Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 16, Of Missing Persons by Jack Finney

Walk in as though it were an ordinary travel bureau, 
the stranger I’d met at a bar had told me. Ask a few
ordinary questions—about a trip you’re planning, a 
vacation, anything like that. Then hint about The Folder
a little, but whatever you do, don’t mention it directly; 
wait till he brings it up himself. And if he doesn’t, you 
might as well forget it. If you can.

Until today, each story selected in celebration of National Short Story Month has been published online, and as such, each post has linked to where that story exists on the vast web.  However, today's selection cannot be found online (outside of a copyright-infringed version), but it should be singled out, regardless.

She originally read "Of Missing Persons" in the anthology, Stories of Suspense.  It's a story well worth checking out--a sort of time-travel story that begins in a city, in an anonymous store. The story appears in his collection, About Time: 12 Short Stories.

From here







"Of Missing Persons"
by Jack Finney
(1955)





Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 15, Perhaps Ernest Hemingway

According to Snopes.com, it has not been determined whether or not the famous six-word story attributed to Ernest Hemingway was actually written by Hemingway.  Regardless of the story's author, that's today's selection for National Short Story Month:


For Sale: baby shoes, never worn





Photograph of woman alone in field flanked by forest
Used under CC license



Monday, May 14, 2012

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 14, Hands by Sherwood Anderson



Sherwood Anderson
It's a new week and the midpoint of celebrating National Short Story Month.  And so, today's selection is a story from the Midwest, and from one of the most remarkable short-story collections written or published in the United States.   



"The story of Wing Biddlebaum is a story of hands. Their restless activity, like unto the beating of the wings of an imprisoned bird, had given him his name. Some obscure poet of the town had thought of it. The hands alarmed their owner."


"Hands" by Sherwood Anderson
from his story collection Winesburg, Ohio (1919)

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 13, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates

"He wagged a finger and laughed and said,
 'Gonna get you, baby'" [. . .]" 


Perhaps the story for Day 13 should be 
Little Red Riding Hood in order to set 
the mood for what might have been 
tomorrow's story, but instead, here's 
what she would call a contemporary 
retelling of that folktale by Joyce Carol Oates, 
"Where Are You Going, Where Have you Been?"


In Video: Joyce Carol Oates talks about
"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
(2:02 runtime)




by Joyce Carol Oates
(1966)





(For those  Joyce Carol Oates fans interested in seeing some of Oates's original manuscript pages  for her other stories, please visit the virtual archive at University of San Francisco. Also, if you missed Oates's winning of the 1990 Rea award for short fiction, see the NYT article.)




Saturday, May 12, 2012

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 12, Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Faith kept me back a while," 
replied the young man, with a tremor in his voice, 
caused by the sudden appearance of his companion, 
although not wholly unexpected.




"Trees in the Fog" by Matthew Bietz,
Used under CC license

Yesterday's selection, "The Red Bow" by George Saunders, has always reminded me of one of my favorite stories.  And so to celebrate the twelfth day of National Short Story Month, please enjoy 

by Nathaniel Hawthorne 
(1835)  


Young Goodman Brown.  Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset, into the street of Salem village, but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exhange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap, while she called to Goodman Brown.



Continue Reading

Friday, May 11, 2012

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 11, The Red Bow by George Saunders

Used under CC license

"NEXT NIGHT, walking out where 
it happened, I found her little red bow.
I brought it in, threw it down on the 
table, said: My God my God."
Day 11
National
Short Story 
Month


Today's selection, by George Saunders, was originally published in Esquire, later anthologized in Not Normal, Illinois, a nominee for the Bram Stoker award, and winner of a National Magazine Award.  The story appears in Saunders's story collection, In Persuasion Nation.

But the story is more interesting than all that.






by George Saunders
(2009)


Thursday, May 10, 2012

Short-Story Month 2012: Day 10, Mirrors by Carol Shields

Today's story selection
comes from a writer whose
line and work always
has a quiet patience to its
tone and content.  One of
the master writers of the
20th century who is most
known for her novels such
as the Pulitzer-Prize winning
Stone Diaries, Carol Shields.




"Untitled" by Daniel Oines,
Used under CC license






"From June to August they choose to forget who they are, or at least what they look like, electing an annual season of non-reflectiveness in the same way other people put away their clocks for the summer or their computers or door keys or microwave ovens."




Please, enjoy

 "Mirrors" 
by Carol Shields
(1996)






(Shields was originally from Illinois 
but later moved to Canada, so she's often 
thought of as a Canadian writer, but 
to this writer and also native of Illinois, 
Shields's concerns have always
seemed Midwestern.)



Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Box of Delights Anthology on Kindle

Aeon Press's Box of Delights, Cover
Winter 2011 - KINDLE VERSION
Box of Delights, edited by John Kenny and published out of Dublin, Ireland, is now available on the Kindle.

It may be National Short Story Month in the U.S., but if you want to make your celebration an international one,  try Box of Delights, an anthology of contemporary horror fiction by 16 writers around the world.  Her story, "The Lightning Tree", is one of those stories.


Box of Anthology writers 
(links follow to the writer's webpage)

Sean MacRoibin
Eleanor Marney
Erin Pringle

CLICK!
a) here for the U.S. Kindle edition of Box of Delights
b) here for the U.K. Kindle edition
c) here for a print copy of Box of Delights


Short-Story Month 2012: Day 9, Concerning Ghosts by Michael Stewart



Black and white photograph of a wire fan
"Fan" by Mike Schmid,
Used under CC license




"My ghosts move as trees age." 



National
Short
Story
Month 

Day 9.

                                          Selection.



                                                            "Concerning Ghosts" by 
Michael Stewart





Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Send Giants: Maurice Sendak Left Today

Photo by Michael M. HughesAll Rights Reserved ,
used with photographer's permission


Send Giants:
An Elegy in 2012



May 8, 2012

Dear Mr. Sendak:

Please tell the lion that you care (even if you don't), and it will maybe let you come back. Speak very loudly because it's dark in there, and according to the newspapers, its mouth is shut tight. And this lion never gets sick when it eats. 


Or maybe we can send giants. They can shake you out. 

Then the newspapers can print a correction tomorrow, like they do and nobody catches the correction because they're not looking or don't even get the paper the next day and so they keep thinking the wrong thing the reporter wrote.  But I'll look for it. 

Your Friend,
Erin, age 5 30



*









Picture from Pierre of lion sick in bed, having eaten Pierre, and now Pierre's parents are hitting the lion with a folding chair.
From Pierre by
Maurice Sendak (June 10, 1928-May 8, 2012)
"I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more. ... What I dread is the isolation. ... There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready."