"First Kisses, Real & Imagined"

“In the past few months, my story collection The Geography of First Kisses has allowed a way in for prospective readers to speak of their own first kisses. A First Lady’s first kiss as a young girl under a front porch light. An elderly gentleman’s remembrance of full lips under a full moon. A girl’s memory of butterfly kisses from when she was much younger with her grandmother, their eyelashes fluttering together, and her grandmother laughing and saying,“Honestly? The first one? No idea,” her voice trailing behind her, the memory gone. And while these stories are lovely and spontaneous, it’s the first kisses in literature, rather than in real life, that draw me in.”

- from “First Kisses, Real & Imagined,” a little essay I wrote on first kisses, mostly literary ones, inspired by readers, novels, and the stories of The Geography of First Kisses & featured in the Women’s Writers, Women’s Books’ ON WRITING column

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!

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.

Two Interviews on the Landscapes of Love & Loss

Newfound Interviews, Spring 2021

Gwen Goodkin

Love and Loss Intertwined: An Interview with Gwen Goodkin

Gwen Goodkin is the author of the short story collection, “A Place Remote” (West Virginia University Press, 2020), a breathtaking and candid glimpse into the lives of those in small Ohio towns, from the university town of southeastern Oxford farther north to Mansfield and on up to the northeastern towns and farms along Highway 18. The stories appraise and illuminate the attitudes, desires, pursuits, misunderstandings, demands, and caring of their characters, who reach for more, not always finding truth nor satisfaction inside their wishes. In prose that is reflective and thoughtful, Goodkin leads us to places she knows well, to people she understands, with an awareness of and respect for their lives, whether rich with friends, complicated by struggles, or brightened by hope.

Sara Schaff

Love, Love, Love: An Interview with Sara Schaff

Sara Schaff’s story collections “The Invention of Love” (Split/Lip Press, 2020) and “Say Something Nice About Me” (Augury Books, 2016) share a language that is at once straightforward and deeply considered, as well as a landscape that reveals as much about character as it does about geography. Generations of characters are examined, many balanced on the precipice where middle-class meets poverty, from youthful, wishing children to mature, meandering adults, and their stories are threaded with themes of hope, disquiet, friendship, envy, solitude, and community. With great care and understanding, Schaff explores childhood loneliness, teenage rebellion, young adult aspirations, adult anxiety—the kind that occurs between having children and peering forward to old age—all within the boundless and hopeful measures of love. In prose that is direct and honest, the stories reach toward strands of emotion buried within or tightly encircling the characters, breathing them alive.

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.”