Winner of the Sator New Works Award The Sator New Works Award, selected by Two Dollar Radio editors, goes to an author who identifies as transgender or non-binary for a book-length work of fiction or non-fiction. This publishing prize was made possible by Sator Press, a nonprofit publishing company operated by Ken Baumann from 2009-2019. "When it comes to John Elizabeth Stintzi''s novel My Volcano, a volcano bursting from the ground below Central Park manages to be one of the less weird aspects of the plot. Stinzi''s novel also includes time travel, folktales, and a character transforming into a being with a steadily growing hive mind. This is not a book that lacks ambition." --Tobias Carroll, Tor.com "Can''t Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for March and April 2022" "A strange rock in Central Park grows into a two-mile-wide, active volcano within three weeks. Flittering around this eco-horror story are fragments of other moments for people worldwide experiencing shifts in the natural world.
Of the many stories, some include involuntary time travel, PTSD from civilians living through war, a common injury gone awry, writers'' block, and fiery folkloric studies." --Alyssa Shotwell, The Mary Sue "The Mary Sue Book Club, March 2022" "My Volcano is a novel as bracing and fractured as its title. Part parable, part science fiction, part eco-horror, Stintzi takes readers on a whiplash-inducing ride from modern day New York and Greece to the ancient Aztec empire that''s not easily shaken off after the turn of the final page." --The Chicago Review of Books "12 Must-Read Books of March" Listen to author John Elizabeth Stintzi read from their novel My Volcano. Poets & Writers 2/16/2022 Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin "With My Volcano, John Elizabeth Stintzi joins the ranks of authors playing with the mythic proportions of the climate crisis through fantastical imaginings." --Liza Monroy, Publishers Weekly "Atmospheric Pressure: New Books on Climate Change" "I will read anything that comes from JES''s twisted imagination and love it. This ingenious, insightful, unconventional and expansive eco-horror is no exception. " --Karla J.
Strand, Ms. Magazine "Most Anticipated Reads for the Rest of Us 2022" --Dahlia Adler, LGBTQReads "Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Adult Fiction: January-June 2022" "The chaos of current events takes on a supernatural dimension in John Elizabeth Stintzi''s novel My Volcano. In the summer of 2016, all over the world, there are strange occurrences. The most spectacular event of all: a volcano sprouts in the middle of Central Park and keeps on growing, destroying large sections of New York City. My Volcano is a captivating novel about the consequences of letting obvious dangers fester and grow." --Eileen Gonzalez, Foreword Reviews, starred review "Climate change, time travel, startup culture, and volcanic eruptions intertwine in this sui generis outing from [Stintzi]. Told in a series of buzzing numbered fragments, the narrative whirls around a volcano rising in Central Park that looks like Mount Fuji. As the volcano grows, Stintzi builds out the wide-ranging narrative with jump cuts.
That Stintzi keeps all these plates spinning is a wonder; that they transform the chaotic present into a fiery, transcendent vision of the future is even more impressive. It''s a brilliant achievement." --Publishers Weekly, starred review (Read the full review of My Volcano) "A genre-bending novel that circles a volcano mysteriously rising from the Central Park Reservoir. Among the narrative sections, Stintzi intersperses the dates and victims of real-world violence in 2016, including the Pulse nightclub shooting and the shooting of Alton Sterling by police officers in Baton Rouge. At times, this ambitious novel can feel unwieldy, with its weighty subject matter and complex, formal innovation. However, Stintzi has a gift for meticulously crafted worldbuilding and captures the tender drama of human (and, in this novel, extrahuman) relationships. Patient readers will be rewarded by their arrival at the book''s dazzling conclusion. A vibrant ecosystem of a novel that deals honestly with the beauty and horror of human and ecological connectedness.
" --Kirkus Reviews (Read the full review of My Volcano) "Nonbinary author Stintzi''s science fiction / eco-horror novel is an ambitious, global tale that begins with the discovery of an emergent volcano in Central Park. An eclectic group of characters, from Mexico City, Tokyo, Nigeria, Greece, Mongolia, and more grapple with their personal changes and transformations as the earth undergoes its own." --Casey Stepaniuk, Autostraddle (Read the full list of "Queer and Feminist Books Coming Out Winter 2022") "A volcano has formed in Central Park. A Mexican child finds himself in the wrong century. A nomad in Mongolia is transformed by a bee-sting. A trans writer in New Jersey imagines an impossible planet. In their second novel, poet and educator John Elizabeth Stintzi offers a globe-spanning and enigmatic romp through the strangeness of our world." --Andrew Woodrow-Butcher, Quill & Quire (Read the full list of "2022 Spring Preview: Fiction") "With the panoramic scope and astute sharpness of Samanta Schweblin''s Little Eyes and the eerie chill of Jeff Vandermeer''s Southern Reach trilogy, John Elizabeth Stintzi''s My Volcano immediately grabs you by the shirt and doesn''t let you go.
Structured like a spiral moving through time and space, and deftly mixing history and myth and vision with poetic prose, this dread-inducing book will keep you up at night until you get to its last devastating, but ultimately, I think, hopeful line." --Alicia Elliott, bestselling author of A Mind Spread Out on the Ground "A kaleidoscopic, contemporary folktale with added acerbic juice, like when Dylan went electric. Stintzi somehow funnels the tumultuous present into a sprawling novel of collision and connection that''s both timely and timeless. This is very weird shit indeed." --Hazel Jane Plante, author of Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) " My Volcano is a fast-paced, gripping, singular novel that belongs to the new wave of eco-horror yielding to no conventions." --Fernando A. Flores, author of Tears of the Trufflepig Author John Elizabeth Stintzi is a non-binary writer who grew up on a cattle farm in northwestern Ontario. Their work has been awarded the 2019 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, and The Malahat Review ''s 2019 Long Poem Prize.
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