Cabinet of Wrath

THE NEW STORY COLLECTION FROM KIMBILIO FELLOW TARA CAMPBELL

Deep in the recesses of childhood memory, your old playthings await. Listen: don’t you hear them crying out for you?

Come take a peek inside the Cabinet of Wrath to find out what really happens when toys go missing, and the stark decision they must make if they ever want to go home again.

Discover what doll heads really think about being separated from their bodies.

Follow a skull-and-bones novelty ring as it assembles a full body for itself, bit by grisly bit, and learn how loving your doll too much can lead to grave consequences.

Open the door to these fabulist tales of toys and vengeance for a playtime you’ll never forget.

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Tara Campbell

KIMBILIO FELLOW AND AUTHOR

Tara Campbell is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University’s MFA in Creative Writing. She’s the recipient of the following awards from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities: the 2016 Larry Neal Writers’ Award in Adult Fiction, the 2016 Mayor’s Arts Award for Outstanding New Artist, and Arts and Humanities Fellowships for 2018 – 2022. Campbell’s publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Wigleaf, Jellyfish Review, Booth, Strange Horizons, and CRAFT Literary. She’s the author of a novel and four multi-genre collections including her newest, Cabinet of Wrath: A Doll Collection. She teaches fiction with American University, Johns Hopkins University’s Advanced Academic Programs, the Writer’s Center, Politics and Prose, Catapult, and the National Gallery of Art’s Virtual Studio.

TARA’S WEBSITE

Five Questions for Tara Campbell

A lot of folks have commented on my ability to incorporate humor into otherwise heavy stories. This comes naturally to me, given my family’s wry, observational sense of humor. It’s not something I consciously have to think about–I suppose I simply can’t help but see the ridiculousness of this world we’ve constructed for ourselves.

I dedicated this book to my mother, who saved just about every toy her children and grandbabies ever played with. That translates into lot of old, roughed-up dolls. When I would visit her, I’d marvel at how she could stand to have these scuffed-up, matted-hair creatures lurking in dark corners and closets of her room. But she loved them, because she loved us. I think that’s where my sense of empathy for the dolls in my book comes from.

  • Questions
  • Improvisation
  • Synthesis

If I can write some new words in the morning, do some editing in the early afternoon, and spend the late afternoon submitting, I call that a good day.

  • Star Trek
  • Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
  • My siblings, who encouraged me to be as goofy as I wanted to be