"Think of Woods as a literary exorcist, calling out certain entities that possess rural America: isolation, working-class poverty, drugs, incarceration, military dogma, and evangelical religion." — The Rumpus
Books
100 Times
(A Memoir of Sexism)
"Woods reminds readers that there is no such thing as reverse sexism in a world where women are so systematically oppressed. Brilliant and simple, this is sure to advance understanding of a topic of intense national reckoning."
– Booklist.
"Incident by incident, this book makes its case in stark, personal terms."
- The New York Times
"With her forthright style, Woods reveals and examines the abuse she and so many other women have endured." - LA Weekly
Things To Do
When You’re Goth in the Country
"This Book is tight, intelligent, and important, and sure to secure Woods a seat in the pantheon of critical twenty-first-century voices." — Booklist
" Eight uncompromising stories. "- Publisher's Weekly
“The experience of America that many people have woken up to in the last six months is the America that has been happening since the beginning of this country." — Electric Lit
"I can’t think of any other book that captures the essence of America the way this collection does."
—Lambda Literary Review
"These are weird tales, well-told, deliciously funny."- DecomP Magazine
Chavisa Woods' Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country is part Flannery O'Connor, part Kelly Link: darkly funny and brilliantly human, urgently fantastical and implacably realistic. This is one of the best short story collections I've read in years, and it should be required reading for anyone who's trying to understand America." —Paul La Farge, author of The Night Ocean (Penguin)
Readers Photograph and Cosplay Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country
follow #thingstodowhenyou’regothinthecountry on Instagram
Emma Roberts (American Horror Story, Scream Queens) reads Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country.
The Albino Album
This epic novel tells the story of a little girl who accidentally feeds her family to an albino tiger, and grows up to become a domestic terrorist.
”The Albino Album is not easily summed up. It is epic, it’s sprawling, it’s laugh-out-loud, utterly brilliant, infused with philosophy and characters that practically leap off the page, it’s sexy and off-kilter. It’s a new vision of America. Seriously. This book will grab you by the throat and not let up for 550 pages and when you’re finished you’ll wish you were back in its jaws.” –Lambda Literary Review
Chavisa Woods has been noted for capturing a "strange, troubling vision of domestic life in the rural U.S." (Go Magazine). Here she presents a technicolored vision of rural adolescence, the story of a girl with an unpronounceable name who travels along all the bizarre yet familiar byways of America, from the cornfields of Louisiana and the big brass sound of Mardi Gras, to the heights of the Empire State Building. Turning the tradition of the southern gothic novel on its head, Woods presents a new land of contemporary misfits including queer anarchists and activaist fire-dancers, neo-Nazis who breed albino animals, horse thieves, and the archangel Gabrielle.
Love Does Not
Make Me Gentle
or Kind
“As Flannery O’Connor beckons us into the restless, gothic American south, and A.M. Homes backs us into bizarre and frightening corners of our suburbia, Chavisa Woods guides us through a strange, troubling vision of domestic life in the rural U.S.”
— Go Magazine
From the sweet smell of trumpet flowers to the
touch that can kill, Woods work is honest, clear-headed and hard-hitting. The title of this collection says it all, preparing us for our journey through the infinite possibilities of surviving the most haunting aspects of the human condition. —Steve Dalachinsky
A thoughtful and philosophical read. Highly recommended.” — The Pedestal Magazine
She’s a writer who watches, waits, and thinks for herself, bringing us close to the infernal life of the Americanly Ignorant and the articulate seer who lurks among them.” — Jennifer Blowdryer
“Most gripping are stories that, like real dreams, institute close connections between reality and fantasy. ”
— The Brooklyn Rail
“You’re either going to love this book or you’re going to hate it. What you can’t do is ignore it.”
— The Fiction Circus
Anthologies and Collections
Awards
Things To Do When You're Goth in the Country Wins a Shirley Jackson Award.
Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country received Cobalt’s Zora Neale Hurston Fiction Prize. Woods also received the Kathy Acker Award in Writing, and is a McDowell Fellow.
Nonfiction Articles
When we talk about men the same way we talk about women...
A Tropical Zoo in Rural America
Lit Hub
Electric Lit
Gentlemen, Close Your Legs
Book Review
Inauguration Day, 2021
Advise from an Author
Poetry
(currently available online)
Reviews
(Things To Do When You’re Goth in the Country)
(100 Times)
(The Albino Album)
Interviews
Chronicling Sexual Harassment And Assault In The #MeToo Era,
Chavisa Woods joins E. Jean Carroll to discuss their recent books on NPR’s 1A.
Bio
MacDowell Fellow, Chavisa Woods is the author of four books: 100 Times (A Memoir of Sexism) (Seven Stories Press, 2019) Things To Do When You're Goth in the Country ( Seven Stories Press, 2017), The Albino Album (Seven Stories Press 2013) and Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind (2009, Fly by Night Presss (first edition), Second Edition, Autonomedia Press/Unbearable Books, 2013).
Her work has received praise from the New York Times, The LA Times, Publisher’s Weekly, The Stranger, The Seattle Review of Books, Booklist, Lambda Literary Review, Lit Hub, Electric Lit, The Feminist Review, The Rumpus, and many other media outlets.
Woods was the recipient of the Shirley Jackson Award, the Kathy Acker Award in Writing, and Cobalt ‘s Zora Neale Hurston Prize for Fiction. She is a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist for fiction, and in 2009 she received the Jerome Foundation Award for emerging authors.
She has appeared on The Young Turks, NPR’s 1A in conversation with E. Jean Carol.
She has also appeared on Tell Me Everything with John Fugelsang, NPR Saint Louis, Season of the Bitch, The Electorette, and many other shows. Actress Emma Roberts (American Horror Story, and Scream Queens) promoted Things To Do When You're Goth in the County through her book club.
Woods has presented lectures and conducted and workshops on short fiction and poetry at a number of academic institutions, including: New York University (NYU), Mount Holyoke College, Penn State, Sarah Lawrence College, Bard College, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn Tech, Hugo House and the New School. She currently leads select writing workshops throughout the year through Hugo House and Catapult.
Her writing has appeared in such publications as Tin House, LitHub, Electric Lit, Full Stop, The Brooklyn Rail, The Evergreen Review, New York Quarterly, Cleaver Magazine, Jadaliyya, Tribes Magazine, and other publications. She has appeared as a featured author and performer at such notable venues as The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Mid- Manhattan Public Library at 42nd Street, City Lights Bookstore, Town Hall Seattle, The Brecht Forum, The Cervantes Institute, Eliot Bay, and others.
She currently serves as the Executive Director of A Gathering of the Tribes, a nonprofit art and literary organization and small press, founded by Steve Cannon. In this role, Woods also serves as Editor in Chief of A Gathering of the Tribes Magazine Online.
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