A copy of Ronna Wineberg's collection, Nine Facts that Can Change Your Life, arrived a couple of weeks back and after digging in to a couple of stories, it was hard to set back down for the time being. Reading these interview replies reminds me I need to get back to reading the rest of the collection.
EWN: Your short story collection, Nine Facts That Can Change Your Life, was published in 2016. What story within the collection had the earliest publication history outside of being in the collection, and what was that history?
Ronna: “A Question of Place” had the earliest publication history. It was one of the first stories I submitted. In 1992, I sent the story to ten literary journals and received mostly form rejections. But in June I received a note from an editor. He wrote: “We admire the ambition of this piece. We would read more.” I was grateful for the encouragement, and I continued to submit the story to journals. In 1993, an editor of a journal asked to see a revision. He made suggestions, including that I change the point of view to third person. I revised the story and sent it to him. He rejected the revision with a note, which was disappointing. I wasn’t happy with some of the changes I’d made to the story, though, so I switched the point of view back to first person, did other revisions, and submitted the piece to journals. The story was rejected; some rejections included notes from editors. In the fall of 1994, I stopped sending out the piece and put it in a drawer.
I continued to write and submit stories; many were published. In 2002, ten years after I’d first submitted “A Question of Place”, I decided to take another look at the story. I worked on it again and submitted the new revision to literary journals. RE:AL, A Journal of Liberal Arts published the story in 2003.
EWN: How did the publication of this particular collection come about? Were you solicited by the publisher, win a contest, agent submission, etc.?
Ronna: I didn’t have an agent, and there wasn’t a contest or request to see my work. I contacted Serving House Books on my own and asked if the press would look at the manuscript for Nine Facts That Can Change Your Life. A friend had encouraged me to send the collection to the press; they had published her story collection. I know the publisher and sent him an email query. He replied that Serving House Books would look at the manuscript, but the press was finishing other projects, and no one was available to read the manuscript right now. A few months later, he wrote that he would find an external reader for the collection; I should send the manuscript to him. I did. Six weeks later, he wrote that the press would publish the book.
EWN: Where do short stories fit within your life as an author? Primary form to work with, or something you write when an idea hits, or …?
Ronna: Short stories have been my primary form of work. My first book, Second Language (New Rivers Press, 2005), is a short story collection. I’ve written novels, too, and am the author of a published novel, On Bittersweet Place (Relegation Books, 2014). I always return to writing short stories, though. I love the precision of a story, the economy, the ability to capture a moment in time, and invent new characters and situations with each piece.
EWN: Where do short stories fit within your life as a reader?
Ronna: Short stories are a big part of my life as a reader. I also read poetry, novels, and essays, and enjoy reading a variety of work. I read stories published in literary journals, magazines, and collections. I read them for pleasure and also to figure out how an author writes a particular story, to study the language, characters, dialogue, and how a collection is structured. I read hundreds of stories, too, for the Bellevue Literary Review. I’m the senior fiction editor, and I edit many of the stories we publish.
EWN: How will you be celebrating National Short Story Month this May?
Ronna: I will celebrate by writing a story, revising an old one, and reading a collection by an author I’ve never read before. And by being grateful that the month of May honors the short story.
EWN: Thank you very much for your time!
Ronna: Thank you for honoring the short story and writers.
Ronna Wineberg is the author of Nine Facts That Can Change Your Life, a collection of short stories (Serving House Books, 2016); On Bittersweet Place, a novel (Relegation Books, 2014), winner of the 2016 Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book Competition; and a debut collection, Second Language (New Rivers Press 2005), which won the New Rivers Press Many Voices Project Literary Competition. Her stories have appeared in American Way, Confrontation, Colorado Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere, and been broadcast on National Public Radio. She has received a scholarship in fiction to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and residencies to the Ragdale Foundation and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been awarded a fellowship in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is the founding fiction editor of the Bellevue Literary Review. www.ronnawineberg.com
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