The four chapbooks collected in A PECULIAR FEELING OF RESTLESSNESS, three of them finalists and one of them the winner of the Rose Metal Press first annual short short chapbook contest, all revel in the succinctness of their form, the underlying tension anchored beneath each story of 1,000 words or less. These stories are peculiar; they resonate with restlessness. They are deft, they are gritty, and they are lyrical. Laughter, Applause. Laughter, Music, Applause by Kathy Fish, Wanting by Amy L. Clark, Sixteen Miles Outside of Phoenix by Elizabeth Ellen, and The Sky Is a Well by Claudia Smith combine four multi-layered portrayals of beautiful uneasiness into a collection rich with wit, grace, and originality.

    While the bricks with which Chinquee constructs her fictions - failed or failing relationships, childhood friendships, and the intricacies of family life - are not uncommon, the architecture she creates with them is rare indeed: stories now full of light, now somber, now opening the reader's eyes to an utterly new space.

    What links a caf� in Antarctica, a factory for producing electronic tracking tags and a casino where gamblers can wager their shoes? They're among the multiple venues where award-winning writer Tania Hershman sets her unique tales in this spellbinding debut collection.

    The Flume Chapbook Series is supported by its annual Chapbook Contest and chapbook sales. Its aim is to help writers get the sort of exposure that can help them achieve deserved recognition. Flume Press publishes only one book a year, with a print run of 500 copies, and Flume Press tries to get the book to important readers—readers who care about contemporary poetry and fiction, reviewers, and editors of literary magazines and small presses.

    This is the first substantial attempt at creating an annual print compilation of the best of material published online.“[The] mingling and occasional blurring of genres distinguishes Best of the Web from any other print collections showcasing online literature...the book is heartily significant , featuring work that is sometimes surprising...and sometimes exhilarating—not unlike the Web itself.”—Los Angeles Times“The Internet is built for this work: short and weird, just what one’s attention span wants when clicking through. And Almond and Leslie wisely pick up on that, making the book worth paging through, as well.”—Time Out Chicago“Such a development could not have come at a better time for onlineliterary publishing.”—NewPages.com“Though publishing online provides us the opportunity to present fiction freefrom economic imperative, permitting us, our authors, and our readers to relishin the experiment of expression, one of our great regrets is forgoing the sensation of binding it, printing it, holding the work we proudly select in our hands. Then along comes Dzanc Books, and this gift of a book, Best of the Web , that feels, to us, like the presentation of an award.”—Aaron Petrovich and Alex Rose, editors, Hotel St. George“While reading this anthology, you may find yourself muttering , ‘Wheredid Dzanc find such brilliant fiction and non-fiction-y writing? Are theywitches? ’ I don’t want to give away too much of the magic, but I will saythis...yes, they are witches.”—Eric Spitznagel, web editor, Monkeybicycle.netIn Best of the Web 2008:Zachary Amendt, Jonathan Ames, Arlene Ang, Michael Bahler, Robin Behn, David Bottoms, Kris Broughton, Benjamin Buchholz, Edward Byrne, Melanie Carter, Jared Carter, Nancy Cherry, Elaine Chiew, Andrea Cohen, Myfanwy Collins, Leigh Anne Couch, Elizabeth Crane, Stevie Davis, Bruce Fischer, Abby Frucht, Charlie Geoghegean-Clements, Garth Risk Hallberg, Seth Harwood, Edward Hirsch, Cara Hoffman, Sandra Huber, Richard Jespers, Christina Kallery, Thomas King, Anna Kushner, Frannie Lindsay, Valerie Loveland, Maurice Manning, LaTonya McQueen, Juan José Millás - translated by Peter Robinson, Amy Minton, Bill Mohr, Okey Ndibe, Stefani Nellen, Jenny Pritchett, Jacques Rancourt, Christopher Rizzo, Amy L. Sargent, George Saunders, R. T. Smith, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Andrew Sorge, Anne Dyer Stuart, Sarah Sweeney, Ron Tanner, Justin Taylor, Tess Taylor, Kim Whitehead, David Willems, Paul Yoon, J. W. Young, Claudia Zuluaga, introductions from series editor Nathan Leslie and edition editor Steve Almond, and interviews with select authors.