NOW, THAT’S A TRICK

Flash Fiction Chapbook

“Poetic, thought-provoking flash fiction.”

“In these concise tales, the author conjures an impressive range of evocative and epiphanic moments, full of memorable turns of phrase to relish and ponder. ‘We have choices about what we carry with us. I carry my enchantment,’ says the narrator of ‘Now, That’s a Trick,’ a philosophy that also could be applied to this entire collection, which recalls the magical realism of Eudora Welty’s fiction.”

—Kirkus Reviews

Each flash fiction in this lyrical chapbook spotlights one of life’s tricks, whether the trick uses coins, reflections, an invisible body, rings, or belief. Together, the outsider characters in these magical realism tales search for connection and identity and find snapshots of poignant poetry. This small collection of stories based in New Mexico includes pieces previously published in [PANK], Hunger Mountain, Gargoyle, NANO Fiction, The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review, Annalemma, flashquake, The Pedestal, Zizzle Literary, and elsewhere.

(Cover art by Alexandra Eldridge)

ADVANCE PRAISE:

“The narrative voice in this collection brings to mind my favorite writers of stories—Denis Johnson, Lauren Groff, Eudora Welty. There’s a similar trust in the strangeness, danger, and lovability of humans and of language. At the same time, the voice here is distinctly Dawn Sperber’s own, magic and floating, yet rooted in our shared existence. As with the tricks performed by a character in the title story, the writing here seems to “spin and levitate in the air.” We’ll never know how she did it, but we’ll keep following her, hoping to find out.”

—Joanna Penn Cooper, author of The Itinerant Girl’s Guide to Self-Hypnosis

“These spritely, sparkly stories beckon the reader into a world where anything can happen. Everyday life is transformed—no, transmuted— into something unpredictable and a little risky, and the language leaps and dips, motored by passion, by humor, by fondness for these eccentric characters. These stories are dreamscapes tuned to the key of loss and redemption. I thoroughly enjoyed them.”

—Summer Wood, author of Raising Wrecker and Arroyo

“Sperber’s characters in Now, That’s a Trick are as bewitching as ever. I immediately fell in love with John in the opening title story; the chime of his pocket coins set the melody for chapbook. The short pieces that follow aren’t just small fictions, or poems, or songs, but a new slant on all three. Sperber somehow makes the reader feel as though they’re underwater, in the loveliest, most gentle way imaginable… It is the element of healing, lying just under the surface in this collection of eleven of Sperber’s finest pieces, that necessarily tempers the most dangerous edges of the loosening grip on reality.”

—Vallie Lynn Watson, author of A River So Long

**Read Vallie Lynn Watson’s intriguing full review in The Paper.**

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MY BONES ARE LOVE GIFTS

A book of poetry and drawings

(Cover art by Irene Hardwicke Olivieri)

Find here poems of childlike wonder and ancient wisdom, as Dawn Sperber shares her lyrical offerings about natural magic, New Mexico’s wild beauty, timeless moments, and the limitless self. This beautiful book is illustrated with fanciful drawings by the author that complement the wordplay. It’s a little book ripe with soul reminders and creativity that you can carry to remind you of your own magic.

ADVANCE PRAISE:

“These verses identify microscopic aspects of life, magnifying them until they become something brilliant; the world the author brings into focus is stunning. A steady sense of optimism underlies each poem, unburdened by unrealistic or fantastical expectations for life. 

“A mature, uplifting, and wise group of poems.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Each of the poems in Dawn Sperber’s My Bones Are Love Gifts is a ticket to a noumenal realm beyond what can be experienced by the senses, even as all five are activated along the way with stunning, unforgettable impressions and the mundane is transformed again and again into the resplendent. It’s as if the land to which the poems take us lies just beyond the sensual, and with childlike wonder and wisdom as old as magic, our guide sets us gently on its shore.”

—Daniel Mueller, author of How Animals Mate (Overlook Press, 1999), Nights I Dreamed of Hubert Humphrey (Outpost 19 Books, 2013), and Anything You Recognize (Outpost 19 Books, 2023)

“Sperber is a poet who can transform the mundane into something magnificent.”

“Dawn Sperber’s My Bones Are Love Gifts is full of powerful and memorable poems that will stick with readers long after they turn the last page. Reading her work is akin to an aesthetic experience where the graphic is rendered with such clarity that the pictures reverberate deeply. Illustrated with whimsical drawings, Sperber writes about innate magic, eternal moments, and the infinite self with ageless wisdom. At other times, she writes with childlike curiosity. Sperber pays tribute to the beauty and fragility of life and it’s an unforgettable read.”

—Maria Victoria Beltran for Readers’ Favorite