Impaneled

(L to R) Story Prize Director Larry Dark (yours truly) with authors
Susan Minot, Rick Moody, and Elizabeth Strout (via Dusty Spines)

The three authors who participated in last night's tribute to The Stories of John Cheever at the Center for Fiction, turned out to have strong, sincere connections to Cheever's work. Elizabeth Strout read "The Worm in the Apple" and told how important the stories were to her development as writer. Rick Moody read from "The Jewels of the Cabots" and discussed how the late stories in the book convinced him that indirection could be an effective narrative technique for him. And Susan Minot brandished a faded, hardcover copy of the book with her ratings of various stories in the table of contents, ranging as high as seven stars. She noted that the story she was going to read from, "The Sorrows of Gin," only rated three stars back then, but her estimation of it had grown. I, too, brought my first copy of the book—a 1978 mass market paperback with off kilter pages. And Rick Moody had his original copy, as well. He read the very Cheeverian inscription his father had written to him, suggesting that Rick, a mere teen at the time, might never be as good a writer as Cheever—kind of like saying he might not measure up to Chekhov.

The Center for Fiction did a great job with the event, which ended with a panel discussion and questions from the audience. I say we do it again in 25 years.

Short Story Month: Minot, Moody, and Strout Read Cheever at The Center for Fiction on May 31

May is National Short Story Month, and this year (for once) The Story Prize has something planned. Thanks to New York's Center for Fiction, we're going to be co-presenting a reading to celebrate The Stories of John Cheever, a collection you'll find on the shelves of many passionate readers and writers of short fiction.

Why a Cheever reading now? Because he will have been 100 on May 27. John Cheever, the man, has gotten a lot of attention in recent years, with the release of his diaries and a highly-regarded biography by Blake Bailey. In fact, the 92nd Street Y is having an event on May 17 with Bailey, Michael Chabon, and writers and offspring Ben and Susan Cheever. So when The Center for Fiction's Executive Director, Noreen Tomassi, and I discussed having an event there, we decided to put the focus on what is probably Cheever's greatest legacy—his short stories.

(L to R) Susan Minot, Rick Moody, and Elizabeth Strout

On May 31, at 7 p.m., at The Center for Fiction, authors Susan Minot, Rick Moody, and Elizabeth Strout will each read from and discuss a Cheever story. Minot's choice is "The Sorrows of Gin," Moody will read from "The Jewels of the Cabots," and Strout will focus on "The Worm in the Apple"—all interesting selections from among an oeuvre that includes "Goodbye, My Brother," "The Enormous Radio," "The Five-Forty-Eight," "Reunion," and "The Swimmer."

Susan Minot, Rick Moody, and Elizabeth Strout each have New England roots—as did Cheever. And the work of all three has affinities with his. I'm expecting a memorable and fitting tribute to a great writer with a continuing and widespread influence on other writers—a nice way, we hope, to close out a month celebrating the story form.

“The Spirit of Literary Independence” at the Old American Can Factory, Nov. 22, 2011

By Patrick Thomas Henry

Traveling to the Gowanus district of Brooklyn in the midst of a torrential downpour is like setting foot in the rain-lashed environs of a gothic novel. An “atmospheric tumult,” to pilfer Emily Brontë’s description of the weather at Wuthering Heights, battered the F train and jostled rain-soaked passengers together as it squealed along its tracks toward Brooklyn. Outside the 4th Avenue-9th Street Station, the crowd dispersed, and I headed northward, in the direction of the Old American Can Factory at 3rd Avenue and 3rd Street for the “Spirit of Literary Independence” celebration.

I entered the Old American Can Factory and mounted the stairs to the building’s upper levels. I glanced down the high-ceilinged corridors when I reached each landing. These hallways were gated with flung-open, vault-style doors. The night’s event was in the Issue Project Room on the third storey. Since 2003, the Issue Project Room has sought to build a creative hub for Brooklyn, with an emphasis on experimental art forms.

The “Spirit of Literary Independence” event worked toward that mission, through inviting independent publishers to present several of their authors. The night’s format—a reception and short breaks between readers—encouraged attendees to mingle and chat with the evening’s participants, creating a more intimate atmosphere than the usual question-and-answer format of such events. The co-sponsors were Akashic Books, Archipelago Books, the journals Habitus and One Story, and Ugly Duckling Presse.

Author Irena Reyn reads from a work in progress

The readings illustrated what independent and small publishers offer readers and the literary community, including evocative and beautifully conjured short story collections. In addition, the readings served as reminders that small presses can offer us considered and deft translations of foreign literatures, such as Ross Benjamin’s translation of Joseph Roth’s Job (Archipelago Books). Independently published journals also offer authors an opportunity to present works in progress. Rachel Cantor (One Story author) and Irina Reyn (Habitus author) both shared such work and referred to the valuable relationships they've developed with their editors and readers.

 Small presses have the leeway to engage with darker, more violent, more graphic content that may concern the big houses. Lonely Christopher’s short story “Milk,” from his collection The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse (Akashic Books), evinced this through a detailed—and gory—scene where shooting a horse parallels the family’s tensions. These publishers also offer opportunities for works that, though self-contained, are not book-length projects; John Surowiecki’s narrative poetry, which draws from his personal experiences and sensitive considerations of those affected by the Vietnam War, appears as the chapbook Mr. Z., Mrs. Z., J.Z., S.Z. (Ugly Duckling Presse).

Of course, mainstream publishers continue to print hundreds of powerful books a year, but small presses can explore literary terrain that may be foreign—or  seem unmarketable—to larger companies. And today’s small press titles can become literary classics in future decades. This isn’t just waxing poetic about the value of small presses: Literary milestones historically have their foundations in these humble origins. T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, for instance, was initially published in the journal The Criterion, and the poem’s initial appearance in book form was as a print run of 450 copies, produced by Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press.

When I left the Old American Can Factory, I felt waterproofed in the evening’s layers: energetic readings, warm company, and the comfort of a few Brooklyn Lagers. The balmy rain, which still fell in chilling reels, seemed a bit less gothic, a bit less discouraging, after an evening spent amid the vibrant spirit of literary independence.

Tiphanie Yanique and Elizabeth Nunez at The Center for Fiction

By Phedra Deonarine

Tiphanie Yanique at The Center for Fiction, June 15, 2011

I recently went to The Center for Fiction’s conversation between Elizabeth Nunez and Tiphanie Yanique. The Center for Fiction is located on East 47th Street and has a wonderful bookstore full of new and used books. The discussion was held in a cozy room, which afforded a more intimate atmosphere between the audience and the two writers.

Yanique started the evening off by acknowledging the work that The Center for Fiction does for writers as “the only non-profit in the U.S. dedicated to celebrating fiction.” She read from the title story in her collection How to Escape from a Leper Colony. She then sat down to speak with Nunez, award-winning author of seven novels and fellow Caribbean writer.

Yanique’s first book spans the Caribbean, but Nunez pointed out a shared connection between the two writers: Both wrote about the Leper Colony located on the island of Chacachacare off the coast of Trinidad. It was interesting to hear these two writers speak of Chacachacare because even though I lived in Trinidad for eighteen years, I’ve never actually been to the island. Listening to Yanique describe the file cabinets located on that island made me think that perhaps I should visit one day.

Nunez requested that Yanique read a story that involved the beating of a young child. Both writers then discussed child abuse in the Caribbean and the role of the author in dealing with this charged issue. Nunez was also interested in Yanique’s choice of including a Caribbean jail cell in her story because the jails in the Caribbean are located near the sea and have the special torment of offering spectacular seaside views to the inmates.

Prompted by an audience member, Nunez discussed the seduction of writing in first person and the distance that writing in third person allows. Fielding a question from the audience, Yanique spoke on the burden placed on Caribbean writers to explain perceived strangeness in their stories. She used “calalloo” as an example and stated that if a reader was genuinely curious about calalloo they would research it. She went on to say that explaining such a dish would harm the authenticity of her characters who would never describe something so well known to them. This was a highly gratifying answer for me because I’m often confronted with the burden of explaining minor details in my own creative work.

Both writers also responded to audience questions on the benefits of MFA programs and the business of writing. The evening concluded, and I was able to ask Elizabeth Nunez to sign my copy of Grace, newly purchased from the Center for Fiction’s bookstore located on the ground floor.

New Assistants Phedra and Patrick Extend the Reach of The Story Prize

We're pleased to introduce two writing students from the Rutgers-Newark MFA program, Phedra Deonarine and Patrick Thomas Henry, have just joined The Story Prize as assistants:

Phedra Deonarine lived in Trinidad for eighteen years. She then moved to Vancouver where she earned a B.A. in English from the University of British Columbia. Her short story "Pelau" was long-listed for the 2010 CBC Literary Awards. She is currently the Truman Capote Fellow in the Creative Writing M.F.A. Program at Rutgers University-Newark.

Patrick Thomas Henry is a graduate of the Writers Institute at Susquehanna University and has also earned an MA in English literature at Bucknell University. Currently, he attends the MFA program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Newark.  His fiction is forthcoming in Revolution House and The Writing Disorder; he has published review essays in the journal Modern Language Studies, and he is the author of the critical head notes in On Writing Short Stories, edited by Tom Bailey. He blogs about literature and related topics at The Penguin in the Machine.



Sarah Bridgins, who is now a literary agent with the Francis Goldin Agency, served as an assistant for several years, and Brett Duquette, now working as an editor for Sterling Publishing, helped out more recently.

One of the main jobs of our assistants is to contact publishers about short story collections we're interested in reading to make them aware of our deadlines. They also provide another perspective on some of the collections we receive.

This time around, however, we're doing something different: Phedra and Patrick will also be attending literary events in New York City and elsewhere and reporting on them for this blog. Other sites, such as Electric Literature's The Outlet have been doing this for some time. It seems like a good way to broaden our focus on short fiction and to support bookstores, institutions, reading series, and literary magazines that are essential to the short story.

If you'd like TSP to cover your event, please feel free to contact us at info@thestoryprize.org (a week before the event, if possible).