Genius Authors, Enduring Works, Book Club Choices, Best-Sellers, Award Winners

I can't keep up with all of the great things that are happening for short stories and short story writers, so for now, I'm just going to list the latest and hope to circle back later to discuss some of these at greater length. Here's what has been happening so far this month:

Two Short Story Writers Win MacArthur Foundation Fellowships.
Among this years "genius grant" recipients are short story writer Deborah Eisenberg (a pure play) and the first ever winner of The Story Prize, Edwidge Danticat, whose second short story collection, The Dew Breaker, is often classified as a novel.

Four of the Six Finalists for the Best of the National Book Awards Fiction Are Short Story Collections.
In 60 years, and out of 77 books, only 11 have been short story collections. But a panel of 140 writers chose four of those books among the six finalists. Those collections are: The Stories of John Cheever, The Collected Stories of William Faulkner, The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor, and The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty. Short story collections are, without a doubt, among the most enduring works of American literature.

The Latest Oprah's Book Club Selection Is a Short Story Collection.
On September 18, Oprah Winfrey announced that Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan is the next book club selection--the first time she's chosen a short story collection.

Soon There Will Be Three Short Story Collections on The New York Times Best-Seller List.
When Akpan's book hits The New York Times Best-Seller List for trade paperbacks, it's very likely that it will join two other short story collections: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout and Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. Who says short story collections don't sell?

The Inaugural $50,000 St. Francis College Literary Prize Goes to a Short Story Collection.
On September 12, as part of the Brooklyn Book Festival, Aleksander Hemon's short story collection Love and Obstacles was announced as the winner of this new book award for mid-career authors.

In addition, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award just announced it's surprising winner, Simon Van Booy's Love Begins in Winter.

More on much of this later. For now, I rest my case.

The Untrue Story of How Oprah Chose Say You're One of Them for Her Book Club

Oprah Winfrey finally did it. For the first time ever, she picked a short story collection, Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them, for Oprah's Book Club. Thank you, Oprah, I hope this won't be the last. Followers of this blog, who number in the low dozens, may remember that I've been lobbying for her to do this for more than a year, and obviously my efforts have been effective. In fact, now the top secret behind-the-scenes negotiations can be revealed.

Somewhere in New Jersey. The official Story Prize phone (i.e., my cell phone) vibrates on a hot August night.

LD: Hello?
OW: Hello, Larry Dark. It's Oprah.
LD: Oprah who?
(Silence.)
LD: Just kidding, Oprah Winfrey. The most influential person in America. A thousand apologies, she who sells more books than anyone.
OW: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. I understand you think I should pick a short story collection for my book club.
LD: I do, indeed.
OW: I think I'm ready. What were you thinking of?
LD: How about In the Gloaming?
OW: Isn't that a Christopher Reeve movie? What else?
LD: Well, Ron Hogan thought you were going to choose Edward P. Jones's All Aunt Hagar's Children a few months ago. That's a good one.
OW: You know Ron Hogan?
LD: Who doesn't?
OW: What else?
LD: Did I mention The Dew Breaker? The Hill Road? The Stories of Mary Gordon? Like You'd Understand, Anyway? Our Story Begins?
OW: You did.
LD: Let me think about what your readers might like.
OW: Something powerful and moving like In the Gloaming.
LD: Hmmm. Well, there's another book I read last year that might be perfect.
OW: Namely?
LD: Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan, a Nigerian priest with an MFA from Michigan. It's well written, describes terrible events in the lives of children, and, to quote myself: "Any of the six stories in this collection set in Africa is enough to break a reader's heart."
OW: Perfect. Be sure not to tell anyone, especially not Ingram. They're sure to blow it.
LD: I promise. And, by the way, don't worry about what Rob Spillman thinks.
OW: I won't worry about anything, Larry Dark. Thanks for all your critical wisdom.
LD: Thank you, Oprah Winfrey--for being you.

That's pretty much how it happened--in my dreams. In any event, I'm thrilled that Oprah has chosen a short story collection. I've been reading some great ones so far this year. The short story continues to gain momentum, and this is a huge boost.

The Short Story Collection Oprah Winfrey Can't Put Down

Oprah's Book Club has chosen a summer reading list: "25 Books You Can't Put Down." As I've previously observed, Oprah Winfrey has never chosen a short story collection for her book club. So it's great to see that one of the 25 books on the summer list is a book of short stories. (You go, girl!) At number 19 (I'm not sure what the order signifies) is Robert Boswell's The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards, published by Graywolf Press. We haven't received this collection as an entry for The Story Prize yet (ahem)*, but it's definitely on our radar and looks like an excellent choice.

Boswell is not exactly an unknown, but there are other new short story collections I would have been a little less surprised to see on Oprah's list. One, would be Nothing Right by Antonya Nelson, who is Boswell's wife. Another would be Jean Thompson's Do Not Deny Me (we're still waiting for an entry for this, too), which I've seen on other summer reading lists. I also think The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (ditto) would appeal to Oprah's audience. But perhaps my view of Oprah's, her staff's, and her audience's tastes are too narrow.

In any event, Oprah sells books like no one else. And having a short story on the list is all good. How about several next year?

* I feel duty bound to note that The Story Prize deadline for books published from Jan. through June is July 15.

Addendum: O.: The Oprah Magazine also has a list of 20 beach reads, which includes Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout and Phillip Lopate's Two Marriages. Given the lists, I'm not sure what the distinction between a book you can't put down and a beach read is, but at least Oprah is pushing reading.

Snubbed Again! It's Starting to Feel Personal

Well, it's old news now, but Oprah Winfrey didn't choose a short story collection for her book club, as we had hoped, and hasn't done so since she began featuring books in 1996. But she's not alone. I'm often disappointed to find story collections left off important lists of recommended books.

For instance, the American Booksellers Assn. Fall '08 / Winter '09 Indie Next List for Reading Groups has a grand total of zero short story collections on it out of ten books in the featured list and an additional 51 books recommended by independent booksellers. This year alone authors such as Kevin Brockmeier, Stephen King, Jhumpa Lahiri, Steven Millhauser, Joyce Carol Oates, Cynthia Ozick, Annie Proulx, Joan Silber, and Tobias Wolff have published collections, and there have been some outstanding debuts and books of short fiction by unsung writers, too.

The National Endowment for the Arts Big Read program also doesn't include any short story collections among it's distinguished list of great American books. Wouldn't classic American collections by the likes of Raymond Carver, John Cheever, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bernard Malamud, Flannery O'Connor, Grace Paley, Dorothy Parker, Edgar Allen Poe, J.D. Salinger, Jean Stafford, Eudora Welty, and dozens of others (including a slew of living writers) make for good reading and discussion? Even an anthology that features stories by several of these writers would make for a nice big juicy read.

I admire the passion independent booksellers have for literary fiction, and the Big Read is a worthwhile program, but how are we going to get short story collections into the hands of readers if some of our leading cultural arbiters don't recommend them?

Please, Oprah, Pick a Short Story Collection!

There's rampant speculation about the next pick for Oprah's Book Club, which will be announced on Sept. 19. If you look at the list of past choices, you'll see that Oprah Winfrey has never picked a book of short stories--to my mind, a glaring omission. So, please, Oprah, pick a story collection! Ron Hogan has gotten my hopes up by speculating in GalleyCat that Edward P. Jones' All Aunt Hagar's Children--which is chock full of exceptional stories--may be the book. That would be good news, indeed. But don't stop there, Oprah. There are a lot of great collections, old and new, to choose from. How about this one?