IPPY Gold Medal Winner (short story collections) 
Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award Long List 
A single mother rents a fundamentalist preacher's carriage house. A pop star contemplates suicide in the hotel where Janis Joplin died. A philandering ex-pat doctor gets hooked on morphine while reeling from his wife's death. And in the title story, a train engineer, after running over a young girl on his tracks, grapples with the pervasive question--what propels a life toward such a disastrous end? Rendered in a style both generous and intelligent, the men and women at the center of these subtle stories are driven by their unusual predicaments and preoccupations. Rife with dark humor, Vanessa Blakeslee's debut story collection illuminates the idiosyncratic and the mundane in energetic, bristling prose that marks the arrival of a powerful new voice.

Train Shots

Literature & Fiction

Blakeslee, Vanessa

Literary

Burrow Press

IPPY, Bronze, Literary Fiction Foreword Reviews' INDIEFAB Book of the Year, Finalist The Eric Hoffer Award, First Runner-Up in General Fiction The Montaigne Medal, Finalist Growing up as the only daughter of a wealthy landowner in Santiago de Cali, Colombia, teenaged Mercedes Martinez knows a world of maids, armed guards, and private drivers. When she falls in love with Manuel, a fiery young activist with a passion for his faith and his country, she begins to understand the suffering of the desplazados who share her land. A startling discovery about her father forces Mercedes to doubt everything she thought she knew about her life, and she and Manuel make plans to run away together. But before they can, tragedy strikes in a single violent night. Mercedes flees Colombia for the United States and a life she never could have imagined. Fifteen years later, she returns to Colombia seeking the truth, but discovers that only more questions await. In the bristling, beautiful prose that won her an IPPY Gold Medal for her short story collection Train Shots, Vanessa Blakeslee's Juventud explores the idealism of youth, the complexities of a ravaged country, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.

Juventud

United States

Curbside Splendor Publishing

Winner, Indie Excellence Book Award (IEBA) for Short Story Fiction, 2019 Silver Medal, Independent Publishers Book Awards (IPPY) for Short Story Fiction, 2019 Finalist, Montaigne Medal, Eric Hoffer Award Committee, 2019 Finalist, INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award for Short Story Collections, 2019 From the unforgiving surf of Costa Rica to hidden vineyards in the South of France, the stories in Perfect Conditions span the globe, and the characters often struggle to find control in unrelenting circumstances: a deep sea fisherman discovers he may not be allowed to return home when his contract expires; a young woman mourns the death of a dear friend she cannot save; a newlywed couple embark on a disastrous honeymoon. Unflinching stories from an award-winning writer. Vanessa Blakeslee's writing has appeared in The Southern Review, Green Mountains Review, The Paris Review Daily, The Globe and Mail, Kenyon Review Online, among many others. Her novel Juventud won the 2015 Bronze Medal, was a finalist for Foreword Review's Book of the Year, and a runner-up for the Eric Hoffer Award. Her short story collection Train Shots won the 2014 IPPY Gold Medal in Short Fiction.

Perfect Conditions

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Books by Blakeslee, Vanessa

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Blakeslee, Vanessa. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Train Shots

Juventud

Perfect Conditions