Posts tagged with New Stories from the South

Contrary to popular belief, not all writers sit in dark corners scribbling their serious, serious story about how gloomy and awful life is. Most writers use laptops now. Others, like George Singleton, forgo the expected, ho-hum gloom and doom stories and instead write dry, hilarious stories about eccentric characters and their bizarre run-ins with characters even crazier than themselves. So here’s to you, George Singleton, and your short story pick of the month. Seriously.

–Ana

(Ana Alvarez is the Publishing Coordinator at Algonquin)

New Stories from the South 2009 – George Singleton, Between Wrecks

ABOUT GEORGE SINGLETON
George Singleton lives in Dacusville, South Carolina, and teaches writing at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. His short stories appear regularly in national magazines–the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Magazine, Zoetrope, Playboy–and literary journals–the Southern Review, Shenandoah, the Georgia Review, Yalobusha Review, and many others. He is also the author of These People Are Us and The Half-Mammals of Dixie.

I admit it: I love a great villain. A knowledgeable writer goes beyond the sometimes bombastic, destructive wake of a villain, provides opportunities for the character to change – or adamantly refuse to change – then peels away the character’s veil to reveal a small, vulnerable, pathetic person. In Kevin Wilson’s keen and meticulously written short story No Joke, This is Going to be Painful, a backyard party becomes both the scene of a spontaneous ice cube fight, and the last opportunity for the narrator to discover – or not – just how villainous she really is.

–Ana (Ana Alvarez is the Editorial Assistant at Algonquin)

New Stories from the South 2009

Kevin Wilson is the author of the collection, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (Ecco/Harper Perennial, 2009).  His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Tin House, One Story, Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere, and has twice been included in the New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best anthology.  He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the KHN Center for the Arts.  He lives in Sewanee, Tennessee.

Hey friends, we have good news: On August 17, Algonquin will publish its 25th volume of New Stories from the South! And the guest editor? None other than the amazing Amy Hempel. (Check out an in-depth interview with her here). Hempel has selected 25 stories for this deluxe anniversary edition. And the writers who will be featured are (drum roll, please) . . .

Wells Tower
Dorothy Allison
Kevin Wilson
Padgett Powell
Wendell Berry
Elizabeth Spencer
Ron Rash
Rick Bass
Brad Watson (2 stories)
Bret Anthony Johnston
Danielle Evans
Tim Gautreaux

Ashleigh Pederson
Adam Atlas
Megan Mayhew Bergman
George Singleton
Ben Stroud
Ann Pancake
Aaron Gwyn
Emily Quinlan
Stephen Marion
Kenneth Calhoun
Marjorie Kemper
Laura Lee Smith

Kathy PoriesFlash fiction is a difficult form to pull off, and many times stories in that form can feel more like scenes rather than turning points or moments of recognition. And speaking of difficult forms, stories written from the perspective of second person can seem stagey, or worse, presumptuous. But good writers are always able to defy the rules that you thought had to be followed.

In “Some Thing Blue,” Tayari Jones writes a flash fiction story in second person that is unbelievably moving and full. I’m convinced that were it written in any other form, it wouldn’t have the same power of capturing this moment and making it fully resonate. How she accomplishes this in just eight short paragraphs is something of a miracle.  -Kathy

Kathy Pories is Senior Editor at Algonquin and Editor of our annual New Stories from the South series.

In Scottsboro, Alabama, there is a warehouse store that sells everything that people leave behind on airplanes. This is where your mother has found your wedding dress.

You are apprehensive. What ever happened to “something old, something new?” What you have so far is something mortgaged—this would be your childhood home. (Storybook weddings are far more costly than anyone imagined.) There is also something pawned—your engagement ring, one and one third carats, clear as drinking water. (Your fiancé Marcus, being both book-smart and streetwise, haggled with the pawn broker for almost an hour.) And now, there is this lovely gown—something ditched. Because let’s face it. No one just loses a dress like this. (The designer is famous and photogenic; her picture is printed in gossip magazines.)

But how can you complain? Marcus is a good guy. He is a podiatrist. More importantly, your mother is happy and she is alive. Only two years ago, she lay bald and dying, weeping because she would never be a grandmother, never wear the mother-of-the-bride dress she bought six years ago on sale at Filene’s.

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NSFSToday’s post is coming to you courtesy of Kathy Pories, Senior Editor at Algonquin and Senior Editor of our annual New Stories from the South series (now in its 19th year!). She gets to soak up loads of short stories when making selections for the series and once a month she’ll share a favorite with us right here.  And now, without further ado, here’s Kathy…

Many reviewers have pointed out that this year’s New Stories from the South trains its focus on Katrina and its aftermath. While this is true for many of the stories, the anthology also includes stories that are not related to Katrina in any way, but are simply standout stories. Steve Marion‘s “Touch Touch Me,” for example. In this story told by a lonely overweight reporter, he and a friend manage to pick up two ex-convict women and end up in the unlikeliest of places, a deserted supermarket. It’s there that we finally understand how this reporter sees himself in one of the convicts–and where the cryptic title of the story suddenly becomes clear.

I think there are few writers out there writing with the kind of originality and strong sense of voice that Stephen Marion possesses. I promise you, you won’t forget this story.
-Kathy

Gerald said it was fun to drive by the jail on a Saturday night to see if any ladies had bailed out. He called it F-Blocking. Once he had driven Alexander County north to south and west to east and found it empty as ever, Gerald would say, We are liable to have to resort to F-Blocking.

Liable to, said a reporter, crinkling his can of beer.

Gerald was master of high jinks. It had been Gerald who re­arranged the letters on the dress-shop sign to read thirty-nine kinds of tight ass. He had transformed this reporter into a re­porter. Last month, this reporter was a bagger, bagging with Ger­ald at Food City, until the help ad was clipped and he began to ask, Have you applied yet? Have you gone down there yet? Are you a newshound yet?

No no no no, said a reporter until Gerald with his own car forced him into the inky air of the newspaper office and this re­porter emerged assigned to the Connie Mack Tournament that weekend at the American Legion Field.

Remember, said Gerald, you don’t say I. You say, A reporter. That is the first thing to learn about journalism. Everything else starts from that.

Gerald was up on journalism. He read the newspaper every day. He was up on all topics.

Look, said Gerald, waving the newspaper with Connie Mack inside. Lookahere.

But it may have been that summer with Gerald when a reporter chose his obesity. He may have selected a future of obscene fatti­tude, extraneous girth, additional gravity, because something was wrong, he was told later. Something was missing. But it did not seem so. But it may have been. A reporter, watching Gerald pop open the official brown bag of Food City, which his father had popped before him, may have made his choice, and not even known it. The man died at forty-eight, said Gerald. Died. People at Food City called Gerald Prince Gerald. He was manager apparent.

On the curb, between two empty patrol cars, stood a couple of girls. In F-Blocking, the idea was to find some who didn’t have a ride, or, best of all, had a ride coming but if given the opportunity might choose a different ride. This, Gerald said, had produced memorable evenings in the past. This reporter could not see the girls very well in the dark. Gerald stopped, turned down the radio. They came up, one forwardly, the other cautiously. The forward one got hold of Gerald’s door.

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