The Tide King Wins First in Category, Somerset Awards for Contemporary/Literary Fiction

Excited that my debut novel, The Tide King (Black Lawrence Press), is Somerset Awards First Place Category Winner for contemporary/literary fiction and is a finalist for best book! Winners will be announced April 30th at the Chanticleer Authors Conference and Awards Gala, Bellingham, Washinton. Congratulations and good luck to all finalists!

Interview at Late Last Night Books

I was interviewed by Sally Whitney at Late Last Night Books about the magical realism in my debut novel, The Tide King, and my forthcoming novel, The Summer She Was Under Water, about labeling writers, about loneliness, and more:

[finding home] I think, being comfortable with yourself, loving yourself. Trusting yourself to know your needs and know how to fill them. Like I said, there’s a great fear, I think, to go deep inside, to find that you’re lacking. It’s such a scary, terrible feeling to open that door and find a dark, empty closet. So much so that we try to fill the closet with other things from the outside. But to be in the closet, alone, and feel safe and strong and content. And discover there’s actually a window in there covered with dirt that just needed a little cleaning.

To read the interview, go here.

New review of The Tide King at Late Last Night Books

Thank you, Sally Whitney, for your review of The Tide King at Late Last Night Books:

"Jen Michalski is a wonderful storyteller. You could read her novel The Tide King purely for the characters and events that fit in with the reality we know. One reviewer on Amazon said she’d done that, finding the eternal-life-giving herb in the story unnecessary. If you read the novel that way, you’ll be treated to a beautiful piece of writing with well-developed characters and an exciting plot, but you will miss so much."

To read more, go here.

The Tide King at Author's Corner on Public Radio

Tomorrow you can hear an excerpt of "The Tide King" on The Author's Corner on Public Radio as part of its week-long Veteran's day celebrations. The Author's Corner is broadcast on 500 public radio stations nationwide and features new, established, Pulitzer Prize-winning, and bestselling authors. If you can't listen on the radio, you can go here.

Review of The Tide King in Entropy Magazine

So excited to read this review of The Tide King by Meg Tuite in Entropy Magazine!

When I first started reading Michalski’s novel I thought, oh, no, a war story. There were only a few of those that had mesmerized me, of late, like Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried. But, Michalski is as much a master as O’Brien. She wrapped me easily inside her extraordinary storytelling and inimitable cast that held me captive in a world I wasn’t sure could take me down and then wasn’t sure I wanted to resurface from. As a writer, I wanted to decipher this phenomenon of layers and structure that created this magic, but the reader in me was traveling with the plot and easily let go of that and rode with her as it unfurled. Then, I read it again.

To read more, go here.

Review of The Tide King at Gently Read Literature

Thanks to Bonnie ZoBell for this wonderful, astute review of The Tide King in the Spring 2014 Gently Read Literature that evokes the great writers of magical realism:

One can't help invoking Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his earthy little villages being visited upon by flamboyant angels with crooked wings falling to the earth and how real-life folks would react to such an abnormality. Or perhaps Luis Urrea, who has said when people call his book magical realism that it really isn't, for the miracles he writes about in his fiction did happen and are documented.

You can read the full review here (with a $4.00 purchase price of the issue).

"The Motions of the Heart": An interview at Fiction Writers Review

I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by Travis Kurowski at Fiction Writers Review about The Tide King and Could You Be With Her Now, and how I took a completely different approach to each work:

Both of the novellas in Could You Be With Her Now were sort of breakthroughs for me. I wrote them both in 2009, I think, and Michael Kimball was very influential in helping me discover my own “language” for them, the parameters of not only a particular piece, but my own parameters – words I would never use in my writing, words I would. So both “I Can Make It to California Before It’s Time for Dinner” and “May-September” were the first times I approached stories through language first — my first instinct is to use simile, metaphor, sentence structure. In the novellas, it was more of an effect of synesthesia — certain words had a certain color, weight, texture. It was all very physical, like painting, and very fitting, given the strong, raw subject matter contained in both novellas. It was almost as if they deserved a different approach.

To read more, go here.

Review of The Tide King in Fjords Review

Excited to wake up to this review of The Tide King in the great Fjords Review. Thanks to Natalie Sypolt for writing such a thoughtful, in-depth analysis:

The Tide King is a complex book that examines both the evils that people can do to one another, as well as the beauty that is possible. In these pages, the reader is asked to consider all the things that make us uncomfortable-war, sickness, suffering, and death-but we’re also treated at the end to hope.

and

In the hands of a less capable writer, the reader might object to these unconventional story lines; however, Michalski handles them with great empathy and grace. We are left no choice but the embrace the fallibility of the protagonists and root for their successes.

To read more, go here.

Review of The Tide King in New Madrid Journal

So cool to read this review of The Tide King in the New Madrid Journal, the literary magazine of the low-res MFA program at Murray State:

Michalski may claim to have been a bad poet, but her prose clearly holds the rhythm and beauty of poetry, and her novel is a joy to read.Once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. She has touched the world of Fantasy gently, creating a story anchored in reality, with a hint of mystery.

To read more, go here.

Reading at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, January 26, 2 pm, Wheeler Auditorium

Many thanks to the Friends of the Enoch Pratt Free Library for booking me to read from The Tide King and talk about stuff, like libraries. Seriously, aren't libraries awesome? Also, it would be awesome if you could come. The Wheeler Auditorium is huge! For more information, please go here. There will be books for sale, and if it helps you in the door, I will make rum-soaked cookies, too.

The Tide King makes 2013 Top Ten Fiction at Baltimore City Paper

The Tide King made the 2013 Top Ten Fiction at Baltimore City Paper. So thrilled and honored to be included with Rachel Kushner, Karen Russell, George Saunders, and Laura van den Berg:

5. Tide King, by Jen Michalski (Black Lawrence Press) Michalski joined the big leagues with this stupendous novel whose magical realism is heavy on the realism as she follows her characters through war, love, and a cross-country country-music tour. Gorgeous. We’re lucky to have Michalski before the rest of the world discovers her. But they will.

Review of The Tide King at Heavy Feather Review

Merridawn Duckler writes a very astute review of The Tide King for Heavy Feather Review.

Magic and fantasy, the supra and the supernatural are having a good long run in modern fiction. I approve of blurred lines among genre but—grumpy cat impersonator that I am—nothing entrances me less than the promise that I shall be entranced....This grouchy intro is all by way of suggesting there is an alternative. One could write a novel with vivid, dimensional characters that are all kinds of human, caught up in a story that defies logic but not sense. For that experience you might want to read Jen Michalski’s wonderful, and yes, magical novel The Tide King.

and

And as pieces fit into this sophisticated and brilliant puzzle of a novel, it is the stories that draw us in, as well as the real problems of characters we come to know through the writer’s skill.

My week has been made, and it's only Monday. ;) To read more, go here.

"5 Questions" at Little Patuxent Review

I had a lot of fun doing Little Patuxent Review's "5 Questions" with editor Laura Shovan. We talked about the writing process and how I approached writing The Tide King:

I never think about when I should be finished with a particular novel, whether I’ve spent too much time on it, and I also never wish for a novel to end. I try to have so much fun writing it that I’m disappointed when I’ve done all I can and it’s finally finished, that I have to find something else to do.

To read more, go here.

Letter to the 14-year-old self at "Dear Teen Me"

I wrote this letter to my 14-year-old self for the wonderful website, "Dear Teen Me" (warning--there is a picture of me at 14 included). Thanks to Emily and Priya (and Elisabeth Dahl) for letting me exorcise those demons:

Dear Jennie, It’s Friday afternoon, and you are going straight home from school. Not to field hockey practice, debate team, or the mall. You don’t have butterflies in your stomach because of the party you will attend that night or the boy you will talk to there. There will be no phone call from your best friend, since you don’t have one, about the 8th-grade algebra test or whether you are going to the dance next Friday.

To read more, go here.

Visiting Writer, York College, October 24th

As part of York College's Visiting Writer series, I'll be reading there on Thursday, October 24th at 5 pm in the Brossman Art Gallery. Many thanks to Travis Kurowski and the faculty and staff of York for inviting me up! You can find more information here:

Her new novel, The Tide King, a magical realist adventure in the vein of Borges, Atwood, and Chabon, is about Stanley Polenksy, a Polish-American from Baltimore, whose mother gives him an herb that promises eternal life as he heads off to World War II. Author Robin Black says of the novel, "The Tide King is a profoundly compassionate novel about what it means to be a mortal being—or maybe worse to be an immortal one. Part folktale, part World War II buddy story, part exploration of myriad kinds of love, this is an absolute stunner of a book. Jen Michalski is a writer whose talent seems limitless. The only consolation to finishing these pages is the thought of what more will surely follow."

Interview with Corduroy Books

I had so much fun being interviewed by Kati Heng over at Corduroy Books about The Tide King that we actually did it twice—who lets a malfunctioning audio program run a good conversation? Anyway, pleased to see it up today:

You asked me about the ending, and whether I wanted the reader to view it as sad or hopeful. I think the ending is sad, but I also think it’s hopeful. Because, mortal or immortal, all we really have is our hope to move us forward, whether it’s hope that we’ll find a cure for immortality, in Calvin and Ela’s case, or whether we’ll fall in love, or whether we’ll be happy. So I tried to end on the character’s hopes, no matter how slim those hopes were. It seemed the most realistic ending in what I felt was a very realistic book.

To read more, go here

Story Behind The Tide King at upcoming4.me

Thanks so much for upcoming4.me for letting me talk about the origins of The Tide King:

My novel The Tide King resulted from the collision of very different orbits. Of course, the main premise is about an enchanted herb—burnette saxifrage—which, if taken in any form, grants eternal, regenerating life. But the original story idea never had any elements of magical realism—in fact, it was strictly historical.

To read more, go here: http://upcoming4.me/news/book-news/story-behind-the-tide-king-by-jen-michalski

Twitter Chat at LitChat, Friday, Sept 27th, 4 pm EST

I'll be talking to Carolyn Bass with my editor Diane Goettel about Black Lawrence Press on Friday, September 27, 4 pm, at LitChat. Join us in a discussion of my debut novel, THE TIDE KING, which won the 2012 Big Moose Prize. You can join the conversation at 4 pm by signing in with your twitter handle here: http://nurph.com/litchat

Reading at the 2013 Baltimore Book Festival, Sept 28

I'll be reading and hosting (I always like to multitask) the 510 Readings Series at the 2013 Baltimore Book Festival. Check out our great lineup at 6:30 pm, Saturday, Sept. 28th, at the CityLit tent:

Jessica Anya Blau
Aubrey Hirsch
Heather Rounds
Noel Sloboda
Simon Frueland
Jen Michalski

Also, many thanks to the Chesapeake Wine Company for providing free wine during the reading (wine and writers, always dangerous). Signing afterwards, and probably some drinks at the Owl Bar. Join us? Of course you will.

You can find out more information about the authors (and other readings) at the BBF site here. And maybe, if you come early enough, you can meet the real literary superstars:

The Tide King Voted "Best Fiction," Baltimore City Paper's Best of Baltimore 2013

This was very nice to wake up to:

Jen Michalski’s The Tide King is not only the best local book we’ve read this year, it is one of the best books we’ve read, period. Its magical realism emphasizes the realism while the mystical elements allow Michalski to take a long view of her characters, whom she casts as “gods who live in hell.”

Thanks, City Paper, for making The Tide King a "Best of 2013." You can read all the winners here.