Somebody from our home state of Michigan! Stephanie Carpenter’s Missing Persons was received the Press 53 Short Fiction Award. Here she answers some questions for us.
EWN: Your short story collection, Missing Persons 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?
SC: “Inheritance” was my first published piece, in The Saint Ann’s Review in 2005. That was during the era of paper submissions. After waiting quite a while for a response, I queried the journal and was told they’d never received the piece. Six months later, they accepted the story—without my resubmitting it. As it happened, I was traveling when the editor requested an electronic copy; back then, being away from home meant that I didn’t have access to my files. A staff member scanned my paper submission and I don’t think anyone proof-read the resulting .pdf. “Inheritance” appeared in the journal with many, many extra spaces between paragraphs and with wingdings and dingbats scattered throughout.
EWN: How did the publication of this particular collection come about? Were you solicited by the publisher, win a contest, agent submission, etc.?
SC: I submitted my manuscript to the 2017 Press 53 Award in Short Fiction and it was selected as the winner.
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 …?
SC: I tend to write short stories in response to particular provocations: news items, pop culture phenomena, dreams, rumors. Usually my short stories start with my stealing some core aspect of character or plot from such a source. As I draft I figure out what the piece is really about, thematically. This is somewhat different from my process of writing longer works. I see myself primarily as a novelist/novellaist: my long-form projects so far have been historical in setting, driven by research. I don’t usually begin writing in that mode until I’ve done a lot of reading, note-taking, and planning. In contrast to these longer works, my short stories come about more spontaneously.
EWN: Where do short stories fit within your life as a reader?
SC: I teach short stories in my creative writing and literature classes. During the school year, I prepare notes on at least three published short stories a week, along with a varying number of student pieces. In my writing workshops, I use the Journal of the Month program as a course text; through that genius program, we receive copies of four different literary journals over the semester. I love this because we’re always reading new work, not just my favorite or most teachable stories. Outside of the classroom, I read more novels than short stories—but more short stories when I’m working in that mode, myself.
EWN: How will you be celebrating National Short Story Month this May?
SC: I teach full-time at a university. All semester I’ve been thinking about but not working on an idea for a story. After my final grades are submitted on May 8th, I’ll turn to that idea as a means of getting into a regular summer writing schedule. (Most of my summer is designated for an ongoing novella project). Last May I read a story a day for about a week—because someone was posting links on Facebook. Maybe I’ll do better this year.
EWN: Thank you very much for your time!
A native of Traverse City, Michigan, Stephanie Carpenter holds a BA from Williams College, an MFA from Syracuse University, and a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Missouri. Her first book, Missing Persons, won the 2017 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction and was released in Fall 2017. Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, Witness, Nimrod, Big Fiction, The Crab Orchard Review and elsewhere.
Stephanie’s current project, a pair of novellas about professional female artists in nineteenth-century New England, has received fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library. She currently teaches creative writing and literature at Michigan Tech University.
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