(July 16, 2015) To Do the Deal, A Novel in Stories has made the CROOK’S CORNER BOOK PRIZE LONGLIST for best debut novel set in the American South! (Yes, Maryland counts as the south because the Mason-Dixon line runs along the northern border.)

We’ll be keeping watch on the Crook’s Corner Book Prize Facebook page, where they will be posting news clips and passages from each of these books. The finalists will announced in October and the winner, selected by Lee Smith, will be announced in January. Should To Do the Deal win, author Cathy Baker will receive a cash prize and –in a nod to the literary cafés of Paris that inspired the prize–a free glass of wine at Crook’s Corner every day of the prize year.

The Longlist is below. Look what’s first (and don’t point out that it’s alphabetical; we don’t care). Demitasse Press is very pleased to be in the running against several esteemed publishing houses.

The 18 longlisted titles. To Do the Deal is in the very center–we think that’s a good omen!

TO DO THE DEAL, by Cathy Baker (Demitasse Press)

JAM ON THE VINE, by LaShonda Katrice Barnett (Grove Press)

SLIM AND THE BEAST, by Samuel L. Barrantes (Inkshares)

RUBY, by Cynthia Bond (Hogarth)

THE MARAUDERS, by Tom Cooper (Crown)

THE LAST DAYS OF VIDEO, by Jeremy Hawkins (Soft Skull Press)

WHERE ALL THE LIGHT TENDS TO GO, by David Joy (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

THE LATE MATTHEW BROWN, by Paul Ketzle (Apprentice House)

SOIL, by Jamie Kornegay (Simon & Schuster)

MINNOW, by James McTeer (Hub City Press)

AGAINST THE COUNTRY, by Ben Metcalf (Random House)

THE SWEETHEART, by Angelina Mirabella (Simon & Schuster)

THE QUAKER CAFE, by Brenda Bevan Remmes (Lake Union Publishing)

UNBECOMING, by Rebecca Scherm (Viking)

THE STORY OF LAND & SEA, by Kate Simpson Smith (Harper Collins)

MIGRATORY ANIMALS, by Mary Helen Specht (Harper Perennial)

CHARLESTON, by Margaret Bradham Thornton (Ecco)

MY SUNSHINE AWAY, by M.O. Walsh (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)