Here at FWR, we’re certainly doing our collective best to honor the art and craft of the short story this month. But there are lots of ways that each fiction writer can celebrate short stories individually. Here are five possibilities:
Participate in #StorySunday: Reminded each Sunday by @TaniaHershman, short-story fans are encouraged to share a link [...]
A couple of months ago there was an online kerfuffle after Bitch Magazine posted a list of 100 feminist YA books, and then removed three books from that list after a few commenters complained about them, for various reasons. Then other commenters cried censorship, including some other authors on the list who asked to be [...]
Anyone with a television set (by no means a given anymore) and network reception (ditto), has probably not escaped the fact that this is Oprah’s last season. Her most recent Book Club selection – announced during her show featuring Jonathan Franzen, post-controversy – were not one, but two novels by Charles Dickens.
The Oprah Book [...]
In the second part of his essay, Scott F. Parker discusses The Corrections as a key to Franzen’s thoughts on commerce and art, and how this tension led to the controversy surrounding the Oprah Book Club. Parker argues that the deep connection the reader forges with the Lamberts is precisely because of their abiding flaws and loneliness, because Franzen reveals how their struggles are our own.
Nearly a decade after publication, Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections still looms large in American fiction. The novel, and the controversy surrounding it, have influenced the way we think about issues of family, identity, art, commerce, and the role of the writer. In Part I of “The ReCorrections” Scott F. Parker reveals the impact the book had on him as a reader and why he believes “the mood of The Corrections trumps its plot.” Look for Part II tomorrow.
There’s still a week left in April: spend it reading one of these new collections recommended by Andrew Scott.
INDIE PICKS:
- Strange Weather (Press 53), by Becky Hagenston. Winner of the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction.
Praise from Antonya Nelson:
The sensibility overseeing these fine stories is curious, clever, quick, hilarious, and heartbreaking. The world contained between [...]
This month, Andrew Scott — our Oprah of story collections, long may he reign! — recommends the following books:
Big House Pick: Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives, by Brad Watson (Norton)
“The dark and brilliant tales of Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives capture the strangeness of human (and almost-human) life. In this, his [...]
From to Oprah’s Book Club to Goodreads, reading has become a more social activity than ever before. But what about those people who still like to curl up with a book–alone? The New York Times examines the private reader:
Particularly with the books we adore most, a certain reader wants to preserve the experience [...]
Oprah gave book publicists a collective fit of the vapors when she announced her show—and its high-profile book club—would be ending in 2011. Many fretted over the effects on publishing, calling it “a blow”:
“Other than a book being turned into a popular movie nothing brings readers to a book like Oprah,” said Dawn Davis, [...]
As a huge fan of Munro and Dzanc, I’m especially excited about Andrew’s picks for this month. (This is what the world will look like when there is too much happiness!)
- Indie Pick: Laura van den Berg’s debut, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us (Dzanc) / description (via ABC):
A [...]
