Comprised of vivid vignettes, Chasing the King of Hearts (Feminist Press, 2017), a novel based on a true story, speeds across time and borders. Izolda is a Jewish woman in Poland who hides her identity during the Holocaust and strives to free her husband from Auschwitz. She often contemplates levels of blondness—”straw” blond hair in Jews with naturally blond hair, the ash blond she chooses to dye her brown hair, the peroxide blond of other Jews attempting to hide their identity, which she looks down on. A Gentile woman giving her temporary shelter tells her not to put her handbag on the table, which she says makes her look like a Jew—and consequently Izolda questions each gesture, expression, and minute detail—is this Jewish? Is that? She decides being Jewish is “worse” than being Polish and resolves to hide her identity after the war is over. This element of the novel is what really stuck with me, giving me visceral insight into a phenomenon I have often thought about—the post-war assimilation of Jews into Christianity or at least some vague secular non-Jewish identity. (In my own family, my grandfather changed his name from Schwartz to Szilagyi for this reason, though the name change came after the war; I wrote about that here.)

The novel bills itself as a story of survival, and Izolda’s luck and timing is often remarkable. This theme, with glances into the future when she is an elderly grandmother (and in fact no longer hiding her identity) is one of the elements that kept me hopeful as I read material guaranteed to depress. I also appreciated the afterword from Mariusz Szczygiel about the genesis of the novel and the real life Izolda, plus the afterword from Boehm on the laconic, intuitive fairy tale nature of the novel, no doubt the main reason I was so aesthetically taken with the book. The vignettes are occasionally confusing in terms of minor character, where Izolda is going, what she is trading for what (tobacco? sheets? stockings?), but I think it’s supposed to be confusing and if you go with the flow as in a fairy tale, it’s not a major stumbling block. In all, it’s an urgent book that I recommend!

Puzzle:Cinderella Picture Puzzle

Parker Brothers, ca. 1920

I’m thrilled to have a new essay online at Orion Magazine today, “All in the Pumpkins.” This is my third piece in Orion, and another essay from the collection I’ve been working on since 2013, on food and cultural memory. Here’s how it begins:

“I feel tender toward you, and not like that pumpkin we threw out today,” my husband said. It was October 2020 in Chicago.

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Five years ago today, my debut novel Daughter of the Air was born. It was 15 years in the making (yowza) and the launch party was that very night at the beautiful Hotel Sorrento. I was in conversation with my dear friend Corinne Manning. What a cherished memory!

It’s been such a joy to see my book make it’s way out in the world. I’m grateful for all the praise it’s received, including this generous response from acclaimed Pulitzer-finalist and MacArthur genius Karen Russell:

"What a strong song Daughters of the Air is, a chilling and beautiful novel that has left its indelible mark on me—I am simply in awe of Anca Szilágyi's prose, her Calvino-like gift for illuminating the darkest subjects, and her fearless, fever-bright imagination."

You can order copies from your favorite local bookstore or choose from one of my favorites like Elliott Bay Book Company, Powell’s, Exile in Bookville, and Madison Street Books (which still has a signed copy!). Here are a few photos from that night (full photo album on Facebook here).

January is almost over. Is it too late for a blog post on setting intentions? I would venture not! The pandemic and being a new parent (do I still get to say "new" now that my child is one?) is a constant reminder to be gentle with myself and find the right level of ambitious that I find fulfilling without giving myself a migraine.

What soldiering through a migraine feels like?

So what are my writing and publishing goals for this year? With my second novel releasing from Lanternfish Press in late September, I have to be mindful of the marketing and publicity work just around the corner. I learned with my first novel, Daughters of the Air, that marketing and publicity can be ::e n d l e s s:: I do like it! But I also need to keep space for work-work, creative writing, and life.

I started writing my second novel two days after I began submitting my first novel—with a haiku workshop as a palate cleanser in between. I started writing my third novel, my current work-in-progress, just a year after starting my second novel. It's a long story as to why that I won't get into here, but I was heartened to learn that Jess Walter juggles multiple book projects simultaneously, and I'm sure many other writers do as well. Welp! The big hope for this year is I "finish" that third novel. (NB: Here's my silly essay "How to Finish a Finish a Novel in Only 15 Years"; I love that this essay landed in The Nervous Breakdown.)

My other writing goal is write two more essays for the collection that I began the same year as Novel #3. I'm taking an essay writing class through Atlas Obscura, where I've been having a great time teaching fairy tale writing. It'll be my first time as a student since taking a wonderful Hugo House class in 2016 with Alexander Chee on making fictional characters of historic figures, and I'm really looking forward to it. My plan is to write one piece arising from the class and one essay after finishing reading A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays, which I have ordered from one of my favorite Chicago bookstores, Exile in Bookville, which is located in one of my favorite buildings in the city.

That's it for my writing. I think those are plenty of goals for the year, given what I've got on my plate. I stopped aiming for 100 rejections per year a few years ago, though I do think it's a good goal to have if you're starting the submissions process and need to develop a callous against rejection. By my calculations, I had a 17% acceptance rate in 2021 so I do need to aim a little higher as my general goal, per advice from Creative Capital, is 10%. But I'm not going to tear my hair out over this one. As I say to my son, "Gentle! Gentle!"

My last goal is to continue to help emerging writers stretch their craft and hone their approach to getting their work out in the world. If you have short stories or a novel you're working on and if you'd like to work one-on-one with me, you can check out my coaching and consulting page at Hugo House here.

What are your goals for 2022? Any special plans for writing, reading, publishing? Or maybe you want to learn to cook something special this year? My cooking is toddler-centric now, but I've been dipping in and out of Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. I love her opinions: "Powdered rosemary must be shunned." Onward & upward & twirling, twirling, twirling!

I am delighted to have a pair of short fairy tales in Evergreen: Grim Tales & Verses from the Gloomy Northwest, out now from Scablands Books! This beautiful foil-stamped anthology, edited by Sharma Shields and Maya Jewell Zeller, features an incredible roster of Pacific Northwest authors, such as Gary Copeland Lilley, Rick Barot, Shawn Vestal, Tess Gallagher, Ruth Joffre, Nicola Griffith, Kate Lebo, Elissa Washuta, and Lucia Perillo, to name just a handful, and has some wonderful illustrations as well—you can preview a couple of them, including one from my story "Moss Child," here. You can pick up a copy directly from Scablands Books, or at Atticus, Auntie's, From Here, and Wishing Tree Books in Spokane. If you're based in the Pacific Northwest, your local library might like to know about it! Here is the "Suggest a Title" form for Seattle Public Library; many library systems have similar forms.

I'm excited to have two fairy tales in Evergreen: Grim Tales & Verses from the Gloomy Northwest, a Scablands Books anthology edited by Spokane-based superheroes Sharma Shields and Maya Jewell Zeller. The (foil-stamped!) book releases November 2 (perfect season to cozy up with a book while it's drippy outside!), but discounted pre-orders are now available. Sharma shared a snippet of one of my tales on Twitter here. It's an honor to be in the same book with Elissa Washuta, Ruth Joffre, and so many other talented writers.

Here is a source of comfort in difficult times: all issues of Fairy Tale Review are free for the foreseeable future. Kate Berheimer wrote on Twitter:

This doesn't put a dent in the painful news today, but maybe it will help some people through the difficult hours. I've always found that being in the company of a good fairy tale helps me do a little bit better, be a little bit kinder. It's why I founded this journal in 2005. xo

-@katebernheimer

I wrote "More Like Home Than Home," the title story of my story collection, as an antidote to the darkness of Daughters of the Air. It was meant to comfort me, and I hope you find comfort in it too. It appeared in the Wizard of Oz-themed Emerald Issue. Now free and online, thanks to Fairy Tale Review , JSTOR, and Wayne State University Press.

The opening of "More Like Home Than Home" -- read the rest here.

Neither of these are the physical book fair, but they are *both* at the #AWPVirtualbookfair!

Last year around this time, Michael and I traipsed about Portland for AWP, skirting the conference itself, simply enjoying off-site readings and the book fair on Saturday. It was a lovely way to round out our time in the Pacific Northwest.

This year, because of our move, I never had any intentions of going to the conference in San Antonio, but because of the coronavirus, lots of folks, including my publisher Lanternfish Press have cancelled their trips. Because small presses depend on AWP each year for sales, a virtual book fair has been set up as a Google Doc by Trevor Ketner, publisher of Skull + Wind Press, inspired by poets G. Calvocoressi, Dana Levin, and Greg Pardlo. Now folks can browse from afar, and check out the many beautiful books and journals on sale here at #AWPVirtualBookfair. In random scrolling through the virtual book fair, I came across this intriguing book of poetry, Goodbye Wolf, by Nik De Dominic. Most discount codes are good through Sunday. Lanternfish Press is offering 30% off all of their books (including Daughters of the Air); use the code AWP2020.

Another press I love that has cancelled its trip to San Antonio is Fairy Tale Review. Their newest issue, back issues, subscriptions, and the complete set of issues are 20% off. Use code AWP20. The title story of my in-progress story collection, "More Like Home Than Home," is in their Wizard of Oz-themed Emerald Issue. It's set in Brooklyn in the 1980s and is a potpourri of the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and Twelve Dancing Princesses.

But what is a book fair without getting to pick up a book and open it at random? Below is random page from Daughters of the Air (you can read the opening over at Tin House). Beneath that, a taste of what all is in FTR's Emerald Issue.

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Stay healthy out there! Enjoy yer book browsing & book reading!

Paul Constant of The Seattle Review of Books had some lovely things to say about my new chapbook Sugar: "It’s a delightful little amuse-bouche of a book, with an ending that will charm Seattleites and tourists alike." You can read more here.This Saturday at 3 pm at the Chin Music Press shop in Pike Place Market, I will be reading from Sugar, as well as some foodie excerpts from Daughters of the Air. The fabulous poets Montreux Rotholz and Alex Gallo-Brown will join me, and there will be treats. Constant says it's the literary event of the week! Here is the event on Facebook. Hope to see you there.

On Friday, I stopped by the Chin Music Press shop in Pike Place Market to sign copies of Sugar, my new chapbook, and Daughters of the Air. You can pop in to pick up copies while they last! (Also, get yourself a treat. I enjoyed a sesame red bean ball: crispy, glutinous, gooey, delightful.) Not in Seattle? You can order Sugar from Chin Music Press online right over here.Set scene by poet & nonfiction author Michael Schmeltzer. Thank you, Michael!

Oh, my! It's been a little while since I've updated this blog. Fun news: Chin Music Press is launching my short story Sugar as a lovely little chapbook tomorrow at the Short Run festival. The story first appeared in Gastronomica in 2013; it's a modern, fabulist fairy tale set in Pike Place Market—and Chin Music's sun-drenched showroom is located there too.  At least, it always seems sun-drenched when I am there. They make beautiful books! Check out Leanne Dunic's dreamy prose poem novel To Love the Coming End and Zack Davisson's Kaiybō: The Supernatural Cats of Japan and Kate Lebo's A Commonplace Book of Pie, all books I have thoroughly enjoyed.If you're in Seattle you can be among the first to get a copy at Short Run. Then, Chin Music will be at the Portland Book Festival next Saturday, November 10. You can also get a copy from me at one of my upcoming events or at the Chin Music showroom in the market.Link for online purchases to come! In the meantime, here it is on Goodreads. And, while you're on Goodreads, if you're so inclined, would you vote for Daughters of the Air as your favorite debut of the past year? That is, if that is how you feel! Log into your account (or create one!), scroll down to the bottom of this page and type in the title. Write-in voting ends November 4. Thanks, always, for the love.

In my last post I promised blood. Well, I'll just say I slid my boot off Friday night and it was like I was one of Cinderella's stepsisters. I'm still limping. On to day 3!What is a better breakfast than a leftover Cuban sandwich? Leftover fried oysters. Just kidding! The Cuban sandwich was much better. Day 3 was the best because Michael got a one-day pass and we got to roam the book fair together."The Worst Writing Advice I Ever Got" is an irresistible title, so of course we wrenched ourselves away from the book fair for it. Here, without narrative, a fun grab-bag of quotes:

• "Creative writing aphorisms are as useful as Dr. Phil." -Chris Abani
• "Your book won't save you. It's just something you're going to do because you're nuts." -Min Jin Lee
• "How do I handle writer's block? I don't write." -Ada Limón

I appreciated Limón's story of navigating two groups of people: those who roll their eyes at "abuelita poems" and those who say, "where's your abuelita poem?" And Melissa Stein's remark that dread may be a sign that advice you've been given may not be for you, anxiety might mean it's worth exploring the challenge, and excitement is obviously a good sign. Abani noted that "Craft advice is only important if you're asking questions. What are you trying to do?"We stuck around for a reading and conversation between Min Jin Lee and Sigrid Nunez. Nunez on writing about sex: "The vocabulary is not there. It's either coy, clinical, or filthy, none of which do justice to human sexuality." At the book signing, Lee called Michael and me adorable. So that happened.My attention span went out the door by mid-afternoon, so it was off to the hotel bar for wine and fried calamari! Naturally, someone in panda suit wandered in. Next year in Portland! Maybe Seattleites can get some party buses organized...

It was super fun creating a playlist of music related to Daughters of the Air for David Gutowski's literature and music blog, Largehearted Boy. I've included music from the time of the book, the late '70s and early '80s, as well as music that fits the atmosphere (dark, weird). Grace Jones and Klaus Nomi and Arcade Fire and Antony and the Johnsons and more! Have a listen right here.

Over the summer, while immersing myself in Jess Walter's fiction in preparation for interviewing him in December (you can now watch his Word Works talk on time, and the Q & A,  here on YouTube), I reread his story "Don't Eat Cat" and felt compelled to write my own zombie story. And, because it's me, it's a bit a fairy tale-ish. "Scrolling Through the Feed" went online this morning in Cascadia Magazine, a new publication focusing on the Pacific Northwest, from British Columbia to Oregon. I'm happy there's a new venue gathering long-form journalism, fiction, and poetry from the region, and one that that thinks beyond our borders.It feels somehow appropriate for the story to go up on the same day of the State of the Union, which I will not watch. Thankfully, I'm reading tonight at the Literary Happy Hour at Capitol Cider, alongside Bill Carty, Jarret Middleton, and Jekeva Philips, hosted by Josh Potter. It runs from 5-7 pm. In line with their "drafts and drafts" theme, I'll give a micro-craft talk on one of the earliest inspirations for Daughters of the Air.  Speaking of which, this is your last chance (ever?) to enter to win a free copy of the novel on Goodreads.  Go get it!

Mid-February to mid-March, I'll be zipping around the country reading from and yapping about Daughters of the Air (yay!). While I'm at it, I'll be teaching a couple one-day classes on one of my favorite topics: writing contemporary fairy tales. In both classes we'll short-short stories by masters of the form, Angela Carter and Kate Bernheimer, and write our own retellings and original tales.In Portland: Sunday, February 18, 10 am-2 pm at Literary Arts. Bring lunch! Register here.(N.B.  I'll be reading at Powell's City of Books the next day, February 19 at 7:30 pm, in conversation with another fan of fairy tales, Susan DeFreitas, author of Hot Season. Here is a conversation between us on fairy tales on the Powell's blog.)In Chicago:Monday, March 5, 6:30-9 pm at StoryStudio Chicago. Register here.(And my Chicago reading will be at The Book Cellar on Saturday, March 3 at 6 pm, with Gint Aras, author of The Fugue.)

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All of my upcoming readings are here.All of my upcoming classes are here.Want short & sweet once-a-month updates on readings, classes, publications, and bits on art, writing, food, and cities? Subscribe to my newsletter here. It's like this blog but less often and right in your inbox! You can check out previous newsletters here. Past highlights include pictures of ponies, fruit pyramids, giants, and odd winged creatures.

Over on the Powell's blog, I spoke with Susan DeFreitas, author of Hot Season, about blurring genre boundaries, political fiction, and fairy tales. In the process we touched on a slew of authors: Clarice Lispector, Nikolai Gogol, Kate Bernheimer, Lydia Millet, Denis Johnson, Ralph Ellison, Günter Grass, Angela Carter, Maya Sonenberg, Robert Coover, Rikki Ducornet, Lily Hoang, Anne Carson, and Haruki Murakami. Whew! Makes me want hug a bookcase. You can read the Q & A here.If you're in the Portland area, I hope you'll join us at Powell's City of Books on Monday, February 19 at 7:30 pm. (And if you can't make it, you can still preorder a signed edition here to be shipped to you!)

The January issue of Locus Magazine includes a lovely review of Daughters of the Air.  Here is an excerpt:

Only Le Guin bothers to write coming-of-age stories with such attention to each word… Daughters of the Air is well worth reading. Beyond its singular blend of myth and magic, its potent and poetic language announces a worthy new voice in, if I can call it this, the literature of the melting pot. Szilágyi is writing from the center of multiple cultural Venn diagrams, about historical and emotional topics more readers need to explore.-Katherine Coldiron

You can buy the issue here.

The term "dumpster fire" has been used in reference to 2017 at least several million times. At one point in October, I considered taking some classes on how to cope with anxiety and insomnia that were organized specifically in response to our collective ongoing sense of doom. I didn't though—because I was overwhelmed! Ha.Despite everything, I need to celebrate 2017 on a personal level. Daughters of the Air, which I'd toiled over for years, finally came out, and people are reading it and telling me they are enjoying it! Michael and I celebrated the holiday season with candles and latkes and lights and dim sum and snow (!) and The Shape of Water (a beautiful love story!) and chocolate peanut butter pie and New Year's Eve back at the Hotel Sorrento's Fireside Lounge for reading (me, Teffi's Subtly Worded, him Hanna Krall's Chasing the King of Hearts, which I'm happily adding to my Women in Translation Month queue), writing, live jazz, people watching, and bubbles. What more could I ask for?The day after Shelf Awareness called Daughters "a striking debut from a writer to watch," The Seattle Review of Books included it among five Seattle novels that made Paul Constant's year:

Anca Szilágyi’s Daughters of the Air is a fantastic debut — a magical realist fairy tale set in gritty New York City. It’s the kind of book that leaves you utterly confounded at the end, as you try to remember all the twists and turns that you took along the way. It feels like an impossible book, somehow — a product of alchemy, a creation of unearthly talents.

Wow! The book hasn't been panned yet, but when it does, I'll hang on to these two reviews for dear life. I was also super happy to see Tara Atkinson's novella Boyfriends included in the end-of-year list; I gobbled it one sitting and highly recommend it.Yesterday afternoon, I was thrilled to see The Seattle Times reviewed Daughters too—my first review in a major American newspaper!

Anca L. Szilágyi’s intense debut novel, "Daughters of the Air," locates a deeply personal story against the surreal backdrop of [Argentina's Dirty War].

  [gallery ids="4953,4952" type="rectangular"]I'll be moseying up to a newsstand later today so I can rustle up the paper and feel the newsprint on my fingers.In other news...

• Every year, I strive to collect 100 rejections. (Why? See this wonderful Lit Hub article by Kim Liao.) In 2016, I made it to 106, plus eight acceptances. In 2017, I garnered 93 rejections and 16 acceptances. This is actually bad in terms of my other annual goal, which is to be rejected 90% of the time. I need to aim higher.
• There are just four spots left in my online Fiction II class at Hugo House, which begins on January 14. You can sign up here.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end of this longer-than-usual blog post! As a gift, here is a Goodreads giveaway for you. Already read Daughters? Leaving a review on Goodreads, Amazon, or Powell's would help spread the word! You can do this regardless of how you obtained the book (other bookstores, my publisher, the library, and all that fun stuff).Onward!

I had a glorious long weekend with Michael: actual snow in Seattle, dim sum, The Shape of Water (a beautiful love story!), chocolate peanut butter pie...and it's been a happy Tuesday morning too, with this glowing review of Daughters of the Air by Dave Wheeler in Shelf Awareness:"A striking debut from a writer to watch, Daughters of the Air is gritty yet gorgeous, severe yet convivial, as it navigates uncertain times in a treacherous world."You can read the whole review here.

I'm excited to share that my story "Street of the Deported," part of my in-progress story collection More Like Home Than Home, won first place in Lilith Magazine's fiction contest. You can read the story right here, or pick up a copy from your local newsstand. Over on their blog, I spoke with fiction editor Yona Zeldis McDonough about the story, Daughters of the Air, fairy tales, and food. You can read that Q & A here. Hooray!