Asheville, NC

I read at the Battery Park Book Exchange and Champagne Bar in Asheville, NC. I partnered up with local writer Catherine Campbell. The city was so incredibly welcoming. You can now find my books at Firestorm Cafe and Books and Downtown Books and News.

A big thank you to Catherine, to the locals who stopped by the reading, and to the indie bookstores.

Matt Bell's blurb for Land Beast

“Kate Wyer’s Land Beast is a stunning and important work of fiction, and its rhinoceros narrator is an unforgettable character, a lasting encounter with a life torn from the heart of the wild world. It joins recent books by Tania James, J.M. Ledgard, and Colin McAdam in exactingly rendering the consciousness of an animal, attempting to erase the Otherness we’ve made, to remind us of what we might have forgotten: how every living thing is another form of Us, who we mistreat at our peril. This is a beautiful and heartrending book, by one of my favorite new writers.” -Matt Bell, author of Scrapper.

Land Beast is really happening!

Katie Feild and I created a book. 100 percent of the profits will go to non-profits to benefit anti-poaching efforts. Visit www.landbeastnovel.org for more info.

Katie made 40 beautiful illustrations.

Omnidawn Semi-finalist!

I got wonderful news about my manuscript, Girl, Cow. It's a semi-finalist for the Omnidawn 2014 Fabulist Fiction Chapbook contest!

It's essentially about a girl who cannot drown and her journey into the sea with a kidnapped cow.

Reading in July and August (so far)

Bridgeton Library  July 25th              2-4 PM                                      
Bridgeton, New Jersey

Almack's Coffee  July 17th                7 PM                                        
Baltimore, MD

The Spiral Bookcase  August 13th    7-8:30 PM                                
Philly

Exciting news!

Yesterday I received the news that Black Krim has been selected as a finalist for the Debut-litzer from Late Night Library! Catherine Lacey and John Darnielle are also finalists. Wow, two huge books and my BK. Incredible. http://latenightlibrary.org/debutlitzerfinalists2015/

Two Fictions in Hobart

These two pieces of mine went up on Hobart last March. I named them "Booby is from Bobo", and "YOU ARE NOT BETTER THAN THE DEAD." I'm super happy the editors picked them.

I made a one minute book trailer

Review Up at Atticus Review

I was lucky to be reviewed in the new Atticus Review summer issue. http://atticusreview.org/insistent-quiet-voices-a-review-of-black-krim-by-kate-wyer/

Amazing, happy news for one of the rhinos who inspired Land Beast

I came across this post on Facebook:

Some of you may remember Thandi, the courageous rhino who survived a poaching attack back in 2012.

Now she’s making headlines with good news: she’s given birth to a baby calf named Thembi—meaning “hope” in isiXhosa. http://bit.ly/1M5N3K4

How incredible! This makes me so happy!

Matt Bell Featured Land Beast on an Eco-Fabulism Panel at AWP

I couldn't be more flattered that Matt pieced my piece as one of the examples in his Fabulist Fiction for a Hot Planet! panel. 

Here's an interview in the Sonora Review that mentions his development of the panel. The interviewer mentions my story. 

Matt has since used this talk twice. 

Two Reviews of Black Krim

Click here for a review from JMWW

Click here for a review from Readers Lane

I'm happy the book connected with both reviewers, and I'm especially happy it brought up memories of being outside in the dirt, in the elements.

Black Krim now available

On Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Powell's.

The Cobalt site remains the least expensive right now.

Flyer for the party

Lovely release party

I don't think I could have asked for a better release party. It was at the EMP Collective in downtown Baltimore. It's a multi-purpose art space. The energy was perfect. I'm grateful to Brad Leroy-Cartwright for agreeing to host it there, and for such great lighting and sound.

Madison Smartt Bell's blurb

Kate Wyer’s Black Krim is an elegant study of alienation and reconnection—with a warm human heart beneath the Zen-like detachment of its style.

––Madison Smartt Bell

NaNoWriMo 2014

I was able to pull this off again. I love the challenge of writing 50,000 words in a month. It pushes everything else out of the way. I didn't play the drums at all, and didn't miss them except when I went to my weekly lesson and sucked. Oh well, my teacher is great and understanding.

This year I wrote about a homeless woman who had made one of those fenced in runoff basins you see in suburban developments her home. Her shelter, I guess. It's third person, which is a shift for me. Back in 2011, I wrote 50,000 words about a couple who became pregnant (intentionally) at the same time. I'm going to return to that soon and see what I do to revise it. I haven't read it since I finished it.

The first chapter of Black Krim is up on Cobalt's website

First Chapter of Black Krim

Click to read a PDF version! 

First blurb!

Jen Michalski, author of The Tide King said this of Black Krim:

"Heirloom tomatoes lack the hardiness of grocery store hybrid varieties. They are grown in an archaic, inbred fashion; and yet, for all their isolation, they surprise one with their dramatic shapes, colors, and intense flavors––kind of like the characters in Kate Wyer’s novel Black Krim. As the roots of their stubborn, closed systems slowly entangle, their surprising desires and tenderness bloom fiercely from these small, hard seeds."

Black Krim is available for preorder with a discount and free shipping

Cobalt Review's website

Here is the final cover! Katie Feild designed it. She also designed the inside, which has illustrations. I couldn't be happier with it. The central image is the drawing of a Black Krim tomato flower. Behind that is a manipulated photo I took of my own tomatoes. The bottom, textured white band, is snow with footprints.

Right now if you preorder, you get a five dollar discount and free shipping. This book's release date is still on schedule to be December 21st. My book release party will be sometime the week of December 15th though, to avoid the last minute holiday rush.

Please visit Cobalt Review's website and take a look around! The website got a complete overhaul several months ago and is really beautifully designed. The navigation is also improved.