In early July (on newstands July 12), we will reap the upside of the Atlantic's controversial decision to gather all its fiction into one annual issue. The fiction is being explicitly billed as "putting short-story readers center stage." Hopefully, then, the pieces will not be novel excepts in drag.
Here are the writers who will have "new tales" in the issue:
Joyce Carol Oates
Adam Haslett
Charles Baxter
Shira Nayman
Marc Jacobs
George Singleton
Maximilian Schlaks
Adam Haslett
Charles Baxter
Shira Nayman
Marc Jacobs
George Singleton
Maximilian Schlaks
Dearest Goats and Babies (and honorary Goats and Babies), if you'd like to call front seat on the Coetzee piece or one of these Atlantic ones and be the one to post analysis of it on this screen, shoot me an email (see my profile if you don't have it). First come, first serve. No way can I do all those. Plus I'll be gone July 8 - 15.
Maybe I'm deluding myself, but I feel that pounding out opinions on and reading responses to the scant short fiction that's still coming out in national publications is helping me retain a dim awareness of what makes fiction work or not and why. I certainly don't have time to be reading all the contemporary novels that I should be reading, and stories are helping to fill the gap. I hope some folks feel the same and want to help keep the effort rolling. (If you feel that the exercises are pointless or unhelpful, or if you're sick of being confronted with solicitations like this, let me know that, too.)
P.S. In the Atlantic issue there will also be an essay by Rick Moody on "what goes wrong in writing workshops" and one by the lovely and talented Curtis Sittenfeld on "the very satisfying perils of success."
7 comments:
There is a full-page ad in the current issue.
It's on page 139. It's not a tremendously appealing ad -- it took me two flips through the mag just to find it again. It doesn't show the cover, just a graphic of a guy reading a book on a park bench on a field of yellow with black and red text. It doesn't say much else besides ad copy.
Where are you living? Are you going to be in the magazine?
Well, it IS the Atlantic Monthly! They took so much flak for culling the monthly fiction that this issue will probably spark a lot of interest, I would think, even if only to see how it's going to work. Some big names in there, too. Plus summer reading -- it'll be in a lot of backbacks and briefcases for weks, I imagine. I for one will be reading it! Way to go, getting in, whoever you are, wherever you are.
How mysterious and intriguing! Thanks for posting here. I look forward to reading all those stories, though -- ahem -- I only two fellow Goats have stepped forward with offers to review. Maybe more will. Otherwise, it may be slower going than I planned. Take care.
Writer Type: This is a blog for the 2003 class of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. There is some blending with the 2004 class, whose official blog, that you;d also enjoy, is Babies Are Fireproof (babiesarefireproof.blogspot.com).
I can't speak for the Babies, which inspired me, but I started this one to sort of throw a lasso around the disapora of my class after graduation. Not all of us who graduated are part of the blog(s), but enough are that it's turned into a great way to stay in touch and keep talking about writing.
Some of us, like me, are still in Iowa City. The rest are scattered to the Four Winds. If you're ever in this neck of the woods, let me know (click my name to get my profile and email address) and I'll buy you a beer and show you the town.
btw, Check out the "Lit Blog" links in the right column for more. Ranch Road 12 is a U. Texas MFA blog, for example. And Ropes of Sand is the just-begun IWW class of 2005 blog.
Grendel - I'll do one or two of the stories: don't worry.
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