Richard Poirier's Short Story Legacy

Richard Poirier, who died at the age of 83 on Aug. 15, is probably best known for being the founder of Library of America and of Rutgers' Raritan Review, but he was also series editor of Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards from 1961-1965, a title I, too, held for six years, from 1997-2002. In between the two of us came William Abrahams' amazing 31 year reign as series editor.* I met Abrahams once but never Poirier.

In 1998, my then-assistant Scott Conklin and I compiled a complete list of stories included in every O. Henry Awards volume, starting with the first one in 1919, and I had the list posted on the Web, sorted by name and year. The alphabetical list also includes the name of the series editor who selected each story. So my own labors allowed me to get a quick sense of Poirier's short story legacy, via his work as O. Henry Awards series editor. I discovered that:

• Stories by Donald Barthelme (1964), Bernard Malamud (1964), Mary McCarthy ('65), Leonard Michaels ('65), Joyce Carol Oates ('63), Reynolds Price ('61), Thomas Pynchon ('62), John Updike ('61), and Joy Williams ('65) earned their first O. Henry Awards during his tenure. **
• He also included fiction by Gina Berriault, Hortense Calisher, John Cheever, Arthur Miller, Flannery O'Connor, Tillie Olson, Kathryn Anne Porter, Philip Roth, William Saroyan, Terry Southern, Wallace Stegner, and Peter Taylor, among others. Olson's "Tell Me a Riddle" and O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge" are among the enduring stories that appeared in O. Henry Awards volumes from 1961-66.

No doubt, Poirier missed the boat on numerous other great writers and stories. I know that in my time I did--that's par for the course. But even without all of his other accomplishments, Richard Poirier contributed to American short fiction through the writers and stories that he did introduce to thousands of readers in his six-year stint as editor of the O. Henry Awards.

* Abrahams also co-edited with Poirier in 1965 and 1966.
** Oates would go on to appear in O. Henry Awards volumes 29 times (25 times under Abrahams who was her editor at Dutton), Updike 13 times, Malamud 5, Barthelme 4, Michaels 4, and Williams 2.

Psst! Agents and Publishers, Short Story Collections Aren't Poison

As I've said before, it's high time that publishers and agents stopped perpetuating the myth that there isn't an audience for short story collections. Two interviews I saw on the Web last week (via Twitter links) addressed this truism. First, this from an interview with Petina Gappah (An Elegy for Easterly) on the Short Review Web site:

I did not have a collection in mind at all, especially because very early on in my writing career, someone pretty high up in publishing had told me that there was no interest in story collections. So I wrote stories as a way of flexing my writing muscle, and to find my "voice," with no thought of collecting them in a single volume, until my agent . . . suggested putting them together in a single manuscript. I was stunned when Faber offered to publish them. This went against all that I had heard about publishers' loathing of short stories.

And James Lasdun addressed similar concerns in an interview he did for the Edinburgh Festival Guide, billed as "A Strident Defence of the Short Story":

Over the years James Lasdun has turned his pen to novels, screenplays, travel writing, journalism and poetry, but short stories are his current medium of choice, having recently published his third collection, It's Beginning to Hurt. Lasdun suggests that the short story should have great appeal ‘because it’s short, it’s quick and people have limited time and short attention spans. One would think it would fit right into the habits of mind that people have in this era.’ He offers a few hypotheses as to why it remains as the novel’s lesser-seen younger sibling. ‘I think there’s a feeling that this is an insider’s game, that it’s an artsy type of writing, and if you’re not part of that world then you might just be wasting your time and money and why not go out and get a novel by some novelist that you know and love?’

There was also a provocative post on the Rumpus last week, as well as one on the One Story blog.

The fact is, some short story collections have sold very well in the last year or two. Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge has been on the New York Times trade paperback list for 16 weeks. And, Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth was number one on the hardcover fiction list last year and is having a substantial run (18 weeks so far) on the trade paperback list. Stephen King's Just After Sunset also hit the best-seller list last year. Wells Towers' Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, made some extended best-seller lists a few months ago. The Best American Short Stories routinely sells more than 100,000 copies a year. And I'm sure Science Fiction and Horror collections and anthologies, which are often overlooked in these discussions, draw a very solid audience. They're certainly staples of these genres and worth reading.

I know, Strout won the Pulitzer Prize--but I'd bet her collection has sold better than many novels that have won the same award. Oh, and Jhumpa Lahiri is a perpetual best-seller--but the book that put her on the map was another short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies (also a Pulitzer winner). When all is said and done, her two short story collections have probably sold as well as her novel, The Namesake, which had the advantage of being made into a film. Of course, Stephen King is Stephen King--I have nothing to counter that, of course.

The point is, story collections aren't poison, and agents and publishers should stop treating them as such. Collections by established writers with strong followings will still sell. And debut collections probably perform no worse than debut novels. Story collections that get support from publishers and reviewers (as in Towers' case), have a chance to find an audience. In addition, I have no doubt that the digital age is going to be a boon to the short story, as shortness becomes a greater advantage.

I could go on and on and on (and no doubt will). But the bottom line is: Writers should keep writing stories. And agents and publishers should stop repeating empty truisms and get behind short story collections instead of offering resistance.

My Favorite Forty-Two Books of the Year...So Far

There are 42 short story collections on my bedside table, so to speak. That's how many entries we've had for The Story Prize so far in 2009, and that may be only half the number we're going to get by the end of the year. If the second half were to match the first half, the number of entries this year would equal the most we've had: 84 in 2005.

There are two deadlines for The Story Prize--July 15 for books published in the first half of the year and Nov. 15 for books published in the second half--to allow ourselves time to read all of the entries. If we got all of them at the end of the year, it would be overwhelming, and we think every short story collection entered deserves careful consideration. So far, I've already read about 15 of the books (so my stack is actually a mere 27 books high), and several would make excellent finalists.

The total number of stories in these 42 collections, by the way, is 610. That may sound like a lot, but it's not nearly as many as I had to read each year when I was series editor of the O. Henry Awards. My estimate back then was about 3,000 short stories a year. (Which makes me wonder how Heidi Pitlor, series editor for Best American Short Stories, is going to read that many plus work published online, which is eligible this year for the first time.)

The 42 entries we've received so far come from 33 different publishers or imprints. Of course, not every book that could be is entered for The Story Prize, so this isn't a measure of the number of publishers who publish story collections or the number published in the U.S. each year. But my guess is that we end up reading about two thirds of them.

Sixty Years of the National Book Awards (and a Losing Streak for Short Stories)

What do National League baseball and the short story have in common? Similar losing streaks, at least by one measure. Including last night's 4-3 loss to the American League, the National League hasn't won the All-Star game since 1996, which is the last time a short story collection--Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett--won the National Book Award for fiction.

This has come to my attention because, in celebrating its 60th Anniversary this year, the National Book Awards is currently looking back at the 77 works of fiction (some years there were multiple winners for different categories) it has honored. Altogether, 11 short story collections have won National Book Awards for fiction since 1950:

1951: The Collected Stories of William Faulkner
1959: The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud
1960: Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth
1966: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
1972: The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor
1974: A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981: The Stories of John Cheever (paperback)
1983: Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (paperback)
1984: Victory over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist
1985: Easy in the Islands by Bob Shacochis (first work of fiction)
1996: Ship Fever and Other Stories by Andrea Barrett

This is a pretty solid list, with a virtual Murderers' Row of mid-20th Century short story greats: Faulkner, Malamud, Porter, O'Connor, Singer, Cheever, and Welty. Any book award would be proud to have these authors on its roster. And, of course, it's inevitable that some talent will be stuck on the bench. For instance, it would be nice to see collections by writers such as Donald Barthelme, Raymond Carver, Andre Dubus, Grace Paley, Lorrie Moore, and Tobias Wolff (among others) represented. But arguing with the choices is a futile exercise. It all comes down to how the judges/umpires call it. And it's worth keeping in mind that there were good novels published every year, too. Besides, short story writers play small ball, while novelists often swing for the fences.

In any event, one major reason The Story Prize exists is precisely to rectify this imbalance and make short stories are the star of the game for once. I can only hope that we last for 60 years and compile as vital a list of books and authors as the National Book Awards has (and that a short story collection and the National League will come through one of these years).

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.

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.

Adieux, Readerville: An Exit Interview with Karen Templer

On June 5, Readerville, a popular and groundbreaking Web site about books and reading that Karen Templer established in 2000, came to an end. I've had a long association with Readerville, most often haunting the Short Fiction thread, which was one of many forums the site hosted. Karen and the Readerville community have generously supported my efforts, on behalf of both the O. Henry Awards and The Story Prize. In response to the news about Readerville, I sent Karen a few questions, which she graciously answered.

What inspired you to start Readerville?
I'd been running Table Talk at Salon, which has subforums for just about every subject (movies, politics, your sex life, etc.) and I was particularly fascinated by the books discussions. I was also in awe of Slashdot, the community for techies. At that time (and probably still now -- I don't know) if something was going on in the tech world and you wanted to know what people thought about it, you went to Slashdot. Period. I wondered why there wasn't a place like that for books -- a dedicated site where readers and writers and publishers and librarians and so on could all converge to talk about their shared passion. So I made Readerville. And while it was never as large as Slashdot, it was quite huge and quite an amazing thing in its heyday. And to the very last day, even at a fraction of its former size, it was a place where you could turn and find out instantly which books were worth paying attention to and which weren't. It was a remarkable group of readers.

What were some of the highlights? Was there a signature moment? (For my money, the Deborah Treisman dustup was one.)
You're right -- the Deborah Treisman incident was certainly memorable. For anyone who wasn't around, a woman who posted as Michelle Furphy (one of the all-time great pseudonyms) made a series of posts about the then-just-announced new fiction editor for The New Yorker. She was riffing in a sort of sarcastic way on how young and successful Treisman was, and finished up with a comment about her having (or probably having?) a big nose. It was clearly understood by everyone who knew Michelle that it was a sour-grapes joke -- and expression of huge jealousy -- and I don't think Michelle even knew what Deborah looked like. Anyway, next thing you know there's an interview with Deborah in The New York Times and she mentioned having been online, tracking the reaction to the news of her appointment, and said that she was brought up short by someone in a forum talking about her big nose. She stopped reading right there and then, and she obviously hadn't gotten the underlying humor. And who could blame her? It was just a tossed off comment on Deborah's part, but Michelle and I and others all felt terrible about it. Fortunately, she wound up coming to Readerville for a bit, as I recall, and I think (or at least hope) we all got a good laugh about it in the end.

I think Readerville Events -- the week-long author visits -- were always a highlight for everyone, the authors included. The feedback was always really gratifying and some very big-name authors did repeat visits, they found it such a tremendous experience. But I think the most memorable moment for me came out of the very first event we did, with Jim Crace. It was our first time meeting him (he did multiple events over the years) and we didn't really get his capacity for mischievousness yet. He made a quip that FSG was planning to Americanize the name of his next book. It was The Devil's Larder and he said they were going to call it The Devil's Pantry. If he said a thing like that now, I would know instantly that it was Jim being Jim, but we all thought he was serious and responded that was a terrible idea and they mustn't do it. Rather than say "I'm just joking," Jim passed it along to USA Today, which ran a big story on it. There was a quote from the publisher saying they never meant to do any such thing, but it sounded like he was covering for the embarrassment of it rather than that they really never meant to do any such thing. I'm sure Jim's still laughing about the whole thing.

Do you think blogs, Twitter, and Facebook have made forums, like those in Readerville, quaint?
If we were sitting down with some drinks between us, I could spend several hours answering this question. The short version is: I think it's too soon to say. There's no question that it's different now. In 2000, if you wanted to talk to other people online, that still meant joining a forum or a chat room. Those were the only options. (And most people chose neither.) Now everyone does have their own blog(s) and Facebook page and Twitter and Flickr, and I'm amazed at how many people participate in multiple book sites on top of all of that. People get around, whereas they used to pick one place and hole up. And that definitely played a role in Readerville's demise, but it was certainly not the only factor. Clearly forums are less necessary in a lot of ways, but on the other hand, it's funny how often I see someone on Twitter saying "we need a forum so we can actually talk about this." It's all really still evolving and I don't know what the future holds. But there are still a lot of intensely active forums out there.

Do you think Readerville will have a legacy, and what would you say it is?
I don't have the distance on it to be able to say, but it's probably a question for others to answer anyway. I'm happy that the community lives on in the form of connections and friendships that continue elsewhere and always will. I know I made many of the best friends of my life.