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Published this month by Melville House, Christopher Boucher's novel, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, tells the story of a newspaper reporter living in western Massachusetts and trying to raise his son, a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle. To promote the book, Boucher yesterday set off on a road trip from Los Angeles to Boston in a 1972 Beetle.
The winners of the 2011 Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award have been announced. The publication prize, which has bolstered authors such as Ha Jin and Antonya Nelson early in their careers, was awarded to E. J. Levy of Washington, D.C., and Hugh Sheehy of New York City. Each will receive one thousand dollars, and the University of Georgia Press will publish their books in the fall of 2012.
Levy, whose stories and essays have appeared in the Paris Review, the New York Times, and the Nation, among other publications, won for her collection, My Life in Theory. She is also the editor of Lambda Award–winning anthology Tasting Life Twice: Literary Lesbian Fiction by New American Writers (Harper Perennial, 1995).
Sheehy won for The Invisibles, which series editor Nancy Zafris described as a collection of “eerie tales extraordinarily narrated.” The title story from his winning manuscript appeared in Best American Mystery Stories 2008, edited by George Pelecanos.
Along with Zafris, authors M. M. M. Hayes, Bruce Machart, Kirsten Ogden, and Lori Ostlund served as judges. The competition will accept submissions for the next O'Connor competition from April 1 to May 31, 2012.
In the video below, past winner Antonya Nelson—who received the O'Connor Award in 1989 for what became her debut collection, The Expendables—discusses the story behind her stories.
While researching MFA Creative Writing programs, I had two main requirements: it had to be located in New York City and it had to offer classes in writing for children and young adults. The New School matched both of these criteria, but had other benefits as well. Faculty was made up of notable authors, small class size which meant more attention to students and there was access to a network of amazing writers. In my first year, I got to meet renowned authors from my genre.
I applied to three area MFA programs in early 2010. I was nearly forty, newly “downsized,” and not convinced pursuing a creative writing degree was practical. I researched each program extensively. Reviews and statistics are valuable, but the personal connections I made during my search helped me select the MFA program that is right for me. Campus visits, MFA program events, and informal conversations with students and faculty yielded the most valuable information. My main criteria were location, accessible faculty, and diverse student body (especially age!).
I chose an MFA in fiction because as a librarian, I have access to all "information" and find that truth wavers along that thin fiction line. Surrounding my life are ancestor-spirits who've charged me the task of storytelling on their behalf, first-person. My politics walk in hand with public education, thus CUNY [City University of New York] is my home.
My predominate consideration in MFA program choice was curriculum. My goal is to graduate with a publishable, quality novel; therefore, programs steeped in academic scholarship were not considered. At the end of the day writing creatively involves time and space. Although some say geographical location should never be considered when applying to graduate school, I know opportunity often manifests itself in specific hubs; therefore, the majority of my applications were sent to the northeast region of the country.
I applied to several MFA progams in the Southwest, a region I’d always been fascinated with. I chose New Mexico State University in Las Cruces sight unseen on the basis of funding (great, especially combined with the low cost of living) and population—I wanted to replicate the small town environment of my college town, Bloomington, Indiana, as much as possible. When I visited Las Cruces the summer before my first semester, I was generously hosted by several graduates of the MFA who I would never see in a classroom, but who offered their homes and hobbies to me as if we were family.
Rioting in London has spared most bookshops, with the exception of a gay and lesbian bookstore; book publishing is stronger today than two years ago, according to recent sales data; Mark Twain House employee pleads guilty to wire fraud; and other news.
BookBaby president Brian Felson sat down with literary agent Brian DeFiore at this year's London Book Fair to discuss whether it's fair that large publishers, under the agency model, pay standard royalties of 25 percent of net ebook sales to authors despite saving money as a result of not having to print or ship books.
Poet Reginald Dwayne Betts, author of Shahid Reads His Own Palm and the memoir A Question of Freedom, blogs about Washington, D.C.-based writers who are making marks.
"Flat Langston" made quite an uproar last year during the Association of Writers & Writing Programs annual conference. For those who are unaware, there was once a cardboard cutout of Langston Hughes at the Busboys and Poets 14th Street location. It was there before poet, photographer, go-go aficionado, and D.C. native Thomas Sayers Ellis relieved it of its duties. The uproar isn’t as important now, forgotten as most things are forgotten.
All that to say, I love listening to stories of the District's past—about spots along the U Street corridor that once housed poetry, about Toni Asante Lightfoot’s legendary reading series, and nights when Holly Bass, Kenneth Carroll, Brian Gilmore, Brandon Johnson, Ernesto Mercer, Joel Dias-Porter, and others could be found with a sheaf of poems in hand burning the night sky. I dig those stories. I dig, too, that nostalgia is the curse that ruins us. While we celebrate the folks who have made marks on the cultural scene of the District, it seems much too easy to forget about the folks who are making marks right now.
Alan King and Derrick Weston Brown, for instance, have both been putting in work as poets and workshop leaders around the city, working with the D.C. Creative Writing Workshop at Hart Middle School and Ballou High School, respectively. Fred Joiner, a jack of all trades, along with Jon West-Bey, Executive Director of the American Poetry Museum, engineered a cultural exchange with Belfast. Add to that Kyle Dargan, assistant professor of creative writing at American University and editor of Post No Ills. Add still Simone Jackson of Sulu DC, Silvana Straw of DC Writer’s Corp and the Marpat Foundation. More? Melanie Henderson, forth generation D.C. native and winner of the Main Street Rag prize for her lovely collection of poems, Elegies for New York Avenue.
Still want more? Kim Roberts holds it down. Sarah Browning does her thing. So does Melissa Tuckey. Sandra Beasley. All of whom are wonderful, wonderful writers. Maybe this isn't a renaissance, but it damn sure isn't a drought.
Photo: Reginald Dwayne Betts. Credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths.
Support for Readings/Workshops events in Washinton, D.C., is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
