Quotes & Notes: In Praise of Perpetual Self-Reinvention
by Steven Wingate
In commemoration of the recent death of a brilliant experimental fictionist, we revisit this 2009 meditation by Steven Wingate on the words of his mentor Steve Katz.
In commemoration of the recent death of a brilliant experimental fictionist, we revisit this 2009 meditation by Steven Wingate on the words of his mentor Steve Katz.
“What I love is the defamiliarization.” Kent Kosack appreciates the aesthetic openness of Catherine Lacey’s short story “The Healing Center.”
“The truth is that a blank page makes beginners of us all.” Bryan Furuness asks five writers for advice on the perennial problem of getting started.
“That moment when we realize our parents are people, regular people, with flaws and separate lives we have no access to. Brought home, made palpable for the reader, in that little clattering spoon”: Kent Kosack on Lucia Berlin’s coming-of-age story “Itinerary.”
“Soon matters take an even darker turn.” Jacob M. Appel on Shirley Jackson’s most unsettling short story.
“Sam Lipsyte drops us right into a room of lack and fear occupied by Tovah Gold”: Mo Daviau on Sam Lipsyte’s “The Climber Room.”
“And yet, it works. Not only does it work, it’s essential to the story. The form is the story.” Kent Kosack takes a look at Bernard Malamud’s puzzling POV-shifter, “My Son the Murderer.”
Join us for our eleventh-annual celebration of the short story, as we dedicate the month of May to short fiction.
“How can I describe my feelings upon reaching this conclusion?”: Jamie Yourdon on Aurelie Sheehan’s “The Nursing Home,” from her new collection, Once into the Night, out from the University of Alabama Press.
“How the writer views the world, their unique angle of vision, is what can draw us in by inviting us to briefly leave behind our familiar vantage point.” Kent Kosack on the power of observation in Dorthe Nors’s “The Heron.”
Steve Wingate makes his first trip to the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute to learn how books make their way into the hands of booksellers, and thereby into the hands of readers.
Stories We Love: “White Angel,” by Michael Cunningham
Stories We Love: Donald Barthelme’s “The School,” In Which is Revealed the Meaning of Life
Stories We Love: "A Small, Good Thing" by Raymond Carver
Stories We Love: "The Fall River Axe Murders," by Angela Carter
Stories We Love: "Incarnations of Burned Children"
