COVER REVEAL: Girls from the County

Preorder Girls From the County

Raw Dog Screaming Press is excited to reveal the cover for Girls from the County by Donna Lynch, which will be released August 2022. It is available for preorder now and all copies will come with a bookplate signed by the author. The cover art was created by acclaimed artist Steven Archer and Donna Lynch with contributions from Sarah Karinja.

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Book Description

In the county, eerie stillness can be mistaken for stagnation. In the county, rumination on pain and guilt can be confused with omens and curses. In the county, feelings of claustrophobia stem from understanding what the encroaching darkness brings with it.

You’ve heard of country girls, and city girls, but what of the forgotten girls from the in-between space of the county? Confronting the things too wild for urban areas, and too methodically malevolent for the countryside, girls from the county are often dismissed by popular narratives, left to solve riddles of grief and rage for themselves.

Known for weaving folk horror with confessional poetry, unflinching true crime approaches with myth and fable, contemporary appetites with gothic literature, award-winning author Donna Lynch has composed a lyrical reconstruction for readers to navigate the lives—and deaths—of girls from the county.

From the Introduction

I’ve changed the names, but these poems are true stories.

Some of them belong to me, some belong to my friends and to ghosts, and some are tapestries stitched together from all of us.

Some of the stories are from one hundred years ago. Others, from thirty, and it almost doesn’t matter, because certain things never change.

This book is merely a record of dark events, the kind that you can sometimes move on from, yet can’t help but see in every old house, high school, or crumbling bridge.

“I grew up in rural Maryland, raised by my mother and grandmother—county girls, themselves— in the house my architect grandfather built for them in the 1940s,” Donna said. “I grew up, moved to Baltimore, traveled, but I eventually came back. It’s a part of me, even the ghosts. My goal with this collection was to combine personal horror and trauma of all the young women I knew—myself included, melancholic nostalgia, and rural legends and folklore, especially from eras before the internet, social media, and cell phones. It isn’t just about my county, but the counties, villages, and towns of numerous friends on two continents, too. These pieces exist as a record for so many young women, in so many places.”

About the Author

Donna Lynch is a dark fiction writer and the co-founder—along with her husband, artist and musician Steven Archer—of the dark electro-rock band Ego Likeness (Metropolis Records). Her written works include Isabel BurningRed HorsesDriving Through the Desert, Ladies & Other Vicious Creatures, Daughters of Lilith, and In My Mouth. Lynch’s poetry collections Witches and Choking Back the Devil were finalists for the Bram Stoker Award. Choking Back the Devil also won the Ladies of Horror Fiction Award for Best Poetry collection. She and her husband live in Maryland.

About the Artist

Steven Archer is an artist and musician living near Baltimore, MD. He has a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC and has shown his work at galleries and other venues throughout the east coast. His illustrated edition of “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award. He is the author and illustrator of the children’s book Luna Maris and he frequently does commission work as well as book covers. His solo music project Stoneburner was recently signed to COP International Records and he is half of the dark wave gothic rock duo Ego Likeness (Metropolis Records). For more information about Ego Likeness, please visit www.egolikeness.com.

Media Contact

Review copies when available can be obtained upon request, and interview inquiries can be coordinated, through Erin Al-Mehairi, publicist, at hookofabook@hotmail.com or twitter or Instagram (@erinalmehairi).