American Short Fiction blog

Don’t buy into the myth of the lonely writer trapped in an attic struggling to communicate? Like to collaborate? Check out this residency.

“The Collaborative Retreat at the Cabin at Shotpouch Creek recognizes that writers are part of a dynamic system of writers, readers and wider communities.” It offers two-week residencies to two poets, fiction writers, or creative nonfiction writers who want to pursue a collaborative project from March 6 to March 19, 2011, and March 27 to April 9, 2011, in the Oregon Coast Range.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Contemporary American Fiction (CAF, if you will) this week. We’ve had these circular discussions going at the bookstore about, you know, overrated writers and underrated writers (ahem); everybody’s been making their own lists so that everyone else can refute them flatly, and loudly. And there’s of course talk about Jonathan Franzen and the Great American Novel/Novelist question, and what exactly Lev Grossman might be angling for with this article, (not to mention his Time list from the end of last year of the Top Ten Books of the Decade). Frankly, it’s all getting to be a bit much. The books we’re arguing over—even the supposedly overrated ones, or the ones dubbed critical successes—are not the books people are buying in droves. I’m droning on about how unsettling it is to CAF that Mr. Franzen was named the Great, they’re arguing about Junot Diaz, and meanwhile ten copies of The Help or The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo or Twilight walk out the door. Something seems amiss in the realm of literary fiction, and the problem isn’t emanating from comments pages.

So I’ve been relaxing far from the Internet scuffles and the literary publishing blogosphere, away from our daily rants and arguments[1], enjoying the new issue of ASF (plus Colum McCann’s This Side of Brightness and Daniil Kharms’s Today I Wrote Nothing) when all of the sudden, Sunday morning I open my email to find an installment of “Work in Progress,” FSG’s new newsletter. It contains none other than a video of (guess who?) Jonathan Franzen talking about (guess what?) the state of CAF and the contemporary novel. Oy. There’s no escaping it.

I was dismayed by the video[2] not for what he said, exactly, but for how simply, patly he summed things up, like his characters, his novel, the purpose of reading and the novel (and he didn’t stick to lit in his generalizations, either). See for yourself. And so I went seeking some good old-fashioned, wordy, convoluted perspective in an interview with David Foster Wallace, the first one to pop up on YouTube, which just so happened to cover—oh hey—CAF, its readers, and the novel. Whaddayaknow.

In the interview[3], he aligns CAF and its readership (albeit 10+ years ago) with contemporary classical music and its following.  Actually, he spends a while just trying to put a number on people who care about CAF, or more specifically so-called serious books.  He throws out half a million, then settles on probably a million people in America who care about this stuff.  That’s perspective for you.  That’s humbling.  Especially, in my case, for a bookseller.

This minority aside, I think people should keep talking about the divide between popular literature and serious works—and especially the way the two are lately striving to imitate each other to stay afloat in the struggling publishing economy. I’m thinking of popular books that take themselves seriously, for example, or serious, difficult works that seem totally apathetic. You can see it in cover design, blurbs, press from the publisher, book trailers. Serious, gut-wrenching works have covers and trailers that say, “This book’s a joke!” (Gary Shteyngart, anyone?) while trite romantic comedies that actually read themselves to you are hailed as provocative pieces. Don’t believe me? Remember when Nicholas Sparks compared himself to Hemingway? We still joke about sneakily shelving his books in the Classics section. Right by Muriel Spark.

For whatever reason, books that bridge the seriousness divide from either side, no matter how superficially, seem to sell the absolute best. I can’t tell whether this dual trend’s effect is homogenizing for CAF or ever more polarizing. Suffice to say I’ll be on the lookout. One thing I can tell you, though. Whatever it is they pick up, people are still reading.  Maybe that’s where the conversation should start.

[2] Of course I watched it; I want to like him so badly!  Instead it affirmed my long-held belief that writers are better off not talking.

[3] Which I’ve decided not to link to.  Franzen and Wallace both bring up the necessity of finding quiet and stillness in order to read, and watching an author interview on YouTube seems like the antithesis of that.

There are a few things I didn’t get around to this summer, reading wise. Erm, make that a lot. OK, fine. There are, approximately, a whole ton of books (and magazines and journals…oh, the journals) that, despite my best intentions—and admittedly unrealistic ambitions—I did no more than glance at this summer.

Books I couldn’t (and still can’t!) wait to read this summer—books like Brando Skyhorse’s The Madonnas of Echo Park, Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids, and Christie Hodgen’s new novel—all sitting pretty and pristine on my bookshelf, unread. In the living room, the stack of untouched New Yorkers on the coffee table has moved beyond decoratively erudite (does such a thing exist?) to plain old unsightly. And beside my bed, a Jenga-tower of half-read books and magazines has reached such epic and architecturally-unsound proportions that hitting the snooze button in the morning not infrequently results in some exceedingly unwelcome 6 a.m. crashing. Sigh. All over the house, all summer long, these piles have been accumulating, like (lovely) little cairns of summer reading failure.

Of course, to my mind, this is part of the allure of summer reading—and of summer in general: the making of Big Plans only to let those plans melt away in the haze of days too hot and lazy to do much of anything at all. I know I’m not alone in this. For every person who will actually finish Infinite Jest this summer (We’ve got two in the ASF office. Just saying.), there are at least a dozen others who are staring down another 400 (or 800) pages and wondering if it’s better to just cut their losses and go get a Slurpee.

And so, summer readers, I’d like to direct your attention to Bernard Malamud’s story “A Summer’s Reading.” First published in The New Yorker in 1956, the story centers around a young man named George Stoyonovich who, aimless and unemployed, boasts to his admiring neighbors that he will read 100 books before the end of the summer. He fails, of course. As the summer passes, in fact, George does anything but read, finding that it’s the idea of reading—the idea of the person that he might become after reading 100 books—that holds the real power.

It’s an older story, set in Depression-era New York, but Malamud’s evocation time slipping by in the swelter of days that are at once too languid and too quick still feels right on.

So check out “A Summer’s Reading” (you can listen to a podcast of it here) and take heart in knowing that sometimes not reading is what summer reading is all about.

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Any books you didn’t read this summer that you wish you had? What’s on your list for fall?

Living near enough to downtown San Marcos, Texas, this writer knows a little something about The Getaway, the drowsy yet sun-blasted spot that was, in 1924, the the bank that was robbed by the shoot-em-up Dalton Gang in their glycerine-aided, glass-flying heist. In 1972, Sam Peckinpah and Steve McQueen returned to the location to film their great celluloid heist, The Getaway. The place is now a restaurant/bar with free wifi where any writer can belly up to the bar and move from reality to fiction as quick as a drop of sweat to the scarred wood bar.

Funny to me how the place is the fulcrum for fellowship–from the Dalton family to the Peckinpaw-McQueen power duo to the current residents of still sun-blasted and sleepy San Marcos to me.

Because creators need their getaways. And fellowship makes it all the more memorable.

Find your spot. Reside there. Create something worth remembering:

Bronx Council on the Arts offers the Writers’ Center Fellowship and Residency: The Bronx Writers’ Center Fellowship annually awards two nine-month literary fellowships to writers who reside in the Bronx, regardless of age but who are not enrolled as full-time students. An award of $5,000 is given to each winner and a community service project at the Bronx Writers’ Center is required. More info here. Send questions to Lydia[at]bronxarts[dot]org. Deadline: September 4, 2010.

The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Fund for the Arts awards a small number of fellowships ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 to support artists whose work demonstrates excellence and the potential for positive impact in the Latino arts field. Examples of acceptable expenses for NFA fellowships include but are not limited to the following: costs for the creation or completion of new work, travel, study, professional development, living expenses, equipment, hiring of assistants, costs for documentation, production expenses and maintenance. Projects must begin after January 1, 2011 and must end by December 31, 2011. All who submit must be members of NALAC; join today. Deadline: September 24, 2010.

Win yourself an American Academy in Berlin—Berlin Prize Fellowship. These Residential fellowships come with a stipend ranging from $3,500 to $5,000 per month, round-trip airfare, housing at the Academy, and partial board to emerging as well as established scholars, writers, and professionals who wish to engage in independent study in Berlin for an academic semester or in rare cases for an entire academic year. Fellows are expected to be in residence at the Academy during the entire term of the award. More info here. Deadline: October 1, 2010.

The M Literary Residency Program offers two residencies, one in Shanghai, China and one in Pondicherry, India. The residencies are each three months long and candidates should only apply for one. Both writing fellows receive a total of $1,000 to cover living costs. The program is open to writers of fiction, literary nonfiction, or poetry whose residence in India or China would benefit their work. The program is intended to help foster greater cultural and artistic connections across individuals and communities. For more info, email: mliteraryresidency[at]googlemail[dot]com or see the website. Deadline: October 31, 2010.

The International Retreat for Writers at Hawthornden Castle offers residencies of four weeks for five published creative writers (novelists, poets, playwrights) at a time. Residencies, which include room and board, are scheduled in spring, summer, and fall. Write for further information and application: International Retreat for Writers at Hawthornden Castle, Lasswade, Midlothian EH18 1EG, Scotland. Application deadline to be announced.

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Let us know if you get accepted.

Some rights reserved by EJP Photo.

My urge to seek refuge from the blazing heat has me thinking, oddly enough, of winter, and those sufficiently blustery days when elementary school teachers declare “indoor recess.” No matter how vicious the conditions outside, those two words always sounded something like a prison sentence (No four square tournaments?! No endless games of No Touching Gravel?! No Truth or Dare behind the twisty slide?!). But now—let’s blame it on my inner goody-two-shoes, drawn out, no doubt, by the school supplies that are slowly edging out flipflops in the supermarket aisles—I’m beginning to think my teachers had it right: there are some days, in every season, that are best spent indoors.

Lucky for me, there are plenty of great coffee shops around town where I can hide out with a good book (or two: I’m currently working Doug Dorst’s The Surf Guru and Bonnie Jo Campbell’s American Salvage). Sipping hot coffee in the cool of my own personal indoor recess, I can rev up for the last few weeks of summer without breaking a sweat (although I probably won’t be wearing a scarf . . . yet).

Here’s what some of my fellow indoor readers were spotted taking in recently:

King Kong Theory, Virginie Despentes

The Ticking Is the Bomb, Nick Flynn

Until I Find You, John Irving

The Silmarillion, J. R. R. Tolkien

The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Foundation, Isaac Asimov

The Secret History, Donna Tartt

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson

Bee Season, Myla Goldberg

Music has never let me down so maybe it’s the heat that has me talking silly. But this August and September, I say we throw the book at Lollapalooza 2010, Ozzfest UK, and Hungary’s Sziget Festival.

I say let’s thrash, head-bob, and chillax to those headlining bands on our trusty iPods while we spend our economy-squashed, ice cream-truck-driving summer job money on something novel. Like, say, hitting one of the world’s most amazing writing festivals.

There’s the Library of Congress National Book Festival, for example.

When? Saturday 25, September 2010

Where? on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., between 3rd and 7th

Cool come-on: Hear and hobnob with more than 70 headlining writers, including Isabel Allende, Brad Meltzer, Katherine Paterson, [Texas Book Festival 2009 Literary Death Match judge] Jane Smiley, Scott Turow, David Remnick and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk. Plus, it’s free and open to the public.

More info: http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/

Not far enough out for you? Try the Brooklyn Book Festival.

When: Sunday, 12 September 2010 – with special events on September 10, 11, and 12

Where: Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon St., Brooklyn

What the Brooklyn Book Festival has to offer:  With nearly 100 emerging and already emerged sparkling and devastating authors BBF is a huge, premiere, free public event for book lovers.

Cool come-on: Themed readings

More info: http://www.brooklynbookfestival.org/BrooklynBookFestival/festival.html

Still not far out enough for you? How about . . .

The Edinburgh International Book Festival

When? Saturday, August 14, through Monday, August 30

Where? Charlotte Square Gardens, Edinburgh, Scotland

What the Edinburgh International Book Festival has to offer: Edinburgh, UNESCO City of Literature, itself isn’t enough? How about 17 days, 750 events, 800 authors, over 40 different countries represented?

Cool come-on: It coincides with the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as well as the other festivals which comprise the Edinburgh Festival.

Another cool come-on: As the press release goes, “We are the largest public celebration of books in the world.”

More info: http://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival

I’d stage-dive to all that. You?

Buried treasure. Tar and feathering. Small yellow oblong stones that emit light and visions. Fiery revivals. The violent face-off of a father and his daughter’s suitor. . .  and all of that in our first story. You could say our Summer 2010 issue is action-packed.

As is American Short Fiction’s Indian Summer Party, coming soon to the Mohawk. Come party with us—your faithful local literary magazine.

Danny Malone, local folk rocker and SXSW favorite, will play a set to kick off the evening. Tomás Morin will dazzle you with his nationally renowned poetic verse (check out his recent interview with KUT here). Austin actors Elizabeth Bigger and Chris Gibson will knock the August lethargy right out of you with readings from the new issue. You’ll have drinks. (Hello, happy hour specials!) You’ll pose for photos. You’ll experience the most creative Thursday night this summer. And you’ll support emerging authors and artists. Why wouldn’t you be there?

American Short Fiction’s Indian Summer Party launches off the ground on the inside stage at the Mohawk at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, August 12. That’s 912 Red River.

You’re coming, aren’t you? Please let us know you’re in via our Facebook invite.

And you can pre-order your copy here.

I’m away from the bookstore this week.  I was so looking forward to a real break from eight hours on my feet dealing with people, but can I tell you a secret?  Boy, do I miss it.

That’s right.  I’m spending this relaxing Chicago vacation pining for my retail job.

It shouldn’t be a job that follows me home.  But I find it increasingly hard not to make book suggestions in everyday conversation.  Is this odd?   Someone tells me they’re feeling restless, they don’t like their job, or any other complaint and I’m already making a list of titles.

Recommending books is a diagnostic and, ultimately, prescriptive process a lot of the time.  You’re looking for something to read?  Tell me, what was the last book you read?  Ah.  And you found yourself bored by ho-hum Victorian historical fiction?  A hundred pages in and feeling lethargic?  Let me offer you something a little more epic.  Take David Mitchell’s new one with a side of Hilary Mantel and call me in the morning.  (Can I just say I love when people do that?  Follow-ups are the best.)

It isn’t always so simple to find a remedy, and the goal, obviously, is that the customer walks away with books.  This can go one of three ways:

1. They crave something brutally specific—“Hi, I need a cookbook to balance my dog’s Yin deficiency through diet”—to use a true-life example.  So I’ll pick a section (Pets?  Alternative Healing?  East/West Studies?) or track down an expert (Katie).  Bookstores are crawling with people who know everything about the things you’ve never heard of.

2. They want something broad, vague, generic—“I just want a page turner!”  “Give me a beach read!”  People really say these things!  Then it’s the ethically awkward let-me-steer-you-to-this-book-I-haven’t-read-but-that-everyone-so-highly-and-unanimously-adores game.   It’s a mainstream, cross-genre scavenger hunt (which quickly descends into who can read the back of the book faster), or it’s a handy go-to.  In 2010, that means hello, Stieg Larsson!

3. And then, of course, there is the rare and magical match.  They tell me they love what I love, read what I read, where to next?  It’s practically cinematic. These are the most fun—I feel like the Biblioracle over at The Morning News—but they’re the hardest for me as a bookseller.  Cause see, someone tells me they love experimental fiction, they wish Borges had written a novel, and what I want to do is lend them my copy of Cortázar’s Hopscotch. I have actually done this.  Insisted, “No, don’t buy it.  Just come in tomorrow and you can borrow mine.”  Or we don’t have, say, the particular Dostoevsky translation I’m telling you to buy, but I have it at home.  It’s a little underlined but come on, you can ignore that.  Ordering it would take a week!  This is much much more dire.

It’s a hard job to be away from.  So I quieted my nerves with a little pilgrimage to one of my all-time favorite places, Bookman’s Alley in Evanston.  Said hello to Roger Carlson and the freaky (read: real) stuffed wildcat head in Sports, ate a few gumdrops, swayed to what I’m convinced is an actual phonograph hidden somewhere in the stacks, and tried to decide if that snappy inscription in Graham Greene’s The Living Room was really written and signed by Anaïs Nin and therefore worth the $65 price tag.  Too risky, in the end.

There are few words we writers like to hear more than “Your submission has won!”  Though “Free” is a quick second, followed quickly by “A clean well-lighted space.” Put them all together and one hella time could be earned at the following residencies—but don’t wait to apply. September will be here before you can say I shoulda—

Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts

Your $25 application fee could net you two to eight weeks of free housing, studio space, and a $100 weekly stipend.

Application Deadline: September 1, 2010 [for]  two to eight weeks between from January 1 to June 15, 2011

The DL: Residencies of two to eight weeks go from January 1 to June 15 to poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers. Residents are provided with housing, studio space, and a $100 weekly stipend. Submit up to ten poems totaling no more than 30 pages, two stories or novel chapters totaling no more than 7,500 words, or two essays or chapters of a work of creative nonfiction totaling no more than 7,500 words, a writer’s statement, a project proposal, and a resumé with a $25 application fee.

**Emerging Artists News Flash**

The Kimmel Harding Nelson program gives special support to emerging artists by reserving a number of “transitional” residencies for recent masters degree graduates. The application process is the same for all applicants; however, applications from artists in transition following graduation from an accredited degree program are reviewed as a separate peer group.

More: Call ((402) 874-9600), email (pfriedli@khncenterforthearts.org), or check www.khncenterforthearts.org for an application and complete guidelines.

Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, 801 Third Corso, Nebraska City, NE 68410. (402) 874-9600. Pat Friedli, Assistant Director.

MacDowell Colony

Your $30 application fee could net you room and board for two to eight months.

Application Deadline: September 15, 2010 [for] two months from February to May 2011 (Financial Aid Deadline: September 15, 2010)

Location: Peterborough, New Hampshire

The DL: Residencies of up to two months from February through May go to poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers year-round on a 450-acre estate near Mt. Monadnock in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Writers are provided with room and board. For residencies in 2011, submit 6 to 10 poems or up to 25 pages of fiction or creative nonfiction and a description of a proposed project with a $30 application fee by September 15. Applications are accepted only via the online submission system. Travel aid and personal expense grants are available based on need.

More: Call ((603) 924-3886), e-mail (admissions@macdowellcolony.org), or visit www.macdowellcolony.org for an application and complete guidelines.

MacDowell Colony, 100 High Street, Peterborough, NH 03458.

New York Mills Regional Cultural Center

No application fee.

Stipend awarded: no cash, but living and studio space for two to four weeks from January to June

Application Deadline: October 1, 2010 [from] January – June, 2011

Location: New York Mills, Minnesota

The DL: Residencies of two to four weeks from January through June go to poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers in New York Mills, Minnesota. Writers are provided with living and studio space. For residencies in 2011, submit five copies of up to 12 pages of poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction, a resumé, a project description, a brief biography, and two letters of recommendation by October 1. There is no application fee. E-mail or visit the Web site for an application and complete guidelines.

More: Call ((218) 385-3339), email (nymills@kulcher.org), see www.kulcher.org for more info.

Find the Center on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-York-Mills-MN/New-York-Mills-Regional-Cultural-Center/95411244316?ref=ts

New York Mills Regional Cultural Center, 24 North Main Avenue, P.O. Box 246, New York Mills, MN 56567. Heather Cassidy, Retreat Coordinator.

I’m flying to Seattle tomorrow for a friend’s wedding. I’ve got my dress picked out and my quart-sized Ziploc stocked. Selecting reading material for a long flight, though, always poses something more of a challenge. Bring something too difficult and you find yourself watching some bad in-flight movie starring Nicolas Cage; too short, and you spend the last leg of your journey perusing Sky Mall.

A couple of days ago, while searching for a book to bring with me on my trip, I picked up Emma Straub’s charming (and appropriately titled) Fly-Over State—and ended up reading the entire thing.

The title story introduces us to Sophie, a New Yorker recently transplanted to suburban Wisconsin where her husband has accepted a teaching job. Sophie is a quiet, slightly off-kilter narrator who observes with curiosity and humor the predictable kinetics of her new neighbors’ daily routines. Surrounded by strangers and boxes, Sophie contemplates who she will be in this new life and how (literally) she’ll fill its empty spaces. Straub is spare and spacious in her telling of a story that, to me, is about the sense of possibility that transience—being in transit—engenders, however temporarily.

An excerpt from “Fly-Over State”:

We could have gone anywhere, that’s what we’d decided. Tucson. Miami. Detroit. Each time James presented me with a city, I’d walk to the bookstore on Seventh Avenue and sit down in the travel section. I’d find us a neighborhood, a coffee shop to frequent. I knew where we’d go for fun, to people-watch. There were the restaurants our parents would take us to when they came to visit; first mine, then his. There was the park I could take walks in, and the places we could meet for lunch during the day. The suits would take us there. I never imagined we’d actually leave New York.

“Fly-Over State” has me thinking about the places planes take us—new cities, new jobs, new lives. And about the places they don’t. The fly-over places, appearing first as pinpricks of light as we approach them from above, and growing into the discernible landmarks of any number of hypothetical lives: traffic patterns, cul-de-sacs, swimming pools, before receding again, far, far below.

At just 77 pages, this slim, two-story volume won’t weigh down a carry-on. But it’s also just too easy to devour in one gulp, so be careful or you might finish it before you even board the plane.

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This post is part of a series exploring the relationship between place and fiction. Got a favorite story about being on the move? Let us know.