2022 Acacia Fiction Prize

THE GEOGRAPHY OF FIRST KISSES

wins the 2022 Acacia Fiction Prize!

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Very happy to share this good news about my debut story collection!

Kallisto Gaia Press Executive Director Tony Burnett has selected The Geography of First Kisses as the winner of the 2022 Acacia Fiction Prize from the short list of finalists.

His praise for the collection:
“These ethereal stories, tenuously tethered by magical realism to the bays and backwaters of southern Louisiana, portray a quiet elegance reminiscent of early 20th century art films. Davidson saturates them with poetic illusion while powering the prose with a dark, pulsating circuitry. She combines joy, heartache, and tenacity in a recipe long forgotten but sorely missed in today’s super-structured literature. For an existential auto-erotic evening, read these stories slowly while dressed in your most sensory-stimulating loungewear.”

Forthcoming in 2023!

Fierce, Funny, Beautiful Debuts: My Two Final Interviews at Newfound

Newfound Interviews, Autumn 2021

Chaney Kwak

The Surprise of Survival: An Interview with Chaney Kwak

Chaney Kwak’s compelling and beautiful debut book, The Passenger, (Godine, 2021), flies beyond the classifications of memoir, travel reportage, and marine history to something more intense, wry, and personal. Even the book’s subtitle, “How a Travel Writer Learned to Love Cruises & Other Lies from a Sinking Ship,” might lead one to place the story within a category, but seriously, it’s just not that simple. Kwak’s story of surviving an intense storm at sea off one of Norway’s rockiest coastlines aboard the Viking Sky, a cruise liner carrying nearly 1400 passengers, is one that reaches beyond the fury of 65-meter swells and 75-km winds into the calm, genuine understanding of what is worth living for. “The Passenger” uncovers the surprise of survival and the realization of how life might truly be lived.

Arden Levine

Her Portrait in the Poem: An Interview with Arden Levine 

Arden Levine’s debut poetry collection, Ladies’ Abecedary (Small Harbor Publishing, 2021), reveals a stunning and surprising alphabet of women. From A to Z, these are women and girls who walk with wide steps through the world; who descend and ascend mountains thick with snow, stepping-stones and stories in each stride; who sit alone in rooms, reading, ready to be transformed; who swim through a slipstream of unforgettable language. This chapbook may appear a slim volume, its cover curious, beautiful, unsettling, but the pages within reveal a population that is as feminine as it is fierce. To read these poems is to be unearthed from the typical landscapes where women have been placed, to be spun around and sent toward “unruly asphalt gardens” and into the sleep of “a chrysalis curve.”

Beautiful Book Review of Sybelia Drive

“Sybelia Drive is the sort of book that leaves me feeling that everyone should know about – it deserves to be widely read and loved. It’s a lyrical, intelligent, probing book that also hums with the comfort of friendship and connection, and moves along at a rhythmically soothing pace. It is subtle but also surprising, written with a lightness of touch and a depth of feeling that left me feeling changed.” - Ellie Hawkes of Elspells Book Blog

In her beautiful review of Sybelia Drive, Ellie Hawkes notes how challenging it is to respond to a novel she loves “so fiercely.” Not only is her response engaging and comprehensive, it is the most amazing and rewarding kind of acknowledgment a writer might ever hope to receive. Gratitude for her generous praise and for her invitation to other readers to “seek out” and read the novel themselves!

To read the entire review, visit Elspell’s Book Blog. To purchase a copy of Sybelia Drive, visit Braddock Avenue Books.

A Final 2020 Interview for SYBELIA DRIVE

Heavy Feather Review - “A Retrospective Viewpoint” - an interview by Bailey Bujnosek

“Karin Cecile Davidson’s Sybelia Drive traces the turbulent coming of age of Lulu, Rainey, and Saul in a Florida lake town rocked by the Vietnam War. Told through a multitude of voices, the novel weaves stories of absent fathers, detached mothers, rebellious children, and grieving neighbors, all reevaluating the lives they’ve made. Davidson’s debut explores universal themes of childhood, loss, and what it means to be a family through compelling characters and beautiful imagery.”

Sybelia Drive & how to spend Christmas in Florida without ever leaving your living room

In these December days of deciding to stay home & stay safe, there are still ways to transport ourselves. Sure, there’s The Crown and Borgen and other series to stream our nights away. But there is also the opportunity to read all those books published in 2020 in the midst of this crazy pandemic. Books you’ve never even heard of because they were, yeah, published inside of this insanity.

Recently, Emma Straub of Brooklyn’s Books Are Magic compiled a booklist called “2020 Sucked, but These Books Don’t” where you can find—at this point—167 titles, including a good handful of small press titles like SYBELIA DRIVE. From just this list, you can travel to Vietnam, Appalachia, Sweden, Southern California, or even small-town Florida without ever leaving your living room sofa. I myself would encourage life under the Travelers Palm, lakeside, with a tall glass of tangerine juice, spiked if you like. And so, if you’re looking for a gift for others, a good read for yourself, give Sybelia Drive a chance. A multi-voiced novel that explores the lives of those on the homefront during the war in Vietnam, she won’t disappoint you. Give her a place on your bedside table, a long luxurious read, and a rating on Goodreads so others will know she’s out in the world, ready to transport anyone who will turn her pages.

Purchase Link for Sybelia Drive 🌴

In Columbus, Ohio, there are a few signed copies at Prologue & Bookspace! & if you’re in Brooklyn, definitely give Books Are Magic some love.

If you’d like to know more about the novel, check out the latest press and December & January readings below!

PRESS

Goodreads Booklist: 33 Reader-Approved, Highly Rated Works of Fiction to Discover Now - Sybelia Drive lands on a booklist among the gorgeous works of Alice Randall, Taylor Brown, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Randall Kenan, & so many more

LitReactor Column - my crazy craft essay on 20 years of wandering toward an understanding of narrative structure

Authorlink Interview with Ellen Birkett Morris - lessons learned, decisions on form, the power of objects

Book Q&A’s with Deborah Kalb - the voices, places, & hopes of Sybelia Drive

LitHub’s “5 Writers, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers” - KCD & Sybelia Drive among stellar writers and their books

Women Writers, Women’s Books - “The Men and Boys of Sybelia Drive” - the novel’s treatment of masculinity

Largehearted Boy - “Book Notes” - Karin Cecile Davidson’s Playlist for Sybelia Drive

Debutiful - “Recommendations” - Sybelia Drive lands on a shortlist of recommended October 2020 debut novels

EVENTS

December 2020

December 10: Readings on the Pike - hosted by Hannah Grieco - 7 pm EST - Zoom link available the week of the event on “Readings on the Pike” Facebook page

December 20: Hidden Timber Reading Series - 3 pm EST - Zoom Event - in conversation with Christi Craig - Advance Registration

January 2021

January 14: Buffalo Street Books, Ithaca, NY - in conversation with Lori Ostlund - Zoom Event - more details to come