Every month, Typescript will post a new giveaway, with recipients chosen at random on the 15th of each month. Submit your name and email in the comments below and you’ll be automatically placed in the drawing. Please only submit once; if you’re chosen, you’ll be contacted for your shipping address.

If you have a book or product you’d like to see featured in a future giveaway, feel free to contact me.

This month’s giveaway comes from Lynn Holmgren, whom I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know through a local community writing group. Lynn is a short story writer who writes fantastic, in-depth reviews of short story collections and fiction on her website, Long Story Short. To share a story or collection that you’ve enjoyed, feel free to email Lynn.

Many thanks to Lynn for her donation of Permanent Visitors and for her contribution of the great write-up below:

Kevin Moffett, author of the short story collection “Permanent Visitors,” was born and raised in Daytona Beach, FL and writes a monthly column about zoos and amusement parks for FunWorld Magazine. These details alone tell you that his stories are going to be filled with a cast of colorful characters in ironic settings. With a masterful hand he takes the quirkiness that one can assume is natural in such a setting and makes it uniquely his own.

In “Ursa, On Zoo Property and Off,” a man uncovers new truths about his coworkers on a company trip to the zoo, and goes home with a young waitress in a bear suit. In “Tatooizm,” a man with hopes of owning his own tattoo parlor tries to convince his young girlfriend to let him use her body as a practice canvas as she imagines what her life will be like when she breaks up with him. In “Space”, a boy comes to terms with the death of his mother after an odd encounter with a stranger on a bus finds him in a mall department store shopping for a proper dress to bury her baby girl in.

Moffett surprises readers with his delicate interiors, eye for metaphor and odd details. In “Permanent Vistors” he successfully owns the landscapes of his childhood. He showcases his keen ability to pick two wild cards from the deck and find their common vulnerability.

Reading this impressive debut collection by a recent MFA grad assured me that the art of the short story is an achievable goal, not to be dismissed merely as practice for the novel. It has a distinct right to stand alone and be heard.

Also, for anyone interested in reading more short stories: Anthologies and literary journals are a great place to discover fresh talent and stories by novelists who you didn’t know wrote short stories. I came upon Kevin Moffett after reading a story of his in New Stories from the South 2008 (edited by ZZ Packer). The annual Best American Short Stories Series hosts a different guest editor each year so it remains an eclectic mix worth reading. One Story is a unique literary “journal” that features one short story, no frills, every three weeks, with a supporting website for an interview with the author.