From our friends at Dead Rabbits Press and Southern Fried Karma:
This August, two indie presses—Dead Rabbits Books and Southern Fried Karma Press—will embark on the “Fugitives & Rabbits: A Collaborative Literary Tour” across North Carolina in an effort to bring writers, readers, and publishers together to expand and uplift the literary community.
Dead Rabbits Books is a small press based out of New York and Seattle with the mission to publish books that matter in ways that matter. The aim is to make their publishing process as transparent and writer-centric as possible—with a heavy emphasis on the literary community. Having started as a reading series in 2014, Dead Rabbits launched a press in autumn of 2018. Their first title will be out in September 2019.
Based out of Atlanta, SFK Press cultivates diverse voices—literary expressions from Brooklyn’s Williamsburg to Chicago’s Wicker Park. The artist’s path to reach a wider audience is no longer under the exclusive control of corporate gatekeepers that measure acquisitions purely through economic return. Such is the founding premise of SFK Press, whose mission is to publish a million stories speaking to “Y’all Means All.”
Armed with strong missions and values, Dead Rabbits’ and SFK’s literary kinship sparked after a chance meeting through their mutual book designer, Olivia Croom. Since then, a fruitful and innovative partnership has grown, Fugitives & Rabbits merely the latest iteration of that collaboration.
Fugitives & Rabbits has scheduled seven stops through the first week of August, including a climactic celebration at the end of the week in Winston-Salem. Each event is free and open to the public.
Along with a basic schedule for all events, each stop will be tailored to fit the needs of the community therein. Attendees can expect to hear the work of burgeoning authors from each press, meet with the publishers and editors about finding an audience for their work, and join in conversation that connects the literary community. Both presses hope to share their knowledge of the publishing industry while also learning from attendees about how they can support local literary communities. Additionally, many of these events will be recorded and appear on the Dead Rabbits Podcast in an effort to shine a light on writing and work done locally.
Events:
â— August 5, 7:30 pm: Scuppernong Books in Greensboro
â— August 6, 6:00 pm: Bookmarks in Winston-Salem
â— August 7, 5:30 pm: Sunrise Books in High Point
â— August 8, 6:00 pm: Firestorm Books in Asheville
â— August 9, 7:00 pm: Main Street Books in Davidson
â— August 10, 12:00 pm: Walls of Books in Cornelius
◠August 10, 7:00 pm: Closing Celebration at Finnigan’s Wake in Winston-Salem
Free Registration can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/dead-rabbits-sfk-press-24738854202.
The Facebook Events can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/events/464125371087712.
The goal of the tour is to promote our presses’ writers—some of whom are from North Carolina—and give them a platform to share their work. We also want to empower writers by arming them with our knowledge of the publishing industry. We hope to make connections with local writers and literary communities to find both manuscripts/voices to publish and passionate folks who want to get more involved in the literary community. Additionally, we want to learn from writers within the NC lit community about what they want to see and how we can improve publishing and the literary community as a whole.
We knew, when toying with the idea of this collaboration, that we wanted to collaborate on a tour of the east coast, between our two presses’ headquarters (New York and Atlanta). SFK Press has released several books by authors from North Carolina and the Editor-in-Chief of Dead Rabbits had lived there for a long time, so had several connections and knew the region well. Both publishers are aware of the thriving literary community in the state, so North Carolina felt like a perfect, welcoming place to launch a collaborative tour.
Featured Authors & Books:
Emerald City by Brian Birnbaum: Set in Seattle, Emerald City follows Benison Behrenreich, the hearing son of Deaf royalty. His father, CEO of a multimillion-dollar Deaf access agency, has bribed Myriadal College officials for Benison’s spot on their powerhouse basketball team, where he struggles to prove himself and compensate for his father’s sins.
Julia Paolantonio has recently lost her father to a drug relapse. Her mother ships her off to live with her estranged granddad, Johnny Raciti, during the summer before her freshman year at Myriadal. Johnny offers her a deal: bring him Peter Fosch—tormented college dropout and the best drug runner west of the Cascades—and he’ll give Julia’s freshly widowed mother a board seat on his mobbed-up securities firm.
When Benison’s father is arrested for defrauding government subsidies for the Deaf, the Behrenreichs are left vulnerable to his company’s ruthless backers—namely Johnny Raciti—forcing Julia and Peter to navigate the minefield left in the aftermath.
Release Date: September 15, 2019.
Swapping Purples for Yellows by Matthew Duffus: Homecoming celebrations and big donor gifts don’t always mean high spirits as a troubled university couple each seek divergent paths to heal their damaged household. When a billionaire grad school dropout unveils plans for a major gift, the Sutherlands must endure the bizarre rituals of rich alumni and reunion receptions. Rob drinks and rants. Molly rolls dice and dreams of winning her own identity. Their gifted teenage daughters push and pull at the rules in opposite directions. Over the course of the weekend, they each confront their deepest secrets and undeniable flaws. A splendid debut novel that navigates a twisted trail of comical regrets and heart-wrenching uncertainty.
Release Date: August 6, 2019.
The Skin Artist by George Hovis: The morning Bill Becker awakes to find the butterfly tattoo bleeding on his chest, his upwardly mobile life begins its downward spiral. Exiled from a corporate career and from the failed marriage he left behind in a gated Charlotte community, Bill becomes obsessed with a tattooed dancer named Lucy, who is running from a trauma buried deep in her own past. Lucy and Bill wrap themselves in new skins of ink, wrought by the same artist, a shaman who convinces them that every design will alter their future. Ultimately, both Bill and Lucy must leave the city and return to the Carolina countryside to confront the skins they have shed many years ago.