Late Nights River Lights

Book Review, by Troy Stith

Late-Nights River Lights" is a collection of twenty-three slices of life that offer a glimpse into the stories walking all around us everyday. Stories ranging from ominous to the slightly absurd, this book seems to compliment itself throughout. I applaud Kelly Smith’s editorial job on the collection published by EditRed

My favorite story in the book was Burden by Shannon Bates. She perfectly crafts a tale of regret, monsters, and self-reflection. Detailing a man’s daily struggle with a dark secret that he’s suddenly confronted by while perusing the record store one day. Forcing him to realize and analyze what he’s become. Bates uses descriptive language that makes you feel like you’re standing in the self-induced obese man’s shoes, as he squirms in front of his fears. This piece left me cold and wanting to read it again.

A few other personal highlights of the book were Jessica Phippen’s well-crafted opening paragraph of The Dictionary of Loneliness. Her slippery word play is fantastic and creates a perfect picture of Leo Bernstein’s lonely existence. Day Seven by Dan Coxon gets into your head and makes you want to help the poor sap being taken advantage of before it’s too late. Lastly Wonderland gives you chills as Sarah Young takes Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and gives it a dark twist of reality. Don’t take this brief overview as the only highlights of this collection, Late-Night River Lights keeps you on your toes as you jump from one reality to the next, leaving you wondering where you’ll end up.

This collection proves that there is untapped talent all around us and to be happy that indie publishing keeps growing everyday, helping these new artist to get the attention they deserve. Writing outlets like EDITRED give “up and coming” writers a voice in a vast arena of contenders. I look forward to reading more of these collections.

Editor Kelly Smith took time from editing her newest City Smells project to answer some questions about her work on “Latet-Night River Lights.”

AET: Where did your inspiration stem from for Late-Night River Lights?

Kelly Smith: "From the writers themselves. We approached the anthology with an idea of the standard we were looking for, but without any prescribed ideas regarding a theme. Unlike City Smells, which is due for release this Christmas, and which was announced as a theme based anthology, Late-Night River Lights didn’t even have a title until the final twenty-three stories had been chosen. The hundreds of submissions we received were very wide-ranging in their subject matter, but as I compiled the long list, the stories which started to emerge were quite dark, thematically, or dealt with taboos in an original way."

AET: How long did this anthology take to put together?

Kelly Smith: "It was a year from the first submission to the first copy rolling off the press. Because we received so much interest, reading all the submissions took the greatest length of time. I wanted to ensure that I didn’t overlook a story and I frequently re-read pieces to make sure I’d made the right decision. This is just testament to the high standard of the work we received and the quality of writing being produced by members of the EditRed community. They gave me a very difficult task and I had many late nights!"

AET: What was your favorite part in putting this anthology together?

Kelly Smith: "Without doubt, working with the individual writers. It was a real privilege to talk to them about their work, and whilst some stories needed a little more or less editorial attention than others, it was very rewarding to be in contact with the people who had authored the stories that had caught my eye and my imagination."

AET:Did you learn anything new while editing this book?

KellY Smith: "Editing Late-Nights was a steep learning curve. I took on the project because I have a passion for new writing and for what EditRed is doing to help promote emerging voices in fiction. I learned that writing is a compulsion that has little to do with publication and everything to do with the practice. I remember receiving my copy of Late-Nights on the same day that my little boy started pre-school. I got him ready, took him to where he needed to go, then he left my arms, hitched up his jeans nervously and walked away on his own. The anthology is a little like that. It’s out there now without me, and I am very proud of it."

Troy Stith lives in the confused city of Columbus, OH where he has lived all his life. Enduring daily eight hour soul sucking sessions, Troy spends his free hours spilling forth observations of the absurd world we live in. Never locking himself into one genre, exploring all depths of the glorious field. Please stop by to check out the rest of R.O.M.B.I.E. - Robot with a Zombie Brain and catch his short stories on EditRed.

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