The Creepy Girl
$18
The Creepy Girl and other stories
Winner of the 5th Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction
At turns funny, heartfelt, and wise, The Creepy Girl gives us 15 stories, remarkable in their variety, about families and childhood, small towns and prophets, boys and girls, life and death. In every story, the exuberant, playful language of Janet Mitchell's debut continually surprises.
"Janet Mitchell writes sudden, severe, disturbing stories that capture the reader in a kind of choke hold, and The Creepy Girl, her debut collection, is a work of outrageous, much-needed literary ambition. Mitchell is hell-bent on extracting every last drop of sadness and pain from her sentences" Ben Marcus, author of Notable American Women, a novel
"These energizing, sparklingly imaginative, at time visionary stories — one about a woman who wants her mother stuffed and made pretty when she dies; others about mysterious metalogical creatures — form a necklace of deceptively childlike voices moving through an avant-gothic cosmos. But they are as much, if not more, about the beauties of surprising, rhythmic prose, as well, the syllabic stuff you can taste on the tongue." Lance Olsen, Final Judge, 5th Starcherone Fiction Prize
These stories are a lot like dreams: wonderfully strange and disquieting, very funny when you least expect it, and chock-full of complexities to mine. They are also beautifully rendered, highly entertaining, and original. The Creepy Girl and other stories is an exciting debut collection, and Janet Mitchell is a laudable writer. Binnie Kirschenbaum, author of An Almost Perfect Moment
Contact: Ted Pelton, Editor, Starcherone Books, P.O. Box 303, Buffalo,
NY 14201
Phone: 716-885-2726. Fax: 716-884-0291. E-mail: ted@starcherone.com
PUBLICATION DATE: October 1, 2009
PRICE: $18.00; 168 pp
ISBN: 978-0-9788811-7-7
PRINT RUN: 3000
Janet Mitchell