{"product_id":"beauty-queen-by-melissa-benton-barker","title":"Beauty Queen, by Melissa Benton Barker","description":"\u003cp align=\"justify\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eProse, chapbook, 36 pages, from \u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #2b00ff;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"color: #2b00ff;\"\u003e\u003ca style=\"color: #2b00ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/bottlecap.press\/collections\/bottlecap-features\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"color: #2b00ff;\" data-mce-href=\"https:\/\/bottlecap.press\/collections\/bottlecap-features\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eBottlecap Features\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp align=\"justify\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eMelissa Benton Barker’s debut flash fiction chapbook, \u003cem\u003eBeauty Queen\u003c\/em\u003e, explores the confines of the feminine experience within the patriarchy throughout the lifespan. The book opens with a young girl hunting for lizard eggs and ends with an end-of-life reckoning. In between, nine-year-old girls transmogrify into water-creatures, a housewife runs away with a raccoon, and a woman makes an irrevocable choice at her sister’s deathbed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp align=\"justify\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThroughout the book, the fanciful dances with the quotidian as women and girls chafe against the limitations of traditional femininity. There are lizard eggs, sentient raccoons, devils and gold diggers, and a strange procedure that erases emotion. Written with humor, but unafraid to approach devastation, these pages reveal the darkness within domesticity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp align=\"justify\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eMelissa Benton Barker is a graduate of the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. Her writing appears in \u003cem\u003ePine Hills Review\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eX-RAY\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eBest Small Fictions\u003c\/em\u003e, and other publications. She co-edits the flash fiction section at \u003cem\u003eCRAFT\u003c\/em\u003e. Melissa lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio with her family.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bottlecap Press","offers":[{"title":"Chapbook","offer_id":47543282860210,"sku":"BEAUMBB","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital Download (PDF)","offer_id":47543282892978,"sku":"BEAUMBBe","price":7.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0770\/3891\/1666\/files\/bqfront.png?v=1780354932","url":"https:\/\/box.dadyminds.org\/products\/beauty-queen-by-melissa-benton-barker","provider":"DADYMINDS BOX","version":"1.0","type":"link"}