in transit - Dorothee Lang (blueprint)

in transit is a mosaic of encounters, departures and arrivals; a journey in widening circles. Dorothee Lang merges the short story collection and travel diary format to explore recent global changes and undercurrents, and their influences on personal life. Geographically, the transit route starts in Berlin, moves through Europe, heads west towards the States, and then eastwards to Asia. Core themes include: globalisation / digitalization and the increasing interconnectedness of the world; the reunification of Germany and the hopes of a new millennium; the enhanced pace of life - often juxtaposed by the longing for a time-out; the drama of 9/11 and its aftermath; the mercurial nature of value systems.

"Dorothee Lang's in transit uses sense as sonar, bouncing waves off the natural and manmade world to image the fluidity of our existence. Like Dogen's Moon in a Dewdrop, in transit quietly feasts on the beauty of minutiae, showing time and again that what often goes unnoticed represents a microcosm, a history, an indelible connectedness that deserves our attention." - Mel Bosworth

Dorothee Lang is founding editor of the literary online journal BluePrintReview, and author of the travel novel Masala Moments. Her writing has appeared in numerous online and print magazines, among them: The Sunday Herald (India), The Mississippi Review (USA), Zeit Online (Germany), Dublin Quarterly (Ireland), Word Riot (USA) and others. She holds a degree in economics and advertising, and lives in the South of Germany.

About blueprintpress
Founded in 2006, blueprintpress is the print side wing of BluePrintReview. The current focus is on new and experimental formats: upcoming are 2 "micro novels" - hand-made books that fit in an air mail envelope. Blueprintpress currently is looking for fitting micro novel manuscripts (4000-5500 words, details).

Dorothee Lang: in transit
story collection / travel diary
64 pages
paperback

Thaw - Fiona Robyn (Snowbooks)

Ruth is thirty two years old and doesn't know if she wants to be thirty three. Her meticulously-ordered lonely life as a microbiologist is starved of pleasure and devoid of meaning. She decides to give herself three months to decide whether or not to end her life, and we read her daily diary as she struggles to make sense of her past and grapples with the pain of the present. Thaw explores what makes any of our lives worth living. Can Red, the eccentric Russian artist Ruth commissions to paint her portrait, find a way to warm her frozen heart?

A page of Ruth's diary will be posted every day for the next three months in the Thaw blog, here the starting post: Welcome.

Fiona Robyn is an author and a blogger living in rural Hampshire in the UK with her cats Fatty and Silver. Thaw is her third novel.

About Snowbooks
Snowbooks is a feisty, award-winning independent book publisher, founded by Emma Barnes and Rob Jones, and later joined by Anna Torborg and James Bridle. They've been going since 2004 when their first books were launched. Since then they have sold hundreds of thousands of books, been nominated for and won lots of prizes, and have generally had a blast. Their authors include Thomas Emson and Sarah Bower, and they publish across genres.

Fiona Robyn: Thaw
novel, 2009
350 pages, paperback
ISBN: 9781906727093