Why We're Happy That Our Finalists Are Finalists For Other Book Awards, Too

On Feb. 21, I learned (via Twitter) that the three finalists for The Story Prize this year are also finalists for two other book awards. Don DeLillo's The Angel Esmeralda and Steven Millhauser's We Others are among the five finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. And Edith Pearlman's Binocular Vision is one of five finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It's also up for the National Book Critics Circle Award (as announced earlier) and was a finalist for the National Book Awards in November.

One reason we established The Story Prize partly was that we believed the major U.S. book awards for fiction hadn't often enough recognized short story collections—and that the form deserved its own award. Rarely does a story collection win these prizes. PEN/Faulkner has the best track record in this regard, having given its fiction prize to two story collections in the past two years: Sherman Alexie's War Dances in 2010 and The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg in 2011, as well as three others in the past 20 years—for a total of five winners.

If you don't count Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, which the publisher maintained was a novel, The Pulitzer Prize last went to a story collection in 2009—Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge. Before that, it most recently went to a story collection in 2000, when Jhumpa Lahiri won for Interpreter of Maladies. But those are the only two books of short fiction that have won in the past 20 years—even 30 years. The last short fiction winner before 2000 was The Stories of John Cheever in 1979.

A short story collection hasn't won the National Book Awards since Andrea Barrett's Ship Fever in 1996, and the last story collection to win before that was Ellen Gilchrist's Victory Over Japan in 1984. However, readers did choose The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor as the best book in the NBA's first 60 years in 2010. And more short story collections seem to have been among the finalists in recent years.

Excluding Egan's book last year, the last story collection to win the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction was in 1998--Alice Munro's The Love of a Good Woman. Gina Beirault's Women in Their Beds, a 1996 winner (and also a PEN/Faulkner winner), is the only other story collection to win the NBCC award for fiction in the last 20 years. In my opinion, short story collections are harder for critics to write about, which is one reason I think this award is a tough one for short fiction entries to crack.

In any event, we're happy that all three of this year's finalists for The Story Prize have a shot at winning other awards, too, because we believe in these three books and wish them—and short story collections in general—as much favorable attention as possible. Good luck all.

(You can see DeLillo. Millhauser, and Pearlman read and discuss their work at The Story Prize event at The New School on March 21.)

A Visit from the Goon Squad: Is It Candy or Is it Gum?

First things first: Congratulations to Jennifer Egan on winning the Pulitzer Prize for her story collection, A Visit from the Goon Squad. Yes, you heard it right: I'm calling Goon Squad a story collection. We didn't get it as an entry for The Story Prize*, and I didn't push to get it (nor The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman—likewise a story collection), but I recently read Egan's book for my book group, and the thirteen chapters are definitely stories. Do they work together to create a whole greater than the sum of their parts? Yes, but so do a lot of story collections. 

Novel or story collection—which is it? This brings to mind the great philosophical conundrum of my childhood: Are Razzles candy or gum? As the slogan says: "First it's candy, then it's gum." The answer for Goon Squad is similar. It falls into both camps: First it's a story collection, then it's a novel. As you read the stories, the connections among them strengthen and create a satisfying whole. In fact, it's a lot more successful at being two different things than Razzles ever was.

Here's the thing: Any good story collection will have commonalities that make the book a single, cohesive work. Nonfiction and fiction, stories and novels, poems and stories exist along a continuum. A book, like a person, can be more than one thing, and even more than two things. For instance, a collection of prose poems could also work as a story collection and as a novel and have aspects of a memoir. A nonfiction book can also verge into fiction (I'm looking at you Greg Mortenson). The same goes for genre—a book can crossover among different ones. The stories in Goon Squad have elements of science fiction/alternative reality—as did this year's Story Prize winner, Anthony Doerr's Memory Wall.**

The point is this: Labels are for marketing. Books are for readers, and labels shouldn't place limits on a book's reach. A Visit from the Goon Squad was one of the best novels published in 2010. It was also one of the best story collections, among many good ones we read in 2010.

* We, of course, remain very enthusiastic about the three books we did choose as finalists for The Story Prize (Memory Wall by Anthony Doerr (which won), Gold Boy, Emerald Girl by Yiyun Li, and Death Is Not an Option by Suzanne Rivecca). I can't say we would necessarily have picked A Visit from the Goon Squad as a finalist (Olive Kitteridge came very close, but we didn't choose that, either). Still, I wish we'd had a chance to consider it.

** The same could be said of the work of Chris Adrian, Kevin Brockmeier, George Saunders, and many others who usually fall into the literary camp. Maureen McHugh's Mothers & Other Monsters, a Story Prize finalist in 2006, seemed to carry the alternative history label, but it's also a very literary collection that deserves more attention (as do books by other authors that Small Beer Press publishes, such as Kelly Link and Karen Joy Fowler).

On Literary Awards and Subjectivity

Ron Rash, winner of the O'Connor Award

Congratulations to Ron Rash, winner of the £35,000 (around $55,000) Cork City – Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award for his story collection Burning Bright  (Ecco). In the five (correction, six) years since the O'Connor prize was established (The Story Prize is in its seventh), the overlap of winners and finalists between the two book awards for short story collections has been small. So far, only two of our finalists--Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth and Wells Towers' Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned--have been finalists (Towers) or winners (Lahiri) of the O'Connor award. We don't announce our finalists until early January, so that correspondence could increase. But what's clear is that literary prizes are (as everyone understands or should) largely subjective.

The first year I served as series editor for the O. Henry Awards, 1997, I got in touch with Katrina Kenison, then the series editor of Best American Short Stories, and we established a practice of comparing winners, once we'd both chosen. In those pre-social-networking days, there was no announcement. And until the galleys were sent out, few people knew the complete list of stories chosen for either collection. The first year, I think both Katrina and I were nervous as we read our lists of stories to each other over the phone. What if we had too many in common? She was nervous because our collection came out six weeks earlier. I was nervous because their collection routinely trounced ours in sales. Both our fears, however, were unfounded. We didn't overlap a single story in 1997. In 1998, we had three stories in common and two in 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002.

One big procedural difference between the annual collections was that I chose the 20 stories myself, whereas Katrina picked 120 or so stories to send to the guest editor, who chose the final 20. We would often both admire some of the other collection's choices, and she sometimes took on a wistful tone. For instance, that very first year, she told me she would have liked Rick Moody's "Demonology" to have made the Best American cut. And I believe I made the better choice of Annie Proulx stories in 1998, when I chose "Brokeback Mountain" and Best American guest editor Garrison Keillor chose "The Half-Skinned Steer." Truth be told, I always thought the O. Henry Awards choices were better. But, then, I would. That's what subjectivity is all about.

A Quirky Prize Announces Its Finalists

The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize has announced this year's shortlist/finalists:

• An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah
• Singularity by Charlotte Grimshaw
• Ripples and Other Stories by Shih-Li Kow
• Love Begins in Winter by Simon Van Booy
• The Pleasant Light of Day by Philip O Ceallaigh
• Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower

As far as I can tell, three of these books aren't scheduled for U.S. publication this year (and therefore won't be in the running for The Story Prize): Grimshaw's, Kow's, and O Ceallaigh's. U.S. publishers might want to take a look, if they haven't already.

John Fox on the BookFox blog reminds us that last year the O'Connor prize announced a winner--Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth--and no finalists, a decision that kept as many as five other authors from the extra attention this would have brought them. The official announcement of the finalists is a bit unusual this year, as well, in that it specifically mentions other authors whose books the judges didn't choose:

Notable names edged out for a position on this year's shortlist include Booker winner Kazuo Ishiguro, Orange Prize winner Chimanda Ngozi Adiche, veteran short story authors Ali Smith, Mary Gaitskill and James Lasdun and reviewers' darling Sana Krasikov.

While The Story Prize does announce a list of other notable books a few weeks after we announce our finalists, it seems odd to me to specifically mention books you haven't chosen when revealing your finalists. It detracts slightly from the books the judges did choose and is certainly no consolation to the also-rans.

This is a quirky book award, but the upside far outweighs the oddities. It's exclusively for short story collections, and the prize is a very generous 35,000 euros (the equivalent, currently, of nearly $50,000). By the way, the winner will be announced on Sept. 20 at the culmination of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Festival in Cork, Ireland, which looks like a lot of fun. Hmmm, maybe we should have a short story festival like that in the U.S.

Dear Alice Munro, Time to Own up to Your Greatness

Dear Alice,

Congratulations on winning the Man Booker International Prize. Your brilliant stories are clearly deserving of this honor. It may embarrass you to hear this yet again, but you are one of the greatest living writers in the English language, and it's quite an achievement to have earned the kind of recognition you have for almost exclusively writing short stories, a notoriously underappreciated form.

You are known for being modest and unassuming, which has its charms, but I think it's time for you to own up to your importance--and the importance of the short story form. Scores of writers nowhere near your equal are more than willing to assert their significance, which in very few cases approaches yours. And I would bet your work will be read long after most of theirs is forgotten. So when you accept the Man Booker International Award (and, who knows, maybe even the Nobel prize some day), please skip the self-effacement, and be proud of your work, your accomplishments, and the mark you've made with your stories.

Best wishes,

One of your many admirers

A Short Story Collection (Olive Kitteridge) Wins The Pulitzer Prize

Good news: Elizabeth Strout has won the Pulitzer prize for fiction for her short story collection Olive Kitteridge. It's the first collection to win the Pulitzer since 2000, when Jhumpa Lahiri won for Interpreter of Maladies. Olive Kitteridge, was a close contender for The Story Prize and one of our notable books of 2008. I hope this award puts it into a lot more people's hands.

I don't keep up with the chatter, but I doubt many people expected Olive Kitteridge to win the Pulitzer, even though it made a lot of year-end best books lists and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle awards. Book awards are highly subjective, and the choices largely depend on who's doing the choosing. This year's jurors were writer R.H.W. Dillard, journalist Susan Larson, and librarian Nancy Pearl (who was a judge for The Story Prize a few years ago). The other two finalists were Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich and All Souls by Christine Schutt. In any event, 2008 had several exceptional story collections, and I'm glad one of them has won a major book award (besides The Story Prize). Congratulations, Elizabeth--keep those stories coming.

Updates: More Honors for '08 Collections; Franco-phile or Franco-phobe?

All right, we're (almost) ready to (maybe) put last week's Story Prize event behind us (kind of). Here are a few short-fiction related items that have come up in recent days or that we were too obsessed to point out in the last few weeks. Of particular note: 2008's bumper crop of short story collections is still making news, as is an upcoming collection from a scruffy young talent. And the Pulitzers are yet to come (Apr. 20).

• Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth is the Europe and South Asia Regional winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book. The overall winner will be announced on May 16. (Go, Jhumpa!) And Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them is in the running for the Best First Book.
• Tomorrow night the National Book Critics Circle will announce their award winners. Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge, as previously noted, is among the fiction finalists.
• Joan Silber's The Size of the World is a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for fiction.
• Sarah Shun-lien Bynum's Ms. Hempel Chronicles was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award, which Joseph O'Neill's Netherland won.
• Actor James Franco sold a short story collection to Nan Graham at Scribner. He's currently a student in the MFA program at Columbia University. The stories are set in Palo Alto, Calif., whose high school he paid a visit to in November, 2007, in search of material (see photo). No doubt name (and face) recognition didn't hurt, but let's not be too hasty to pre-judge. Franco will be bringing some extra attention to short fiction, and that's generally a good thing.

Sana Krasikov, Young Lioness and "Winner"

As I learned via Twitter (@RonHogan), Sana Krasikov's much lauded short story collection, One More Year, is among the finalists for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award. It's up against four novels: Jon Fasman's The Geographer's Library, Rivka Galchen's Atmospheric Disturbances, Zachary Mason's The Lost Books of the Odyssey, and Salvatore Scibona's The End, which was also a National Book Awards finalist. 

To return to something I've griped about before, the Young Lions Fiction Award Web page still had last year's finalists up—hours after its announcement went out. Come on, Young Lions, you have to coordinate your site with your announcement! Get on the stick, Ethan Hawke!

On the plus side, the Young Lions usually don't go for the obvious choices. I always find out about books I hadn't heard of before when they "announce" their finalists. And two of the books this year are from small presses, which is always a plus. Graywolf is Scibona's publisher and Starcherone Press is Mason's. 

One odd thing about the paperback cover of Krasikov's book is that it proclaims her a "winner" of the National Book Awards' 5 Under 35, which isn't an award, it's an event—five past NBA finalists or winners choose a writer under 35 to read from her or his work. Francine Prose chose One More Year. It is an honor and a mark of distinction, but couldn't the faux seal just have said "A National Book Award 5 Under 35 Selection" or something accurate like that? The paperback isn't out until August, so maybe they'll trumpet the Young Lions selection instead, especially if Krasikov wins. I'm pulling for her, but my money's on Galchen.

By the way, speaking of awkward segues, the Story Prize event is two weeks from tonight, on March 4 at the New School. Our lions of varying ages are (of course) Jhumpa Lahiri, Joe Meno, and Tobias Wolff. They'll read from and discuss their work onstage before we announce the winner. Tickets are still available.

Strout's Kitteredge Is a Finalist for the NBCC Book Award for Fiction

Congratulations to Elizabeth Strout, whose story collection, Olive Kitteridge, is among the five finalists for the National Book Critics Circle awards. (Of course, we're pulling for it to win.) The other four books are novels: Roberto Bolaño's 2666, Marilynne Robinson's Home, Aleksandar Hemon's The Lazarus Project, and M. Glenn Taylor's The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart. It's good to see that a university press is also in the mix (the publisher of Taylor's novel is West Virginia University Press).

Olive Kitteridge is an excellent collection and one of The Story Prize's other notable books of the year. It also made a lot of 2008 best books lists, second only to Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth, according to our unscientific tally of mentions.

The Story Prize Finalists Are Jhumpa Lahiri, Joe Meno, and Tobias Wolff

Well, we've chosen our finalists:

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (Knopf)
Demons in the Spring by Joe Meno (Akashic Books)
Our Story Begins by Tobias Wolff (Knopf)

These are amazing books by extremely talented and accomplished authors. We're very much looking forward to The Story Prize Award event on March 4 at the New School. Details to follow.

This is just a placeholder, really. We'll provide more details and more detailed discussion of these books and authors in the days and weeks ahead. And we'll also soon put out our list of other notable short story collections published in 2008.

David Malouf Wins the Groundbreaking Australia-Asia Literary Award

Australian writer David Malouf is the first winner of the Australia-Asia Literary Award for The Collected Stories of David Malouf. He is the author of three previous story collections, as well as eight novels, six poetry collections, three nonfiction works, a play, and three opera librettos. The prize pays a generous $110,000 (Australian, which is the equivalent of roughly $62,500 U.S.).

The Australia-Asia Literary Award is for: "a book-length work of literary fiction written by an author resident in Australia or Asia, or a work primarily set in Australia or an Asian country. Works must have been either written in, or translated into, English and published in the preceding year." As one of the judges points out, this covers almost two-thirds of the world's population.

This is a very interesting book award--smart and daring--on several levels. In the first place, the creator and backer of the prize is the Government of Western Australia's Department of Culture and the Arts. It's hard to imagine any branch of any government in the U.S.--local, state, or federal--creating a literary award and funding it so generously. Secondly, not only print but also electronically published works are eligible--a very progressive notion. And finally, the award accepts entries of works in translation or with multiple authors (up to three). They've even established a split for translated works--$88,000 to the writer and $22,000 to the translator. That's always been one of the hurdles to judging translated work, and I think they are right to give the translator a share of the prize.

Another interesting feature is that each of the three judges has posted his or her notes on the Web site. This is from Pakistani writer (and University of Massachusetts MFA grad) Kamila Shamsie:

David Malouf is a writer of rare genius. Within the demands of the short story form he can give us a world containing a complex melange of characters, or he can take a single, seemingly insignificant moment and show all the depth and possibility it contains within it. There is tremendous power to his writing—regardless of whether he is describing a boys' encounter with nature or a woman's experience of heartbreak.

Malouf is a writer I've heard a lot about and, I must confess, I haven't read. We had hoped to consider The Collected Stories for The Story Prize last year, but we didn't receive an entry, probably because we require our finalists to attend our event, which could have been difficult for an Australian writer. In any event, some have compared his stories to those of Alice Munro and William Trevor. So I think it might be a good idea to catch up with his work soon.

No Story Collections Among The National Book Award Finalists

Of course, I'm disappointed that none of the five finalists for the National Book Award for fiction are short story collections. There were some good ones this year, however, I don't want to tip our hand by saying what I think should have been in the mix. Still, the judges--Gail Godwin, Rebecca Goldstein, Elinor Lipman, Reginald McKnight, and Jess Walter--read 271 books, and having not read the same ones, it's hard to take issue with their choices. They deserve a lot of credit for devoting themselves to this task. My wife, Alice, was a judge in 2003, and I know what a huge, time-consuming job it is. In any event, at face value, it looks like the panel made interesting choices, and I hope this will bring more readers to what are sure to be very worthwhile books.

The finalists, by the way, are:

Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project (Riverhead)
Rachel Kushner, Telex from Cuba (Scribner)
Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country (Modern Library)
Marilynne Robinson, Home (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Salvatore Scibona, The End (Graywolf Press)

2 Out of 5 Under 35

The National Book Foundation has announced its "5 Under 35" event, and two of the five authors were selected for short story collections. In a nutshell, five previous national book award finalists or winners select and introduce five writers under 35 at an event in Manhattan that includes an emcee and a D.J. Young writers, editors, publishers, agents, and journalists are invited to attend. The idea--and it's not a bad one--is to reach out to a more youthful audience.

There's usually a short story collection or two among the bunch, and this year is no exception. Francine Prose has selected Sana Krasikov's One More Year: Stories , and Mary Gaitskill chose Nam Le's The Boat . Last year's winner of The Story Prize and National Book Awards finalist, Jim Shepard, picked a novel, Fiona Maazel's Last Last Chance--not that there's anything wrong with that.

Now, the question is: Will there be a story collection or two (or more) among the National Book Award finalists announced on Oct. 15 in Chicago? I can think of a few excellent candidates based on the reading we've done so far this year.

Courting Controversy

I just read this in today's Publishers Lunch, and it kind of blew my mind:

Booker Shortlist Announced
What a "shock." As usual, manufactured "surprise" is the fuel of the Booker publicity machine, as the "longlist" turns out to be a head fake for the real shortlist...

I'm so naive that it never occurred to me that courting controversy could be the best way to fuel The Story Prize publicity machine. We foolishly choose the books we think are best. Maybe we'll name an unwed pregnant teen as a finalist this year.

They Coulda Been Contenders

On Sept. 21, Jhumpa Lahiri will be in Cork, Ireland, to receive the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and its generous prize of 35,000 euros. We already know who the winner is because on July 5, the judges for the award announced that they were jumping right from their long list of thirty-nine books to naming Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth as the winner, bypassing the traditional announcement of a short list of four to six books.

The three judges felt strongly that Lahiri's book was far and away the best, but that's not a good reason to bypass the short list. A book award isn't just about choosing a winner; it's also about honoring other worthy books. Those named would have gotten some extra attention and presumably more readers--and the authors might be packing their bags to head to Ireland for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Festival, which begins on Sept. 17. Instead, everyone on the long list but Lahiri will stay home.

For most authors, being on a short list for a prestigious award adds a valuable credential. It could be the honor that tips the balance toward selling another book, having work reviewed, winning a grant, or getting a job. Announcing finalists can also stimulate discussion leading up to the announcement of the winner. A short list is not only good for the authors and publishers; it's good for the award itself.

The problem is, having judges choose both the short list (or finalists, as most U.S. book awards call them) and the ultimate winner isn't very logical. Why have a two-tiered process with the same group deciding in both instances? I'm sure judges for other prizes with similar procedures have been tempted to simply announce a winner, too. Mindful of this, we set up The Story Prize so that it really does have two tiers. Founder Julie Lindsey and I choose the three finalists, then turn those books over to three independent judges to choose the ultimate winner.

This isn't to pass judgment on the merits of the O'Connor Award's choice of a winner. Unaccustomed Earth has garnered loads of favorable reviews and sat atop the New York Times Best-Seller list for a week--an extraordinary accomplishment for a short story collection. It looks to be a serious contender not only for The Story Prize but also for the National Book Awards, the National Book Critics Circle Award, PEN Faulkner, the Pulitzer, etc. Had the O'Connor judges called attention to other worthy books, it might have helped make those authors contenders as well, instead of being stranded on a long long list, which is what they were, let's face it.

A Logical Extension

Book awards tend to play it close to the vest--perhaps for good reason. Falsely raising authors' expectations or giving away the fact that certain books might or might not be receiving serious consideration are two possibilities prizes definitely want to avoid. And those may be among the reasons most awards don't post blogs. So why are we starting a blog for The Story Prize? Because our mission is broader than handing out an award each year. The purpose behind our book award is to promote short fiction--to encourage writers to write stories, publishers to publish them, and readers to read them. And blogging is a logical way to extend that mission.

One thing we won't do is slam a collection, story, or author. Sometimes, I may get up on my soapbox in response to news. For instance, I previously contributed a couple of posts to the National Book Critics blog, Critical Mass. One was on the state of short fiction (obliquely in response to Stephen King's introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2007), and the other was to comment on judge Zadie Smith's decision not to choose a winner in the Willesden Herald Short Story Prize. I'll continue to respond here to events and situations relating to short fiction and literary awards as they occur.

What this blog will do, of course, is offer news about The Story Prize, for instance who our judges will be and details of our annual event. And once we announce our finalists in January, we plan to post profiles of and Q&As with each of the three authors. We also would like to occasionally offer brief interviews with writers, editors, critics, publishers, agents, booksellers, and librarians. And we want to make room for occasional guest posts as well. Along the way, we hope we'll be able to call attention to some good stories and collections and add another voice in support of short fiction.