While Kyle has recently been seeing tons of success on the writing front, this time around, once again, I have to send him thanks for making sure that any time I see the name Holly Goddard Jones in a table of contents that I make damn sure to flip to the page her story begins on.
Two years ago and maybe another month or two, Kyle sends me an email asking if I'm still looking for any new work for the 2004 Holiday Gift Email, because he's just sat through a workshop of what he feels is a story ready to be read by the masses. It was Holly's Good Girl. The story eventually was published last summer by The Southern Review, and then found it's way to a listing of the near misses for this year's Pushcart Prize Anthology.
Anyway, the reason for remembering to thank Kyle once again? Picking up the new issue of the Kenyon Review (not quite up online yet) and seeing Holly has a story, Life Expectancy, in it. As I was in a Borders, and have a subscription to said fine journal, I did not buy it. I instead utilized one of their nice, comfortable chairs and settled down for a great 15-20 minute read. It's another story by Holly with season ending anthology potential. Plus she manages to use the word "scuzzy" in a seamless fashion - bonus points in my book.
There's also mention at the end of the work that Holly has been interviewed by Nancy Zafris for the KR website, but it's not up and running yet. So keep checking, I'm sure it will be worthwhile.
And a couple of years from now, while enjoying her debut story collection, or perhaps her (what I'm sure will be) excellent novel, you can let people know you first read Holly Goddard Jones not in one of the fantastic literary journals that she's been published in, but in a silly little email gift from the EWN. Then you can visit Kyle Minor's MySpace page and thank him personally yourself.
Good Girl is the story that made me a Holly Goddard Jones fan, too! She is a marvelously talented writer. I'll be looking for the new issue of Kenyon Review.
Posted by: Jim Tomlinson | December 07, 2006 at 03:26 PM
Nancy's interview with Holly, along with Holly's latest story, are now up on the KR site: http://www.kenyonreview.org/interviews/current.php
Enjoy!
Posted by: meg | December 20, 2006 at 09:21 AM