by Dallas Woodburn, Fiction Editor
Congrats to issue 24.1 contributor Claire Vaye Watkins on the publication of her first collection of stories, Battleborn.
Antonya Nelson, previous judge for our Wabash Prize for Fiction, wrote a terrific review of Battleborn for the New York Times in which she concludes, “Readers will share in the environs of the author and her characters, be taken into the hardship of a pitiless place and emerge on the other side — wiser, warier and weathered like the landscape.”
A Kirkus review raved: “Gloriously vivid stories about the human heart.” Publisher’s Weekly echoed: “Watkins writes with precision and care, the sentences themselves as surprising as the events, the dialogue, and the spare description. … There is a purity to the prose that is a constant pleasure to read.”
And, to cap it all off, Claire Vaye Watkins was also recently recognized by the National Book Foundation as one of this year’s “5 Under 35″ authors! What a huge honor!


We are thrilled that her story “Wish You Were Here” appears in issue 24.1 of Sycamore Review. You can read an excerpt here.