A few days after my friend Amanda and I introduced J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories
to a friend of ours, he called us up and said, “I read the book you gave me and now I’ve been lying on the floor just staring at my ceiling fan for the past few hours.”
Very slowly, we told him to, “Put the book doooown and come over to our place. Now.”
It’s one of those books that really should come with a warning label.
Most people remember Salinger as the author of The Catcher in the Rye, but I was much more moved by his short stories. I find myself going back to Nine Stories, rereading certain stories whenever I need a reminder of what I should be searching for in the slush pile or a lesson on how to craft dialogue. It serves as my touchstone for great fiction. His stories are genuine and true and deceptively simple.
I first heard the news of his death on the 5:00 pm news, which just happened to be on while I was sitting in the living room. Sade Baderinwa announced it as the fifth or sixth story of the day and it was simply “J.D. Salinger died today at the age of 91.” There was no register of any deeper thought in her eyes and no solemnity in her voice–it was just another news item to slog through.
My husband and I looked at each other, totally stunned that it wasn’t the opening news story that night. But after the initial surprise, I suppose that Salinger would have preferred it that way.
The New Yorker published some remembrances, I especially liked the one Lillian Ross wrote. But the best tribute was “Bunch of Phonies Mourn J.D. Salinger” on The Onion website.
Popularity: 2% [?]
The Story Prize has announced its three finalists this year:
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
by Daniyal Mueenuddin
Drift: Stories
by Victoria Patterson
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Stories
by Wells Tower
The finalists were selected from 78 story collections from 53 different publishers or imprints.
The Story Prize is one of the largest prizes given for a collection of short stories. The winner is presented with $20,000 and an engraved silver bowl. The two runners-up both receive $5,000.
Last year I got on Larry Dark’s bad side when I implied that the last author listed always won the prize. Apparently, the authors are listed in alphabetical order and it was JUST A COINCIDENCE that the last author won several years in a row. Soooooo, that being said, my money’s on Wells Tower.
The awards ceremony will be held on March 3 at 7:30pm at the Tishman Auditorium in New York City. For tickets, contact the New School box office at 212-229-5488 or click here.
Popularity: 6% [?]
According to The Guardian, 2009 was the year of the short story. I’m going to have to agree with them. After all, Oprah chose a short story collection for her book club for the very first time, Alice Munro won the Man Booker International, Elizabeth Strout’s short story collection was awarded the Pulitzer, and great short story collections were published.
One Story’s subscriptions are higher than ever, which surprised us–after all, the economy is forcing all of us to tighten our wallets.
It seems like the popularity of the short story may be on the rise. We must be doing a great job saving it. You can read the rest of what The Guardian said here.
Popularity: 9% [?]
The start of a new year makes me think of the start of good things to come. I’ve been reading the most recent Pushcart Prize stories and I’ve been paying extra close attention to first lines–trying to come up with a perfect first line for the latest story I’m working on. Of course, this made me think of the The First Line.
A few weeks ago, I received a few issues of The First Line, which is a literary magazine that’s got a great concept. The editors have provided you with the first line already, so all you have to do is to continue the story. What I love about this magazine is that the stories are so vastly different from each other and the authors of the stories use the lines in really inventive ways.
So, New Year, New First Lines.
2010 First Lines:
Spring: Working for God is never easy. (submissions due Feb. 1)
Summer: Paul and Miriam Kaufman met the old-fashioned way. (due May 1)
Fall: Three thousand habitable planets in the known universe, and I’m stuck on the only one with ___________.[Fill in the blank.] (due Aug. 1)
Winter: Until I stumbled across an article about him in the paper, I never realized how much Walter Dodge and I are alike. (due Nov. 1)
Find out how to submit to them at www.firstline.com.
Happy New Year!
Popularity: 13% [?]
This is the time of year many people are all out of gift ideas so I decided to compile a gift guide with suggestions for that special literary someone. I’ve always believed that a gift guide shouldn’t have a TON of items. So this is just a small list of books that I own or plan on purchasing. If you have other suggestions, please feel free to share them with me and leave comments.
And don’t you just love the covers on these books?
The holiday season is a great time to save the short story by buying books and supporting short story writers!
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories (P.S.)
What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us
Delicate Edible Birds: And Other Stories
Once the Shore: Stories
The Boat: Stories (Vintage)
St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (Vintage Contemporaries)
Too Much Happiness: Stories
Popularity: 19% [?]
Last week I participated in a panel at Sarah Lawrence College discussing how to submit to magazines. My fellow panelist was an agent and she basically popped everyone’s hope balloon by telling them over and over again that no one wants to publish short story collections.
I know, I know, it’s the same old song and dance. I really hope that by telling people that everyone IS reading short stories and that there are more and more people writing great stories, we can reverse psychologize this misconception that we don’t want short stories.
Therefore, I was really happy to read that 4 out of 6 authors shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor award were debut authors. SOMEONE is publishing short stories by new authors–and they are being awarded with prizes!
Last year, the award judges decided not to publish a short list. Instead, they awarded the prize the Jhumpa Lahiri.
One Story authors Lydia Peelle and Lauren Groff were on the long list.
Read more about the authors here and here.
Popularity: 61% [?]
Doesn’t everyone love Alice Munro?
Alice Munro was announced as the winner of the third Man Booker International Prize. The panel made this comment:
“Alice Munro is mostly known as a short story writer and yet she brings as much depth, wisdom and precision to every short story as most novelists bring to a lifetime of novels. To read Alice Munro is to learn something every time that you never thought of before.”
You can read more about the prize here.
Popularity: 68% [?]
Elizabeth Strout has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for “Olive Kitteridge,” a collection of 13 linked short stories. The stories are set in rural Maine and center around Olive Kitteridge, a seventh-grade teacher.
Isn’t it great that people are recognizing great story collections? I haven’t read it yet, but several of my friends have been telling me that it’s terrific.
You can read more about her here.
Popularity: 84% [?]
Recently, three new literary biographies about Flannery O’ Connor, John Cheever, and Donald Barthelme have placed a new spotlight on the short story.
A. O. Scott wrote a piece in the NY Times this past weekend about the new resurgence of the short story. He writes:
Reading through their collected stories, you wonder if novels are even necessary. The imperial ambitions of a certain kind of swaggering, self-important American novel — to comprehend the totality of modern life, to limn the social, existential, sexual and political strivings of its citizens — start to seem misguided and buffoonish. More of life is glimpsed, and glimpsed more clearly, through Barthelme’s fragments, Cheever’s finely ground lenses or the pinhole camera of O’Connor’s crystalline prose.
You can read the rest of the article here.
Popularity: 89% [?]
Anne Sanow won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize for her short story collection Triple Time, which will be published in September. There were 300 works submitted. Ann Patchett, who works diligently to save the short story (and was kind enough to include two One Story stories when she edited the Best American Short Stories), judged the contest.
The Drue Heinz Literature Prize recognizes and supports writers of short fiction and makes their work available to readers around the world. The award is open to writers who have published a book-length collection of fiction or at least three short stories or novellas in commercial magazines or literary journals.
The prize carries a cash award of $15,000 and publication by the University of Pittsburgh Press under its standard contract.
Popularity: 97% [?]
