So many of the short story collections we read for The Story Prize in 2011 were skillful, engaging, and well-deserving of a wider readership. We could only choose three books as finalists. However, we read several other 2011 collections we considered to be worthy of attention. We found these seven books, in particular, to be outstanding:
- Steve Almond, God Bless America, Lookout Books*
- Charles Baxter, Gryphon: New and Selected Stories, Pantheon
- Siobhan Fallon, You Know When the Men Are Gone, Putnam/Amy Einhorn
- Caitlin Horrocks, This Is Not Your City, Sarabande Books
- Maureen McHugh, After the Apocalypse, Small Beer Press
- Daniel Orozco, Orientation and Other Stories, Faber & Faber
- Jim Shepard, You Think That's Bad, Alfred A. Knopf
And we highly recommend these notable collections (though many others we read could also have been on this list):
- Alethea Black, I Knew You'd Be Lovely, Broadway Books
- Lou Beach, 420 Characters, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Shannon Cain, The Necessity of Certain Behaviors, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press
- Seth Fried, The Great Frustration, Counterpoint/Soft Skull
- Laura Furman, The Mother Who Stayed, Free Press
- David Galef, My Date with Neanderthal Woman, Dzanc Books
- Dagoberto Gilb, Before the End, After the Beginning, Grove Press
- Diane Goodman, Party Girl, Autumn House Press
- Alan Heathcock, Volt, Graywolf Press
- Patricia Henley, Other Heartbreaks, Engine Books
- Michael Martone, Four for a Quarter, FC2
- Ana Menendez, Adios, Happy Homeland, Black Cat
- Sabina Murray, Tales of the New World, Black Cat
- Edna O'Brien, Saints and Sinners, Little Brown
- Miroslav Penkov, East of the West, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Helen Phillips, And Yet They Were Happy, Leapfrog Press
- Shann Ray, American Masculine, Graywolf Press
- Adam Ross, Ladies and Gentlemen, Alfred A. Knopf
- Elissa Schappell, Blueprints for Building Better Girls, Simon & Schuster
- Andrew Scott, Naked Summer, Press 53
- Danzy Senna, You Are Free, Riverhead Books
- Emma Straub, Other People We Married, Five Chapters/Riverhead Books
- Melanie Rae Thon, In This Light, Graywolf Press
- Lynne Tillman, Someday This Will Be Funny, Cursor/Red Lemonade
- Colm Tóibín, The Empty Family, Scribner
* [Author links are to guest posts on The Story Prize blog.
Book links are to IndieBound or other bookselling outlets.]
