A Fine Excess: Contemporary Literature at Play
Edited By Kristin Herbert and Kirby Gann

Finalist for the 2001 ForeWord Book of the Year Award

"But what exactly does 'play' mean in this context? We've sought writers whose language isn't strict or merely sober, but comes at the world in its most intense states, in reverie, in revelry, in fine excess; writers who must have, as Paul West once termed it, 'the world written up.' These are minds unmistakably alive on the page: some tend to frolic, others waltz, but each writes with a level of veracity and intensity that is unique, difficult to forget."

—from the Introduction

"From e.e. cummings to William Gass to Susan Mitchell, this anthology brings together works by assorted authors whose writing truly is at "play"—where the very words on the page seemingly have a life of their own and conjure up dramatic illusions. . . . Some of the strongest images deal with injustices toward women, whether it be the cheating husband in Sunetra Gupta's 'From Memories of Rain,' the dead sister in Rick Moody's 'The Mansion on the Hill,' the woman writing under the pseudonym of a man in Kristina McGrath's 'From a Scribbler's Life,' or the beaten slave girl in Patrick Chamoiseau's 'The 18 Dream-Words that Atoukal Gave Him.' Throughout, the descriptive language breathes life into words, giving them dimensions all their own. Recommended for all libraries."

—Library Journal

"This unusual collection of 36 writings is unlike most anthologies of mixed genres; its common element, claim editors Gann and Herbert—themselves writers—is a sense of 'play,' by which they do not mean 'merely lighthearted, whimsical riffs,' but rather works by 'writers who show creative delight, who explore the possibilities within the compound sentence, within composed phrases.' . . . There is much here to enjoy."

—Publishers Weekly

A Fine Excess: Contemporary Literature at Play gathers writings of various styles and genres that reflect the intense possibilities of the creative act, where language and structure rise above the strictly functional. The writers here display a gift for inventiveness that cannot settle for conventional notions of expression; instead they seek to widen our vocabulary for emotional and intellectual expression, providing works built on complication, risk, clarity, and ambition. They create a literature which delights in itself, which finds in the act of creation the joy of imagination in free reign.

A Fine Excess showcases fiction, essays, and poetry of several different schools, all which hold in common an ideal for creating verbal worlds with as much presence, and breadth, as the world around them.

The Editors:

Kirby Gann is the Managing Editor at Sarabande Books. His fiction has appeared in American Writing, bananafish: short fiction, The Crescent Review, The Southern Indiana Review, and Witness, among other journals. His work has received Special Mention in The Pushcart Prize, and is anthologized in The Best of Witness. Also a musician, he plays guitar in the band Jakeleg, whose CD is available on ear X-tacy records.

Kristin Herbert has been awarded grants for her poetry from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Her stories and poems have been recognized with an Academy of American Poets Prize, four Pushcart Prize nominations, and publication in journals including Colorado Review, The Cream City Review, 5 AM, Kingfisher, Phoebe, Red Brick Review, New Delta Review, The Louisville Review, Controlled Burn, The American Voice, Green Mountains Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Antioch Review as well as in the anthologies Present Tense: Writing and Art by Young Women and ChickLit2: No Chick Vics. She lives in Santa Monica, California.

A Fine Excess is the second on the list for The Writer’s Studio, a new series to feature books that challenge, stimulate, and support the writer of poetry and short fiction. These titles are not be how-to books, but books for writers who already know how and are looking for further stimulation, or to deepen and expand their sense of community with other writers. It is a varied and interesting group of books, dedicated to the pleasures and value of the writing life. Other titles now included in this series are:They Have A Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslateable Words & Phrases, and Passing the Word: Writers on Their Mentors.