British Reviewer Ellie Hawkes writes about The Geography of First Kisses

Feeling fortunate and blessed to have received a review as stunning as this one by British reviewer Ellie Hawkes. Back in 2021 she reviewed my novel Sybelia Drive in such a clear and beautiful way, and now she’s written a truly gorgeous and comprehensive review of my story collection The Geography of First Kisses. I’m beyond grateful for this gift of a reader and reviewer who understands and connects with my books.

A few of her thoughts on TGFK:

“The fourteen stories that make up The Geography of First Kisses hit the short story collection sweet spot of being tonally similar enough to form a cohesive whole, but individually full of variation and surprises. Like an album, there are repeated themes and strands, refrains that run throughout the book, but each story is its own song.

… she presents moments that contain within them hundreds of other moments. The prose flicks seamlessly between present and past, and there’s such wisdom in the understanding of how time works, how those defining moments of our childhood live with us and yet are so hard to recapture …

It is hard to describe Karin Cecile Davidson’s style, except by saying that her stories remind me of almost all of my favourite short story writers, from classics such as Raymond Carver, Angela Carter and Alice Munro to contemporary favourites of mine like Lauren Groff and Carmen Maria Machado. These stories are at that level – they’re so layered and intricate, and just beautiful to read. I honestly feel quite evangelical about this writer – with her first novel and now this collection of stories, her talent is so awe-inspiring, and her words are such a rich pleasure to read.”

"Words So Odd & Ordered: An Interview with Karin Cecile Davidson" about her story collection The Geography of First Kisses

Margo Orlando Littell interviews me about THE GEOGRAPHY OF FIRST KISSES in Newfound’s final Issue. Questions arise about place, especially “the gravitational pull” of the South; about the language, images, details in the stories; about themes of wanderlust, recklessness, transformation; about origins, approaches, and “the element of carelessness.” And then answers appear, incorporating structural ideas of Americana and patchwork quilts, and including bits and bobs like tractor parts, tornado weather, a flying pig, backroads, coastlines, constellations, quail calls, abuse, near abandonment, a bodiless baby, lost bread, direction, misdirections, miracles, a child’s perspective, things to come.

In the Spring 2017 Newfound issue, I interviewed Margo about her debut story collection EACH VAGABOND BY NAME, and so it is sad and perfect and full circle for her to interview me about my debut story collection as well. Gratitude for all those interviews and for this one in return, especially since GEOGRAPHY is just one-week away from publication.

Hypertext Magazine celebrates THE GEOGRAPHY OF FIRST KISSES

Cheers to Hypertext Magazine for celebrating The Geography of First Kisses in their One Question Series and sharing an excerpt from the book’s beginning passages!

Here’s the question!

“Of all the stories in The Geography of First Kisses, the title story throws the reader headlong into location, geography, and the compass points that lead to love, or perhaps the idea of love. In choosing an unnamed teenage girl to narrate this story, what was the objective?”

Follow here to find the answer!

The excerpt is tied to this question as well as the answer. Here are the beginning passages of the title story from first section, Compass Points.

The first was Leon. A small, muscular boy. A midshipman at the academy. He knew about compasses, easterly winds, how to bring the boat about on white-capped seas. I went for his blond hair and his deep voice, both like honeycomb, thick and golden and crowded, the waxen chambers, the echo in my chest.

Summer grew brighter, and I refused to go back home to New Orleans, nearly sixteen, without that first kiss. Sweet sixteen and never been. We never said it aloud. Those of us who stayed in the corners at dances, at our own tables. All girls, all the time, not too shy, but not quite pretty enough.

For the entire excerpt, READ ON.