE.
With People Like You, Malone delivers an
assemblage of characters and conundrums all at once funny, unsettling, subtle,
and moving. Malone’s people exist, like most of us, in the thick of everyday
experience absent of epiphanies, and they are caught off-guard or cast adrift
by personal impulses even while wide awake to their own imperfections. They win
us over completely although we know they are bound to break our hearts with
each confused and conflicted decision they make.
"I’ve long wanted Atelier26 to be the vehicle for a
phenomenal debut," says press founder and publisher M. Allen Cunningham, "and
in Margaret’s work you immediately hear the brave and startling sound of a born
writer. Her voice is so assured — she’s got such a razor wit — and each of these
stories is so beautifully controlled and alive to its own truth, readers will
hardly know what hit them."
For Malone’s launch, Atelier26 plans a significant
promotional campaign to booksellers and extensive events. "We’re going to grow
our operations considerably on behalf of People
Like You," says Cunningham. "We’re giving it everything we’ve got, and we
anticipate a passionate bookseller response. You can’t read Margaret’s work and
not want to enthuse over it to anyone who cares about great writing."
More details about People
Like You and its exciting release are forthcoming in the months ahead. Check
this space.
Meanwhile, listen to a 10-minute recording of Margaret
Malone reading from the title story on Live Wire! Radio (minute 20).
More about Margaret Malone at: www.margaretmalone.com
