Swan Songs

B. Elizabeth Beck

Accents Publishing is proud to present Swan Songs, the debut short story collection by poet and novelist B. Elizabeth Beck. In this book we meet thirteen women and witness thirteen lives at the backdrop of thirteen types of music. What Others Say About Swan Songs The house of fiction that B. Elizabeth Beck constructs in Swan Songs is inhabited by people we recognize—a woman fretting about the onset of menopause, an art history graduate working in a diner and trying to hide her identity, a fastidious suburban mom celebrating Christmas in July, a middle-aged wife playing and living out the soundtrack of her life, an abused wife who hopes her husband will "wind down like a toy with low batteries." They are none of us, they are all of us. These thirteen stories—many of them more like capsules of memory or character studies—are masterful, treated with minutely imagined details and a deftness that resonates with authenticity and insight, woven with music as only Beck can do. —Richard Taylor, author of Elkhorn: Evolution of a Kentucky Landmark In B. Elizabeth Beck's Swan Songs women mourn, grieve, grow, love and explore new paths to an internal soundtrack of modern classics from the Grateful Dead to Dolly Parton. Touching, powerful, and relatable, these stories will linger with you long after you read them. —Ellen Birkett Morris, author of Beware the Tall Grass and Lost Girls: Short Stories

Details and Ordering Publication Date: May 1, 2021 Format: Softcover, 6" x 9" ISBN: 978-1-961127-16-6 Price: $19.00

About the Author B. Elizabeth Beck is the author of five collections of poetry, including Mama Tried (Broadstone Books), winner of the American Book Fest Prize for Poetry. She is the author of the Summer Tour Trilogy. Swan Songs is her debut collection of short stories. She was a finalist in the Kentucky State Poetry Society Grand Prix Prize and has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize. Elizabeth is a recipient of The Kentucky Foundation for Women grant. Her work appears in journals and anthologies, including Poetica Magazine, Appalachian Review, Limestone Blue, and Harvard Education Press. Elizabeth founded two poetry series, Teen Howl, and Poetry at the/'tā-bəl/ in Lexington, Kentucky. For more information about Elizabeth: www.elizbeck.com.