May 2007 - Short Story Month

As at least a few others appear to be ready to go along with this idea, May 2007 is going to be the first official Short Story Month at the EWN Blog.  The fact that Reading the World will be delayed until June this year, only helped to cement this fact, so, much appreciation to Chad, Karl and the folks over there.

Each day is going to see a minimum of two short stories looked at.  There will be a short story from a collection that I own - many have found their way through my mailbox over the past few years that I just have not found the time to get to, looking at them as collections of stories.  So, now I'll look at them as holders of a single story to read in May 2007. 

There will also be a story from a literary journal each day.  These may be hard copy journals.  They may be online journals.  Some of the work might be flash fiction.  Many will not.

Some books have already been set aside to have a story from within discussed for sure:

Women with Dark Horses by Aimee Parkison (Starcherone)
Animal Crackers by Hannah Tinti (Dial Press)
The Good Life by Erin McGraw (Mariner Books)
Ordinary Genius by Thomas Fox Averill (University of Nebraska Press)
Cookie Lily by Mary Troy (Southern Methodist University Press)
Super Flat Times by Matthew Derby (Back Bay Books)
Transparency by Frances Hwang (Back Bay Books)
Stories in Another Language by Yannick Murphy (Knopf)
Bleed Into Me by Stephen Graham Jones (University of Nebraska Press)
The Last Communist Virgin by Wang Ping (Coffee House Press)
Giraffes by Steven Gillis (Atomic Quill Press)
Stories for Airports by judy b. (Onze/11)
Thoreau’s Laundry by Ann Harleman (Southern Methodist University Press)
A History of Things Lost or Broken by Philip Cioffari (Livingston Press)
The Family Diamond by Edward Schwarzschild (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill)
Russian Lover by Jana Martin (YETI/Verse Chorus Press)
The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God by Etgar Keret (Toby Press)
The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue by Manuel Munoz (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill)
Interfictions:  An Anthology of Interstitial Writing (IAF)

Now, before those of you who have noted that out of the first 18 titles listed above, that 10 of them, or, a shocking 55.56%, are written by females, and begin crying sexism, please, do not get all hot and bothered - there are still 12 more titles to be selected, not to mention all of those choices from the literary journals.  I'm sure by the 31st I'll have it balanced more so that the poor men have things evened up.

Comments

[Cliff Garstang]

Dan, I've been assembling the collections I'll be choosing from and so far there is NO overlap with your choices list above. I'll do a post later today with a list . . .

[aaron]

Derby's "The Sound Gun" from Super Flat Times is probably one of my fave stories of the last I-don't-know-how-many years. Often one of the first stories I think of when trying to remember specific stories from recent memory.

Of the more recent collections I've read, Stacey Richter's new Twin Studies is pretty amazing. And I just recently (finally!) picked up Lipsyte's Venus Drive which, also: amazing.