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Edward Hamlin is the author of the short story collection Night in Erg Chebbi: Stories and the novel Sonata in Wax. His writing has been published widely and recognized with a number of awards, including the Nelson Algren Award and the Iowa Short Fiction Award. He lives in Colorado. We talked about writing family history, research for the historical novel, classical music, the power of creation and redemption, music recording, the possibility of a lost masterpiece, and serendipity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A more personal author description than usual: I recently learned that fiction writer Melissa Bank passed away last August. (When I recorded the intro to this rerun, I thought it had been longer. My apologies.) I loved Melissa Bank's fiction, her light touch. Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing was wonderful, as was The Wonder Spot. When I was in NYC, Melissa and I would meet for coffee or lunch. I loved her writing and her entire vibe. Melissa Bank won the 1993 Nelson Algren Award for short fiction and taught at Stony Brook University. When The Wonder Spot came out, I asked her to talk about how to write a novel. She said, “I don't know how to write a novel.” What she knew how to do, she was, was write stories. Stories became chapters and chapters become a book, she said. Melissa died from lung cancer on August 2, 2022. She was 61 years old. For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website. (Recorded on January 25, 2023) Host: Barbara DeMarco-BarrettCo-Host: Marrie StoneMusic and sound design: Travis Barrett
Billy Lombardo is the 2011 Nelson Algren Award winner for Fiction. He is the author of four books of fiction – The Logic of a Rose: Chicago Stories, How to Hold a Woman, The Man with Two Arms, and Meanwhile, Roxy Mourns. His novel, How to Hold a Woman was re-issued as Morning Will Come by Tortoise Books in January 2021. A high school English Literature and creative writing teacher for 25 years at The Latin School of Chicago, and for nine years at other Chicago-area high schools, he now runs his own writing and editing business called Writing Pros/e. Billy is the founder of Polyphony Lit, a global literary platform for high school writers and editors, at the core of which is a literary magazine run by an international staff of more than 200 high school editors around the world who comment on every one of the thousands of submissions that come to them every year.
Steven Schwartz is the author of four short story collections, Little Raw Souls, To Leningrad in Winter, Lives of the Fathers, Madagascar: New and Selected Stories, and three novels, The Tenderest of Strings, Therapy and A Good Doctor's Son. His fiction has received the Nelson Algren Award, the Sherwood Anderson Prize, the Cohen Award, the Colorado Book Award for the Novel, two O. Henry Prize Story Awards, the Foreword Review Gold Medal for Short Stories, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, and Bread Loaf. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dorene O’Brien is a Detroit-based creative writing teacher and writer. Her stories have won the Red Rock Review Mark Twain Award for Short Fiction, the Nelson Algren Award, the New Millennium Writings Fiction Prize, and the international Bridport Prize. She has won fellowships from the NEA and the Vermont Studio Center. Her work has appeared in the Baltimore Review, Madison Review, Chicago Tribune, Montreal Review, and others. Voices of the Lost and Found, her first fiction collection won the USA Best Book Award for Short Fiction. Her second full-length collection, What It Might Feel Like to Hope, released in 2019 by Baobob Press was named first runner-up in the Mary Roberts Rinehart Fiction Prize and won a gold medal in the 2019 Independent Publishers Book Awards (IPPY).The stories take place in Detroit and small towns in the upper Midwest, and they’ve been described as “gritty.” They feature characters ranging from a man barely surviving eight compulsory blind dates with daughters of his mother’s friends, to a tarot card reader who schemes to save Detroit from blight and casinos, to a research scientist whose Alzheimer’s diagnosis leads him to find new meaning in the crystals he can no longer study.https://baobabpress.com/books/what-it-might-feel-like-to-hope/https://www.doreneobrien.com/
It's summertime, and the reading is otherworldly in this special August edition of 'Bookmarked: The Under the Radar Book Club.' This full hour special takes us through the portal into the world of speculative fiction. Whether the stories include fantasy, the supernatural, or futuristic visions of life as we know it, avid fans are making this genre of fiction more popular than ever. Speculative fiction both challenges and entertains the reader with mind bending tales of parallel universes and dimensions unknown. There couldn't be more perfect escapism for those lazy hazy days of summer. Callie is joined by three local authors whose imaginations make speculative fiction their stage for dramatic adventures. With science as a foundation, their books have themes and plots that incorporate artificial intelligence, robots, virtual reality and much more. These writers often find inspiration from the science and technology of our current lives. Guests: Max Gladstone: Author of "Empress of Forever" — a nearly 500-page space opera featuring a band of misfits and their wild adventures in a war-torn future. Gladstone is best known for his six book urban fantasy series, "The Craft Sequence." The series was a finalist for the Hugo Best Series award. The Hugo specifically honors top authors in science fiction and fantasy. This Somerville resident is also a fiddler and a fencer and is fluent in Mandarin. K. Chess: Author of "Famous Men Who Never Lived." K's debut novel features a twist on the iconic science fiction plot about parallel universes. Before writing this first book, K. Chess was recognized for her short stories which earned her both the Nelson Algren Award and the Pushcart Prize. The Providence-based author was also named a W. K. Rose Fellow and teaches at the Boston writing center, Grubstreet. Cadwell Turnbull: Author of "The Lesson." Cadwell's first novel imagines aliens from another planet openly living side by side with residents of the Virgin Islands. Turnbull ‘s short fiction has been recognized in several anthologies. "Loneliness is in Your Blood" was selected for the collection, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018. And his short story "Jump" was selected for the Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019. He, too, makes his home in Somerville, Massachusetts. ———————-—————————————————————————-———————- More UTR: https://www.wgbh.org/news/under-the-radar-with-callie-crossley Follow Callie on Twitter: @CallieCrossley Like UTR on Facebook: facebook.com/UndertheRadarWGBH UTR is produced by Franziska Monahan. Doug Shugarts and John Parker are our engineers. Under the Radar is a production of WGBH.
Evolve! Nurturing the New in Consciousness, the Arts, and Culture hosted by : Robin White Turtle Lysne, M.A., M.F.A., Ph.D. Evolve! brings you people and ideas on the cutting edge of change opening the shells of the past to move our culture into the now. My next guest is Robin Hemley, Robin Hemley is the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship and many other awards, including the Nelson Algren Award for Fiction from The Chicago Tribune, and three Pushcart Prizes in both fiction and nonfiction. He has published 11 books and his stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, Chicago Tribune, and many literary magazines and anthologies. Robin received his MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop and directed the Nonfiction Writing Program at The University of Iowa for nine years. He is currently Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Writing Program at Yale-NUS in Singapore.
Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events (Harper) Acclaimed short story writer Kevin Moffett (Permanent Visitors) will read and sign his new story collection, Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events. "Kevin Moffett's stories are stealth heartbreakers, as well as wonders of sly detail and perfect tone. He's writing some of the best short fiction around." --Sam Lipsyte "The first thing you notice reading the stories in Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events is the author's extraordinary range--of expertise, technique, imagination and wit. There doesn't seem to be much Kevin Moffett can't do." --Richard Russo Kevin Moffett's stories have appeared in McSweeney's, Tin House, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere, as well as in three editions of The Best American Short Stories. He is the winner of the Nelson Algren Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the 2010 National Magazine Award for “Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events.” He lives in Claremont, California. Photo of the author by Erin McConnell. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS APRIL 12, 2012.
Memoirists and novelists James Brown (This River), Seth Greenland (Shining City), Diana Wagman (Skin Deep), and Leslie Schwartz (Angels Crest) will discuss the art and craft of fiction versus narrative nonfiction, in a panel discussion moderated by Meghan Daum (Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House). This is sure to be a fascinating discussion among terrific local writers, and should not be missed! James Brown is the author of several novels, including Lucky Town, and the memoirs, The Los Angeles Diaries, and This River. He received a Nelson Algren Award in Short Fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including GQ, The New York Times Magazine, and The Los Angeles Times Magazine. Brown teaches in the MFA Program at Cal State San Bernardino. Seth Greenland is the author of the novels The Bones, Shining City, and The Angry Buddhist (Spring 2012). He was one of the original bloggers on the Huffington Post. www.sethgreenland.com Leslie Schwartz is the author of two novels, Jumping the Green, which won the James Jones Award for best first novel, and Angel's Crest which was an L.A. Times Bestseller, a Book Sense 76 pick and was translated into 13 languages. She is the founder of a literary magazine: Charlotte: A Journal of Poetry, Prose and Art. Her second novel, Angel's Crest has been adapted for the screen and debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in April. She is currently at work on her third book, a collection of personal essays. Diana Wagman is the author of three novels. Her second, Spontaneous, won the PEN West Award for Fiction. Her short stories have been published in Black Clock, Electric Literature and elsewhere. She has a personal essay in this summer's Colorado Review and often writes opinion pieces for the Los Angeles Times. Meghan Daum is a columnist for The Los Angeles Times and the author, most recently, of the memoir Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House. She has contributed to numerous magazines and to public radio programs such as Marketplace and Morning Edition. She is also the author of the novel The Quality of Life Report and the essay collection My Misspent Youth. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS JULY 6, 2011.
Elisa Parker interviews Kim Edwards, the author of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, a 122-week New York Times bestseller, and discusses her new release, The Lake of Dreams. Edwards won the Whiting Award and the Nelson Algren Award for her collection of short stories, The Secret’s of a Fire King, which was an alternate for the 1998 PEN/Hemingway Award. Her short stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, Antaeus, Story and The Paris Review and two were performed at Symphony Space and broadcast on Public Radio International. Edwards also teaches writing at the University of Kentucky.
Kim Edwards, a graduate of Colgate University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, has won numerous awards for her fiction, including a Whiting Writers' Award, the Nelson Algren Award, and the National Magazine Award for Excellence in Fiction. She is the author of a collection of short stories, The Secrets of a Fire King, which was short-listed for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her first novel, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, spent two years on The New York Times Bestseller List, with 20 weeks at No. 1; it won the British Book Award, and has been now been published in 40 countries. Kim Edwards is an associate professor at The University of Kentucky. She is finishing a new novel set in the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York, where she grew up.
Kim Edwards, a graduate of Colgate University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, has won numerous awards for her fiction, including a Whiting Writers' Award, the Nelson Algren Award, and the National Magazine Award for Excellence in Fiction. She is the author of a collection of short stories, The Secrets of a Fire King, which was short-listed for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her first novel, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, spent two years on The New York Times Bestseller List, with 20 weeks at No. 1; it won the British Book Award, and has been now been published in 40 countries. Kim Edwards is an associate professor at The University of Kentucky. She is finishing a new novel set in the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York, where she grew up.
Melissa Bank is the author of the international bestseller The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing (1999) and The Wonder Spot (2005). Her work has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including The Chicago Tribune, Cosmopolitan, Epoch, Glamour, The Guardian, O: The Oprah Magazine, Ploughshares, Seventeen, and The Washington Post, and has been broadcast on NPR, PRI and the BBC. She is the 1993 recipient of the Nelson Algren Award for the Short Story, and her work has been translated into 30 languages. Bank is a graduate of Cornell’s MFA program in creative writing, and is also Visiting Writer in that program during the spring semester of 2009.Bank read from her work on February 20, in Cornell’s Goldwin Smith Hall. This interview took place the previous week.
Cornelia Nixon’s books include Now You See It and Angels Go Naked, and a book of literary criticism on D.H. Lawrence. She is the winner of two O. Henry Awards, two Pushcart Prizes, a Nelson Algren Award and the Carl Sandburg Award for Fiction. Nixon recently completed a Civil War novel, and is working on both a surfing novel and a memoir. A Berkeley alumna, she is on the faculty at Mills College.
Cornelia Nixon’s books include Now You See It and Angels Go Naked, and a book of literary criticism on D.H. Lawrence. She is the winner of two O. Henry Awards, two Pushcart Prizes, a Nelson Algren Award and the Carl Sandburg Award for Fiction. Nixon recently completed a Civil War novel, and is working on both a surfing novel and a memoir. A Berkeley alumna, she is on the faculty at Mills College.