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The St. Lawrence Book Award Winner
Moon Trees and Other Orphans by Leigh Camacho Rourks

Price range: $9.95 through $18.95

ISBN: 978-1-62557-013-0
Catalog: Black Lawrence Press
Peek Inside
Reviews & Media Starred Review in KIRKUSInterview in ROUTE 7Interview in POETS & WRITERS
Categories Contest Winners, E-Books, Fiction, Short Stories, The St. Lawrence Book Award

Moon Trees and Other Orphans

Leigh Camacho Rourks

Publication Date: October 1, 2019

Description

“An astonishing–often suspenseful, always compassionate–depiction of humanity and the ties that bind us.”

─Kirkus Reviews (STARRED REVIEW)

“Rourks’ bracing debut collection, a St. Lawrence Book Award winner, traces the lives of conflicted characters in moments of crises … 15 tightly drawn, gritty short stories illuminate isolation, uncertainty, and nearly stifled moments of hope.”

─Booklist

Listen to Leigh Camacho Rourks read from “Pinched Magnolias” // Watch the captioned video on the BLP YouTube Channel

Praise

The women in Leigh Camacho Rourk’s stories carry guns and they know how to use them. This is the best kind of fiction, well-honed, lean and flinty with deep pockets of compassion and vulnerability and hope, every sentence a made thing. If you love Lucia Berlin and Dorothy Allison, (or even if you don’t) these women will get under your skin and stay there. Moon Trees is a truly stunning literary debut.

– Pam Houston

Leigh Camacho Rourks’ fiction sits on the fault-line of reality and lore: fever-dreams that will reveal a place you thought you knew but didn’t. Moon Trees is more than just a story collection. It’s a guidebook of folktales and food and language. It’s an invitation to the customs of a region. Accept the invitation. You won’t be sorry.

– John McNally

Hot damn, this is a powerhouse debut. Leigh Camacho Rourks deserves a hallowed space on the shelf between Flannery O’Connor and Donald Ray Pollock. Every sentence burns like a black candle, and her stories are gothic and fearless and unsparing and barbed with wondrous detail and populated by the kinds of misfits and renegades and freaks you might feel nervous living next door to, but can’t get enough of on the page.

– Benjamin Percy

About the Author

© Lety Remior

Leigh Camacho Rourks

Leigh Camacho Rourks is a Cuban-American author who lives and works in Central Florida, where she is an Assistant Professor of English and Humanities at Beacon College. She is the recipient of the St. Lawrence Press Award, the Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award, and the Robert Watson Literary Review Prize, and her work has been shortlisted for several other awards. Her fiction, poems, and essays have appeared in a number of journals, including Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, RHINO, TriQuarterly, December Magazine, and Greensboro Review.

Visit Author Page

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"An astonishing--often suspenseful, always compassionate--depiction of humanity and the ties that bind us." 


─Kirkus Reviews (STARRED REVIEW)


"Rourks' bracing debut collection, a St. Lawrence Book Award winner, traces the lives of conflicted characters in moments of crises ... 15 tightly drawn, gritty short stories illuminate isolation, uncertainty, and nearly stifled moments of hope."


 ─Booklist

Listen to Leigh Camacho Rourks read from "Pinched Magnolias" // Watch the captioned video on the BLP YouTube Channel

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