Launch of Kelly Sullivan's "The Moose Lottery"

The Moose Lottery is a novella written in a style of hardscrabble New England gothic. It follows logger and father Carl Riendeau as he struggles to maintain a grip on his life through a series of bad choices and disasters. After winning a coveted place in the state’s seasonal moose hunt, Carl’s luck turns for the worse: his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his son sustains serious injuries in a car accident and faces federal charges for drug trafficking; as Carl tries to raise the money for her legal fees, fight her parents for custody of his son, and help his friend deal with layoffs and a coming recession, he determines to bring eight-year-old Luca moose hunting with him no matter the consequences.

The character-driven narrative turns on questions of trust and miscommunication in an unforgiving rural environment, exploring violence and tenderness toward both human and nonhuman life.

"A masterfully controlled and constrained story-tender as it is hard-of love, luck, compromise, and the eleventh-hour choices that might set so many wrongs right. Sullivan has written a poetic and timeless tale that hums with atmosphere, suspense and insight." - Caoilinn Hughes, author of The Alternatives and The Wild Laughter

Kelly E. Sullivan is the author of the novella, Winter Bayou (Lilliput Press, Dublin) and two poetry chapbooks, Fell Year (Green Bottle) and Toledo Blade (Danging Girl Press). Her poems and short fiction have appeared in Salmagundi, The Hopkins Review, Southword, Poetry Ireland Review, and elsewhere. She currently the interim director at Glucksman Ireland House NYU.

Abby Bender is the Director of the Center for Irish Studies, the Irish Studies Minor, and associate professor of English at Sacred Heart University. She teaches classes in Irish literature and culture, including Modern Irish Writing, Irish Drama, James Joyce and Black and Irish Gothic. Her research has focused primarily on 20th-century Irish writing, including a recent book on Irish-Jewish analogies during the literary revival and essays on Irish women's writing. She is the literature representative for the American Conference for Irish Studies.