Anthony Varallo takes some time from writing and editing Crazyhorse to answer a few questions for us.
EWN: Your short story collection, Everyone Was There, was published in 2017. What story within the collection had the earliest publication history outside of being in the collection, and what was that history?
ANTHONY: The earliest story published in Everyone Was There, “Not Stuart,” is actually the first story I ever published. The story first appeared in Western Humanities Review way back in 1997, which seems like such a long time ago, but the truth is that I had never planned on publishing a collection of short-short stories; I just kept writing them throughout the years and eventually wrote enough of them that I had a book-length manuscript. And that process took, well, twenty years.
EWN: How did the publication of this particular collection come about? Were you solicited by the publisher, win a contest, agent submission, etc.?
ANTHONY: This is sort of a long story, but the gist of it is that I had originally placed the collection with another independent press, contracted with them, and began promoting the book with them, when the press unfortunately had to go on hiatus, and would not be able to publish my book after all. I then sent the collection to the Elixir Press Fiction Award contest and had the good fortune to win the prize, which included publication and a cash award.
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 …?
ANTHONY: I have been writing short stories for nearly 30 years now, and they will always be the form that means the most to me, that ideal form, in my opinion, where you get all the narrative drive you’d find in a novel, but with all the compression you’d find in poetry. What could be better than that?
EWN: Where do short stories fit within your life as a reader?
ANTHONY: Short stories are the absolute center of my reading life. I read them as a reader, as a writer, as a teacher, and as an editor. In my role as Fiction Editor of Crazyhorse alone, I read over 4,000 stories a year, and have done so for the past 13 years. I couldn’t imagine a time in my life when I’m not reading short fiction. I will admit that I keep a stack of short story collections on my nightstand, since I want the last thing I read before falling asleep to be a short story, nothing else—even if I’m reading a novel or memoir or nonfiction at the time.
EWN: How will you be celebrating National Short Story Month this May?
ANTHONY: Since I sort of celebrate the short story year-round, I will continue doing so as always. I need to get our Crazyhorse Prize in Fiction finalists to this year’s prize judge, Kelly Link, in early May, so that we can announce the winner by June 1 and celebrate bringing another excellent short story into the world.
EWN: Thank you very much for your time!
ANTHONY: Thanks, Dan.
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