Short Story Month 2010: The Collection Giveaway Project

UPDATE, 5/31: Congratulations to commenters #24 (John Vanderslice) and #2 (Cara Holman), who, with some help from Random.org, have triumphed and emerged as winners of our short story collection giveaway project offerings. John and Cara, please e-mail me and let me know which book you prefer (first e-mailer gets first choice). Please include your mailing address–I will order the books and have them shipped to you asap. And thanks to everyone for participating!

Remember last month, when I stumbled on the National Poetry Month Poetry Book Giveaway? Well, all of the wonderful energy and ideas behind that project made me think that a similar enterprise should be undertaken for May, which has lately become something of an unofficial Short Story Month (as Poets & Writers recently noted, crediting organizations such as the Emerging Writers Network for the development).

Because I have such huge respect for the work of Anne Stameshkin and the entire team over at Fiction Writers Review (FWR), I contacted Anne to see if FWR might want to take on the considerable work involved with hosting a multi-blog “Short Story Collection Giveaway” this month. Fortunately, Anne agreed, and FWR is the hub for the project, and that’s where you’ll be able to check the full list of participating bloggers (improve your chances for winning by entering multiple giveaways, and get to know some bloggers who love short story collections in the process!).

Now, following the rules that FWR has come up with, I am happy to recommend to you two story collections. On May 31, I’ll announce the names of two winners selected at random from the comments section for this post. And then I’ll purchase two books and mail one to each lucky winner.

To participate in Practicing Writing’s portion of Short Story Month 2010: The Giveaway Project, I’m asking you to add a comment here, telling us about (or at least the name of) a collection you love or one you’re looking forward to reading. Comments that don’t mention a specific collection will not be eligible for the giveaway. Comments should be submitted no later than noon (U.S. Eastern) on Monday, May 31 (Memorial Day here in the U.S.), and I’ll have the winners’ names posted before midnight.

And now (drum roll, please)…I am delighted to announce the two story collections that this practicing writer will be purchasing and sending to two lucky winners:

First, we have Who I Was Supposed to Be (published in 1999 by Simon & Schuster), written by Susan Perabo. One of the bright lights that sustained me through my MFA program was my friendship with Susan Perabo, a gifted teacher (her “large group” workshops and craft seminars were among my very favorites) and equally gifted writer. I read Susan’s debut collection, Who I Was Supposed to Be, very soon after meeting the author at my first residency in May 2001. And then I reread it, bought it for friends’ birthdays, etc. I even mentioned it right here on the blog three years ago. And now I’ll buy a copy for one of you.

Meantime, in preparing this post, I discovered a terrific interview with Susan that I hope you’ll all take a few moments to listen to. If you’re very time-pressed, skip ahead and read through some of the praise that the book received from The Los Angeles Times and The Baltimore Sun. Who I Was Supposed to Be was named a “Book of the Year” by the Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, and The St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Moving on to the second book I’ll be delighted to purchase and send to a lucky winner, allow me to present The Pale of Settlement (published in 2007 by the University of Georgia Press), written by Margot Singer. This is another book I have mentioned here before. (I’ve also written about it for Kenyon Review Online.) Winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction, and the Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers, The Pale of Settlement is also another book that I’ve been unable to stop recommending to others.

But don’t just take my word for it. Read excerpts from one of the stories on the National Endowment for the Arts website. Check out interviews with Margot Singer in The Southeast Review Online, Reform Judaism magazine, and the old Nextbook (now Tablet) site. And listen to Alan Cheuse discuss the collection for NPR.

Want to win one of these books? Remember, to be eligible, you need to submit a comment to this post, telling us about (or at least the name of) a short story collection you love or one you’re looking forward to reading. Comments that don’t mention a specific collection will not be eligible for the giveaway. If your comment doesn’t link to your personal site, please leave your e-mail address for me to use if I need to contact you about your prize. I look forward to reading all of your recommendations, and I thank you for participating in any way you are able: commenting, joining the giveaway project as a participating blogger, or even simply spreading the word.

Friday Find: Dispatch from Iowa City, A Guest Post by Ronald H. Lands, M.D., M.F.A.

Ron Lands has to be one of the most impressive (and modest) people I met in my M.F.A. program. So when I learned that Ron – who earned an M.D. well before he tackled the M.F.A. – was attending a two-day event on “The Examined Life: Writing and the Art of Medicine” at the University of Iowa’s Carver College at April’s end, I was eager to request a guest post. Ever generous, Ron agreed. Here’s his dispatch from the conference (you can learn more about this event, and check out the online archive, here).

“The Examined Life: Writing and the Art of Medicine”
University of Iowa, Carver College of Medicine
April 28-April 30, 2010

by Ron Lands

Medicine and literature often share the same topics; life and death, suffering and loss and everything in between. As they have every year since 2006, medical students, physicians, nurses, patients, and caregivers convened in a city known for its great writers, to collaborate regarding the power of writing in making sense of these grand themes and to demonstrate that the practice of medicine is an interpretive work.

A cardiologist put a human face on illness by blending his profession with his hobbies, interpreting the patient’s heart pathology by ultrasound then photographing the person in their home and writing poetry about the experience. An English professor wrote a play based on her personal experience with cancer and an actor interpreted and performed this dramatic work. Academicians shared tools and techniques to empower other educators to exploit the power of writing to cause reflection and nurture empathy in their students. Researchers presented data hoping to identify a physiologic link between writing and stress reduction in caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients. A literary scholar turned physician offered a powerful examination of metaphor in the language of pain. A leukemia patient and her hematologist shared their five-year journey from diagnosis to a durable and sustained remission, using essay, memoir and colored pencil sketches drawn during the trauma of her bone marrow transplant.

Flannery O’Connor, one of many great writers associated with Iowa City through the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, said, “I write to find out what I know.” “The Examined Life: Writing and the Art of Medicine,” further demonstrates the clarifying effect that reading, writing and reflection can bring to the chaos of illness for those who suffer and those who witness the suffering.

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Ronald H. Lands teaches in the Department of Medicine at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville campus, where he practices and teaches Internal Medicine, Hematology and Palliative Care. His fiction has appeared in New Millennium Writings, descant, Washington Square, and many others. He has published essays from the intersection of writing and medicine in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of the American Geriatric Society, and the Journal of Palliative Medicine. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Thursday’s Pre-Publication Post, or What I Have in Common with the Real Housewives of New Jersey

Time for a shift in these pre-publication posts. Up to this point, we’ve been spending a lot of time on things like subject matter, permissions, and author websites. Serious stuff.

Readers, it’s time to talk about eyebrows. Mine, specifically.

Earlier this week, I went for my very first “brow sculpting.” What does this have to do with my book? Well, the publication of my short story collection, Quiet Americans, is an occasion for a proper author photo.

And that photo will be taken on Saturday.

Even my mom – who is so d.i.y. she not only colors her own hair but cuts it, too (I love you, Mom!) – thought that a visit to the “brow sculptor” my sister has visited from time to time was in order. So after work on Tuesday I hopped on the subway and trekked downtown for the “procedure.” It wasn’t quite as painful as I’d feared, and I was very interested to learn that the sculptor is also a practicing writer (and sculptor to the Real Housewives of New Jersey!).

The bigger issue, of course, is that I’ve never been particularly comfortable having my photo taken, and I have to say that this entire part of the pre-publication process is something I’ll be relieved to have finished. Any of you have tips to share on how you survived your first author photo shoot?

Persistence and Purpose: An Interview with Charles Conley

PERSISTENCE AND PURPOSE: AN INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES CONLEY

By Erika Dreifus

One July day back in 2004, I arrived at the Prague Airport to begin two weeks participating in Western Michigan University’s Prague Summer Program (PSP). Among the first people I met as the PSP contingent gathered to board a bus to the city was Charles (“Charlie”) Conley. It turned out that Charlie and I had been assigned to the same fiction workshop. Back then, Charlie was an MFA student in the program at the University of Minnesota. I’ve followed his progress post-Prague, and since there has been so much to follow – including multiple fellowship and residency awards – I asked Charlie if he’d be willing to be interviewed for the newsletter.

Charles Conley, born and raised on Long Island, is currently a fellow with Teachers & Writers Collaborative in New York and was a 2008-2009 fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Southern Review, The Harvard Review, and Canadian Notes and Queries. He is the recipient of an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant in 2010 and a SASE/Jerome Grant for Emerging Writers in 2007. In May, he will be attending the Sozopol Fiction Seminars in Bulgaria.

Please welcome Charlie Conley.

ERIKA DREIFUS (ED): Charlie, please tell us what a typical day is like for you as a Teachers & Writers Collaborative Fellow.

CHARLIE CONLEY (CC): I do most of my best work when I have a well-established routine, and I’ve been lucky recently to have fellowships that allow me to do that. The day I’m going to describe to you is representative of probably 80 to 90 percent of my days at Teachers & Writers. I get into the office between 7:30 and 8:30 (how close that is to 7:30 is almost a direct correlation to how my writing is going-the better, the earlier) and drink tea or coffee while I go through my emails and read the Times online. Once my brain is awake, I start writing-for almost all of this fellowship period I’ve been revising short stories, though I participated with a couple of friends in National Novel-Writing Month in November (I was getting to the office really early that month). I write until about 11:00 and switch over to my fellowship responsibilities.

Teachers & Writers Collaborative is a teaching-artist organization that’s been around since 1967. We also publish Teachers & Writers magazine and books about teaching creative writing and literature. My work here has involved researching and writing grant proposals to fund next year’s fellowship; working on the “resources” section of our website, primarily the lesson plans; writing for the magazine; observing teaching artists in the classroom; and co-curating (with Carla Ching, this year’s other fellow) the 2020 Visions Reading Series. Additionally, I just started co-teaching with David Stoler, an experienced teaching artist, which is just a great experience (as well as being great experience for future work in the schools I might do), and I’ve had the opportunity to sit in on the planning meetings T&W has been conducting this year in response to the changing Department of Education and funding environments.

ED: For contrast (I suspect!), please tell us about a typical workday at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass., where you were a fellow in 2008-09.

CC: Actually, the contrast is not as stark as you’d expect. At Provincetown, I was waking up probably between 8:30 and 9:30, drinking coffee while I read emails and the Times. I’d start and finish my writing later, and the writing day was probably longer in Provincetown (though I suspect I’m just as productive now, despite-or maybe even because of-my fellowship responsibilities). By lunch on most days I’m done with my writing, and if I haven’t started by about noon I’m not going to write that day. I’ve tried, but something essential about the way my mind works just seems to change in the afternoon and anything but the most basic editing makes me feel like I’m working in an unfamiliar language (and not in a good way).

I’ve never been the kind of writer who can work for eight hours in a row. I try to make up for that with diligence, which is pretty unromantic, and I don’t think what anyone pictures when they imagine “the writing life.” It certainly wasn’t what I imagined.

ED: What changes have you noticed in your writing (and/or writing habits) since you began your journey through residencies and fellowships?

CC: That journey began shortly after I got my MFA from the University of Minnesota in 2006. If I remember correctly, I taught that first semester after graduate school. In what would have been the spring semester, I had two residencies-two months at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center in Nebraska (which I believe you’ve also been to) and a month at Can Serrat, near Barcelona, Spain-and I’ve been alternating semesters of teaching, periods of travel and residencies, and fellowships ever since (which I see as three distinct phases).

Even when I’m teaching, it’s not a full course-load, so whatever phase I’m in, I tend to have long days with a lot of space in them. In this situation, writing is what grounds me. Getting that day’s writing done earns me the rest of the day for myself (teaching a class only earns me money). In grad school-and before grad school, when I had a career-writing was something I squeezed into the free time I found. Now, the day is built around it.

ED: What advice do you have for writers who may just be starting to approach fellowships and residencies?

CC: To find out about these things, Poets & Writers is a great resource, as is The Practicing Writer e-newsletter, where I found out about a couple of things I eventually got. Being friends with other writers and sharing information with them is also helpful (a recent grant and my current fellowship were both word-of-mouth discoveries). Deadlines come year-round, so it’s important to keep track of everything in one place-I have a single spreadsheet where I keep track of everything, especially when I’ve applied in the past and what stories I’ve sent (so I don’t resend work they didn’t respond to the first time).

I rarely get something the first time I try, so in my case diligence has paid off. The Fine Arts Work Center fellowship came on the third try. The first year I was a finalist, but the second year I wasn’t even a finalist, which was disheartening. Actually, I half-jokingly consider all the applications and story submissions I do as opportunities to practice being rejected. It’s one of the essential facts of the writing life-at least mine-and I’m getting better at accepting it.

When I get to a new residency, the first thing I do is figure out what my writing routine will look like in this new place. Where will I actually write? What desk or table is the most comfortable, has the best lighting, has the fewest distractions? How will I get breakfast? Is it provided? If so, at what times? Is Internet available? If not, how will I replace that waking-up part of the routine? (Usually by reading a book about writing before I start writing.) The answering of these basic questions tells me how my routine will go.

Then I try to be friendly. Residencies are a great opportunity to meet artists working in different disciplines from all over the country and the world. There’s a real chance to meet people I’d never get to meet otherwise, and I try not to waste it.

ED: Besides your upcoming reading in New York City (on Monday, May 10), is there any other news you’d like to share?

CC: Thanks for mentioning the reading, which is something I’m really looking forward to. [Co-reader] Steven Polansky was a professor of mine at the University of Minnesota, and he taught a class called “English Prose Style” that profoundly affected the way I think about my writing. The reading is a celebration of his newest book, a novel called The Bradbury Report. I just found out I will be one of ten fiction writers attending the Sozopol Fiction Seminar in Bulgaria at the end of May. I’ve been applying since the first time the seminar was offered, three years ago, and was a semi-finalist both times. So once again, persistence proves my greatest virtue.

At the end of June, I have a two-week residency up in Pocantico [site of the Rockefeller family estate] as a part of my T&W Fellowship. The Rockefeller Brothers funded this year’s fellowship, and this is an additional benefit they’ve generously offered. Then in early August I’ll be heading to South America to (re-)learn Spanish, travel, write, and research, particularly a story set in La Paz, Bolivia. The Elizabeth George Foundation was kind enough to provide the funds for me to stay through the end of the year.

In all this, it’s sometimes easy to mix up the ends with the means. I pursue these opportunities because they fuel my writing (with time and ideas and interactions with new people), not the other way around. I just finished a story I’m very excited about and feel pretty near the finish line on another. Making each story as good as I can and then doing my best to find readers for it is why I do all the rest.

ED: Wise words to end with, Charlie. Thank you so much, and safe travels to you!

A version of this interview was published in The Practicing Writer.

Quotation of the Week: Chang-rae Lee

“‘Sometimes students seem shy about writing about people who do the wrong thing — we’re all taught to do the right thing and focus on the right thing,’ [Chang-rae] Lee said. ‘But all of literature is about people who do the wrong thing, despite themselves. What would the story be if they did the right thing? No story at all. Fiction wants to look at all the things that go wrong.'”

Source: “Acclaimed Novelist Lee Shares Meticulous Writing Approach in Classroom” (via The Book Bench)