Award Announcement
First Annual Camber Press Fiction Chapbook Award Winner Announced

Bronxville, NY, August 30, 2009 — Camber Press is proud to announce the winner of the first annual Camber Press Fiction Chapbook Award. Rob Davidson’s entry entitled “Criminals” was chosen by Ron Carlson from among a group of unidentified submissions.

Davidson, a resident of Chico, California, sets his story on the small Caribbean island of Carriacou. Our distant, academic narrator takes us to this island where goats outnumber people two to one. Natives practice grudges, judgments, stubbornness, and things are never as simple as right or wrong. More accurately, they’re about how one resolves issues within the confines of one’s own sense of justice.

Whether it is a father starving himself for an imprisoned son, a pragmatic businessman valuing diligence above all else, or the narrator’s need for a fresh start, all the characters have beliefs. They are all met with confrontation. And it may be the only truth is that escape is not an option. Prisons are not necessarily just the ones with stone cells and guards.

Noted author and final judge Ron Carlson writes of this long story:

“‘Criminals’ is a well-layered story. Davidson reaches for and achieves a voice which at first strikes us as possibly affected and then we come to learn why this man is so distant, so careful. His loneliness, his exile, and his moral dilemma concerning his friend Cudjoe and his son Soup all make for an engaging and successful story.”

Along with publication Mr. Davidson will receive an award of $1,000 and ten copies of his book. With a scheduled release date of January, this piece of fiction marks our entry into promoting the continually-neglected art form of the long story. Davidson takes advantage of this form and showcases what a novelette is capable of: there is a certain simmering, yet the payoff is immediate. The long story can be a quirky reading experience. The length offers itself to be consumed in one sitting and yet the narrative arc is allowed room to play. Our goal was to provide readers a unique tale within untraditional confines. Rob Davidson delivers all this and more with “Criminals.” It is a truly original work.

Rob Davidson was born in 1967 in Duluth, Minnesota, and was educated at Beloit College and Purdue University. From 1990-1992, he served with the U.S. Peace Corps in the Eastern Caribbean, where he taught high school English language and literature. He is the author of Field Observations: Stories (Missouri, 2001) and The Master and the Dean: The Literary Criticism of Henry James and William Dean Howells (Missouri, 2005). Davidson’s honors include an AWP Intro Journals Project Award, a Pushcart Prize nomination, and having twice been selected Artist-in-Residence at the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in Woodstock, New York. Davidson’s fiction, essays and interviews have appeared in a wide range of publications. An early version of “Criminals” first appeared in ZYZZYVA. Davidson is Associate Professor of English at California State University, Chico, and is currently at work on a second collection of short fiction.

A PDF of the press release is available here.

We wish to thank the writers who took the time and effort to send us their manuscripts for the Camber Press Fiction Chapbook Award.