This month Erika Dreifus (author, blogger, and editor of Fiction Writers Review) is coordinating a short story collection giveaway in honor of Short Story Month. I’m participating by reviewing and giving away a copy of Other People We Married
I recommend Other People we Married for individual readers, book groups, and writing workshops. Straub’s stories are about frustrating relationships, enduring relationships, and unrequited love. Most, but not all, are about the impact that vacations and enforced recreation has on relationships.
Here’s a sentence of funny, subtle characterization: “On Saturdays, James made pancakes and I would do interpretative dance, miming the cracking of the eggs, the stirring of the batter.”
As if this book weren’t awesome enough between the covers (its own book covers, that is), Straub earned the funniest blurb I’ve ever seen: “The smarts and humor of a Lorrie Moore or a Laurie Colwin or a Laurie Anderson—any number of Lauries.” Kevin Brockmeier‘s blurb is even funnier since Straub’s first name is Emma. Other People we Married is published by a small press called Five Chapters. Theirs is a great website to visit during Short Story Month, because they post a short story in five parts every week.
If you’re interested in entering more of this month’s short story collection giveaways, check out the Fiction Writers Review list of participating blog links.
[Thank you, Leslie Pietrzyk, for letting me know about the Short Story Month project.]
My favorite short story collection is Vida by Patricia Engel. Each story revolves around Sabina and her growing pains throughout her teenage and young adult life – first love, lost love, family issues, death. Engel writes each story so it has its own voice and sounds fresh.
Curently, my favorite collection is ‘If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This,’ by Robin Black. Each story sounds its own unique note. The characters all stayed with me for days and weeks after reading them.
It’s hard to pick a favorite short story collection–there are just too many to choose from (where do I start? Carver? O’Connor? Munro?). Let me play it safe and say that my favorite collection THIS year (so far) has been “Volt” by Alan Heathcock. Each story is letter-perfect and fills the reader with both despair and hope–an intoxicating collision of emotion.
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I too find it impossible to name a favorite story or collection, but among my recent favorites are Quiet Americans by Erika Dreifus, Strange Weather by Becky Hagenston, and The Bigness of the World by Lori Ostlund (and I’m giving away a copy of each for Short Story Month! http://tinyurl.com/3f2m4jp).
Thanks for celebrating and promoting stories — Happy Short Story Month!
Like others, I find it hard to narrow down to just one book of short stories (love all of Alice Munro in particular) but at the moment, my fav is Nik Perring’s Not So Perfect, a copy of which I am giving away here :
http://writeitdownith.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/instant-karmas-gonna-get-you/
There are too many short story collections to pick just one. I have always liked anthologies (a literary buffet). One that comes to mind is “You’ve Got to Read This” edited by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard in which contemporary authors pick the stories that “held them in awe.”