A New Review by Grace Cavalieri – November, 2006

More Fiction By Washington Area Women, 500pp., $18.95
Edited by Richard Peabody

“Enhanced Gravity is proof of the variety of talents and passions to be found in DC. With its takes on sex, death, birth, love, the pains of youth, the pains of old age, infidelity, abiding fidelity, this anthology has something for every mood, and reading the stories together provides a deepened sense of the interior and exterior contours of this city.” —Aurelie Sheehan, author of Jack Kerouac is Pregnant and History Lesson for Girls

The 18th publication by Paycock Press (begun in 1976 and named for Irish playwright Sean O’Casey’s play Juno and the Paycock) is Enhanced Gravity, the second volume in a trilogy of anthologies that in the end will gather works by 115+ women from the area and total a massive 1000+ pages.

Are there really that many women writing fiction in this town? Here’s the proof. What are they writing about? Sex, death, love, hate, birth, murder, children, parents, revenge, the endless war, grim choices in an even grimmer world.
Original Fiction (only six reprints) by: Stephanie Allen, Christina Bartolomeo, Kate Blackwell, Hildie S. Block, Lisa Boylan, Carole Burns, Susan Coll, Jennifer Cutting, Ramola D, J.H. Diehl, CM Dupre, Patricia Elam, Herta Burbach Feely, Robin Ferrier, Sara Fisher, Lee Fleming, Colleen Franklin, Amy Fries, Dorothy Hickson, M.H. Johnson, Alma M. Katsu, Wendi Kaufman, Susan Land, E.J. Levy, Meena Arora Nayak, Vanessa Orlando, Michele Orwin, Sibbie O’Sullivan, Saideh Pakravan, Ginger Park, Suzanne Picard, Judith Podell, Elizabeth Poliner, Judy Pomeranz, Stephanie Siciarz, Rozanne Gooding Silverwood, Julia Slavin, Rose Solari, Sally Steenland, Venus Thrash, Julie Wakeman-Linn, Sarah Louise Williams, and C. Jenise Wriston. Cover by Jody Mussoff.

“What do women write? These stories shout, Everything, from as many points of view. Think potluck of pungent diversity. Think rough-edged visions, as opposed to neatly hemmed samplers from Culture, Inc. Enhanced Gravity surprises and entertains; it horrifies and hurts. And it enlightens, by modeling a rich, inclusive world.” —Mollie Best Tinsely, author of Throwing Knives

Richard Peabody, a prolific poet, fiction writer and editor, is an experienced teacher and important activist in the Washington , D.C. community of letters. He is the founder and co-editor of Gargoyle magazine and editor (or co-editor) of fourteen anthologies including Mondo Barbie, Conversations with Gore Vidal, A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation, Coming to Terms: A Literary Response to Abortion, and Grace and Gravity: Fiction by Washington Area Women. He is the author of the novella Sugar Mountain, two short story collections, and six poetry collections including Last of the Red Hot Magnetos and I’m in Love with the Morton Salt Girl. He is currently completing Kiss the Sky: Fiction and Poetry Starring Jimi Hendrix (forthcoming March 2007)and Electric Grace: Still More Fiction by Washington Area Women (due November 2007). Peabody teaches at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, one of the countries premier independent literary centers, and at Johns Hopkins University, where he has been presented the Faculty Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement. He lives and works in Arlington, Virginia.

“This collection captures our many longings in vivid, gut-deep prose. The stories call to us, beckon us like Stephanie Allen’s “pile of coats, [their] riot of textures from silk linings to poplin serge to wool, waiting for us to dive in and roll around in them.” –Nicole Louise Reid, author of In the Breeze of Passing Things

Join us for the book launch featuring ten of the authors
on Saturday June 17th at 6pm at Politics & Prose Bookstore Coffeehouse, 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008, (202) 364-1919. Check out their

website www.politics-prose.com for directions.

C.M. Mayo will be our MC. Panelists: Kate Blackwell, Susan Coll, Robin Ferrier, Wendi Kaufman, Meena Arora Nayak, Sibbie O’Sullivan, Elizabeth Poliner, Rose Solari, Sally Steenland, and Venus Thrash.

Publication Data: Date of Publication:
500 pages, 5 ½ by 8 1/2 June 17, 2006
PAPER, ISBN 0-931181-20-8

Paycock Press, 3819 North 13th Street, Arlington, VA 22201
www.gargoylemagazine.com [email protected]

Grace Cavalieri is a Poet, and Producer of “The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress.”