Fourteen Hills contributor Terese Svoboda never stops working. In an interview she admitted that writing was an addictive habit, something she did every day. Daily writing is a ritual many established authors claim is absolutely necessary but difficult to adhere to, as writing is often associated with existential anguish. Svoboda, who must revel in this anguish, has the hard-earned reputation of being prolific without the usual assembly line connotation. She has a multiple books slated for 2009, 2010, and 2011. Although she is best-known for her poetry and nonfiction, she has written over one hundred short stories and is working on her sixth novel. The New Yorker, TLS (Times Literary Supplement) and Poetry have recently featured Svoboda’s poetry, and her short stories are forthcoming in One Story, Fairytale Review, Wigleaf, Sleepingfish and Freight Stories. The Movie Business, a short story by Terese Svoboda, will be featured in Fourteen Hills, Issue 16.1.
Squeezed in between the releases of All Aberration (The Contemporary Poetry Series, Sept. 1 2009), and her fifth novel, Pirate Talk or Mermalade (Dzanc Press, 2010), is the paperback release of Trailer Girl and Other Stories (December, 2009).
Trailer Girl is a collection of seventeen short stories, many of which feature nameless women who deal with life in the shadows. Her characters manipulate their own stories within Svoboda’s framework, a playground she sets up for them to tear down. Her stories are vividly imagined and often deemed “inaccessible” because they do not adhere to a familiar logic. She is known for her feverish prose and inimitable style, not for her user-friendliness. In an interview with Ms. Svoboda by David F. Hoenigman, he asks:
“What is the most misunderstood aspect of your work?”
“The words.”
The hardcover edition of Trailer Girl was released by Counterpoint (February 2001), and the paperback will be released in December of this year.
Some selections from reviews:
“Her poetic language is spare, disjointed, confusing, brilliant, and piercing, but her angst-filled tales are neither pleasant nor pretty. Hers is a dark world of vagrancy, abuse, drug addiction, and alcoholism, containing a litany of life's losers and wounded.”
- Library Journal
“Svoboda, sounding here like a cross between William S. Burroughs and Dorothy Allison, has been lauded in edgier venues like Spin and the Village Voice. While this may not be a mainstream hit, she could find an audience of more adventurous readers.”
–Publishers Weekly
“The kind of satisfaction that one gets from [Svoboda’s] stories is quick and blinding, governed more by instinct than reason.”
You'll be able to read Svoboda's story, The Movie Business, when issue 16.1 of Fourteen Hills is released on December 16. Save the date for the release party at the San Francisco Motorcycle Club. See you there!
-Amy Glasenapp, Fourteen Hills Fiction Editor
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