Jill Christman's 2014 Essays to Gift List

Hey there. So as promised we're dropping little posts every afternoon during our advent calendar featuring writers we like making recommendations for what you should be reading/gifting this December. This is our first, by Jill Christman:

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Thrown (Sarabande Books, 2014)—a book-length essay on cage fighters by Kerry Howley. Howley will be joining us this spring in Muncie for the 10th anniversary In Print Festival March 17th-18th. You’re all invited!

The Circus Train by Judith Kitchen (Ovenbird Books, 2014)—“an essay of novella length.” Judith died this month after an incredible career as a writer, teacher, and editor of nonfiction. Her great love was the essay: The Circus Train is her final gift to us. She visited the low-residency MFA program at Ashland University last summer to read and give a fantastic talk; AU taped these sessions and is happy to share.

Speaking of Ovenbird Books [which we've recently added to our list of presses interested in the essay --Eds], one of Kitchen’s last editorial tasks was to obtain an amazing memoir—The Book of Knowledge and Wonder by Steve Harvey (aka, The Humble Essayist) for the Judith Kitchen Select series of Ovenbird. You may have read a kernel of the book as an essay by the same name in Best American Essay 2013. TBoKaW is slated for release December 1st: just in time for the gift-giving season.

My other favorite way to get my fix of satisfying long essays this year has been through Shebooks. For a mere $2.99, you can download essays like Hope Edelman’s Boys Like That or Sonya Huber’s Two Eyes Are Never Enough.