Save the Short Story

Glen Pourciau is the winner of the 2008 Iowa Short Fiction Award for his collection Invite. Molly McNett’s One Dog Happy is the winner of the 2008 John Simmons Short Fiction Award. They were selected by the final judge Charles D’Ambrosio, author of The Dead Fish Museum and Orphans.

The Iowa Short Fiction Award is given to a first collection of fiction written in English and are administered through the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been given since 1969. The John Simmons Short Fiction Award was created in 1988 to complement the existing Iowa Short Fiction Award.

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Cantaraville is a literary magazine that has an interesting publishing format. All of their issues are delivered as a printable PDF download, which is great because you can store them on your computer and it doesn’t take up any space. I’m always giving away journals I like ( in other words, building the One Story literary magazine library) because I need the space in my apartment.

You can download Cantaraville’s 60-page sampler of their first issue here and they accept short story submissions of 1,500-5,000 words.

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Toward International Peace through the Arts is hosting “Short-Short Stories from Around the World” on March 28 at St. Peter’s Church in midtown Manhattan. Stories by Hemingway, Chekhov, and other short story masters will be read by Jim Dale (reader of the Harry Potter audiobooks) and actors Brian F. O’Byrne, Tammy Grimes, and Frances Sternhagen.

This event is free and open to the public.

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Any day that a writer wins $20,000 for writing short stories is a good day. Jim Shepard won for his short story collection, Like You’d Understand Anyway. Not only did he take home the prize money, he also got a silver bowl with his name on it. And we all know that silver is the best type of bowl.

Each of the authors read from their books and talked a bit afterwards with Larry Dark, the prize director. During the Tessa Hadley interview, she was asked what it was that turned a loving couple in one of her stories into two people who didn’t care anymore. Her answer was, “Children have something to do with it.” You could hear about a hundred people sucking in their breaths.

And when asked about the short story in particular, she said that for a person who is starting to write, it’s difficult to work on a long piece, like a novel, because of “finding out halfway through its died.” And she writes short stories because, “I love them.”

Vincent Lam, who is also a medical doctor, shared how he managed to write and pursue his medical license at the same time. Basically, he said he didn’t have kids yet at the time. (Why does everyone blame the kids?) But also, that emergency medicine is shift work, so he would work on stories when he was off his shift — and his wife was in her residency at the time, so she wasn’t able to spend time with him. When pressed further, he said, “It was important to me, ultimately.”

Jim Shepard discussed how he came up with his story, “The Zero Meter Driving Team,” by taking big piles of oral histories about Chernobyl from the library just because he was interested in it. “It shouldn’t be called Research, ” he said. “It should be called Jim Should Get a Life.”

During his interview with Larry Dark, Jim Shepard was very jokey, so it was a surprise when he got very emotional as he accepted the prize. He turned to his fellow nominees and praised them to the audience. “They compel our interest in lives other than our own.”

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The Story Prize is an annual award given to books of short fiction. This year, three finalists were selected from 78 short story collections. The winner will be announced on February 27 at The New School in New York City. The prize is $20,000 and a silver bowl with their name on it. Don’t all writers want a personalized silver bowl? I know I do.

The three finalists are:

Sunstroke and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam

Like You’d Understand, Anyway, by Jim Shepard, who just read for One Story last month. Click here to listen to the reading.

The three finalists will read selections from their work, followed by an author interview. The two runners up will go home with $5,000.

If you’re in the NYC area, you can get tickets to the show. The event will be held at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium (66 West 12th Street) at 7:30 pm on Feb. 27, go to SmartTix.com and search for “story prize” or make a reservation by calling the New School box office at 212-229-5488 Monday through Friday 1-7 pm or e-mailing them at boxoffice@newschool.edu.

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Today I discovered a new type of short-short story called a drabble. And by new, I mean that it is new to me, because apparently, the drabble has been around for decades, mostly in the world of science fiction fandom. What will those guys come up with next?

A drabble is a very short story that is exactly 100 words in length.

100 Word Stories is a site that posts a new topic every day. People can post their drabbles online and the prompts are pretty interesting.

Yesterday’s topic was: What’s wrong with the blood?

Today’s topic is: Red or White?

I say white. (And now I have to come up with 97 more words).

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Esquire.com publishes Last Line Articles, which features discussion topics chosen by a different author each week. This week, Chimamanda Adichie, author of One Story’s issue #27, Transition to Glory, discusses how she writes her stories.

“Big things” like race inspire me, but I am interested in writing about them in the smallest, most oblique way. I’m happily old-fashioned in my literary tastes, very keen on social realism, on fiction that is strong on character and place and has something to say about real things and real people without being preachy. Some of my favorite stories about race — by Brock Clarke, by James Alan McPherson — are serious and funny and sure but aren’t self-righteous.

The rest of Chimamanda Adichie’s article (and her super-adorable picture) can be found here.

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At the AWP two weeks ago as we were setting up for our reading, I turned to Marie and asked her if she had gone to any of the panels. She told me that she attended one on fraud.

I misheard her and said, “Frogs? There was a panel on frogs? That sounds fun.”

“No,” she said. “Fraud. Not Frogs.”

Although I think that it would be great to have one fun reading, just for the hell of it. I would call it: “Frogs Not Fraud.” It will feature short stories that have frogs in them. Of course, this could only be approved if I got really famous people involved. Like J.D. Salinger, maybe. You think he’ll be interested in coming out of hiding for this?

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Luminato, Toronto’s annual Festival of Arts and Creativity, is a 10-day arts and cultural extravaganza that will run from June 6 until June 15, 2008. I always think it’s cute when organizations tack on the “annual” label during its fledgling years. It’s so hope-filled.

This year, Luminato will be throwing its spotlight on The Festival of Short Stories. David Bezmozgis, author of Natasha and Other Stories, Dara Horn, author of The World to Come, Shyam Selvadurai, author of Funny Boy, Jaspreet Singh, author of Chef, along with other writers, will lead readings and discussions.

Luminato will also host a literary cabaret to launch TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 3, an anthology of short stories, poetry and drama created by Toronto writers. Sounds like a lot of fun.

Luminato Musical Side Note: Dan Zanes, who used to be the lead singer for the garage-band The Del Fuegos, will be creating a “Woodstock for Kids.” I’m not sure if kids need their own Woodstock. I am already disturbed whenever I see babies wearing their The Clash onesies. Babies, although very cute, are not punk rock. I only know of The Del Fuegos from the Juliana Hatfield song, “My Sister.”

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It was disheartening to read Zadie Smith’s blog entry on the Willesden Herald website. This year, the prize committee decided not to give out the Willesden Short Story Prize due to a lack of great submissions.

According to Ms. Smith:

This prize was created to support unpublished writers, and, with our five grand, we put our money where our mouths are…There is no entry fee, there are no criteria of age, race, gender or nation…Our sole criterion is quality.

She went on to say that it is because the prize committee has the integrity to not award the prize without a story that deserves it, that it has remained faithful to the short story.

People often ask One Story why we haven’t continued with our short story contests. The truth is, we are fearful of running into this exact problem. When I first took over as Managing Editor, Hannah and I sat down for lunch and went over the schedule of stories.

“So, how many stories do we have?” I asked.

Hannah looked off into the distance and said, “Well…Right now we don’t have anything, and we’re about two weeks behind schedule.”

I freaked out a little bit, said stuff like, “What!” and “What are we GOING to DO?”

Very calmly, she said,” Oh…Yeah…Here’s the thing. This happens every time.”

Great short stories are very special treasures. So let’s follow Zadie Smith’s advice, which is:

“…we also have our part to play. We also have to work out how to write better and read better…we have to be able to recognize its quality. We cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must be worthy of our attention.”

Her entire blog post can be read here.

The prize committee is going to re-award the cash prize next year–plus interest. So let’s make a commitment to write great short stories.

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