Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones, Lucky, and The Almost Moon, will be the guest editor of Best American Short Stories 2009.
Thoughts?
January 8, 2009
New Directions
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14 comments:
has sebold ever written short stories?
Given that Alice Sebold can't write, I'm not expecting much from this. Maybe her choices will be a pleasant surprise though, who knows...
Lesley, to the best of my knowledge, I don't think Sebold has ever published stories. Someone let me know if I'm wrong?
Amber, why do you think Sebold "can't write"?
And to answer the question, it looks like Sebold *has* published a couple of stories actually, one here from 2004: http://www.nerve.com/Fiction/Sebold/FarmBoyRiot/
and one here from 2008:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/aug/02/alice.sebold.short.story
I like the choice. She is younger than most of whom they pick too
@nate
Thanks for turning those up, Kathy!
Any time, Laura. What you need to know about me is that I'm awesome at Google.
If only you could work that into your bio somehow. Like, "Kathleen Rooney, author of several titles, is also a Zen Master Google-er."
Check it out: I just googled some other stuff and am about to include it as a comment on a different post!
seriously this is getting to be a joke. ever since heidi pitlor took over the series has been terrible. stephen king? salman rushdie? now, sebold? they're clearly pandering. i don't care that sebold, once or twice, a few years ago, wrote a couple short stories for nerve. she isn't a practitioner of short stories. neither was rushdie. king hasn't written one in a few years. publishing excerpts of novels doesn't count. someone who helms the BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES should at least understand that novels and short stories are different forms completely and someone picking the BEST short stories published in a given year, i feel, should be more than a one-time dabbler in the form. amy hempel? charles d'ambrosio? deborah eisenberg? lydia davis? if you're going for "BIG" names, what about alice munro? annie proulx? jhumpa lahiri?
this is getting to be a joke.
Well, saying she "can't write" is obviously an exaggeration and only my opinion. I gave The Lovely Bones a shot a while ago and just couldn't do it-- for all the fanfare it got, I thought it was poorly written and I really couldn't stand it. But anyway, I agree with Anonymous completely. They've chosen Stephen King, now Sebold, what next-- Jennifer Weiner? It seems like they're trying to pick very popular writers, and if they can somehow boost sales and get all of King's and Sebold's readers to pick up BASS, then great. Somehow I find that unlikely though, and also like Anonymous said, there are probably lots of BASS readers who would kill to have Alice Munro or Charles Baxter or Deborah Eisenberg be the guest editor. I know I would! And also, if they're going to have writers who aren't short story writers be guest editors, why not branch out to poets then? I would love to see Jack Gilbert's or Spencer Reece's choices.
Other people i would like to see guest edit are Alice Munro, Lee K. Abbott, John L'Heureux, Tao Lin, William Trevor, Denis Johnson, Christine Schutt, Don Lee, or Benjamin Percy.
If I got to choose: Ben Fountain, Mark Ray Lewis, Christopher Coake, Jhumpa Lahiri, Cynthia Ozick, Philip Roth. Why not more international picks a la Rushdie? Like Ian McEwan, J M Coetzee, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood? Why not some dead people like Kafka, Bellow, Bolano, Rulfo, Duras? Why not literate film directors like Coppola, Schrader, Scorcese, Payne, Kaufman? Why not good editor editors like Lorin Stein, Daniel Menaker, Ann Patty, Gerald Howard, Tom Bissell? Why not good teachers of writing like Ron Hansen, Lee Abbott, Peter Carey, Francine Prose? Why not like somebody okay cool like William Shatner or Bob Dylan? Why not Dana Gioia if you want a crappy volume crappy as Stephen King or Garrison Keillor no crappier? Why not architects or manganese ore excavators? Why not a graduate of the University of Alabama or somebody who lives in Tuscaloosa? Why not an exiled dictator they all live in Corsica or Paris? They all have Swiss bank accts? Why not a 100 year old exiled Nazi in Argentina or Brazil? Why not a surrealist? Why not somebody from the Ozarks like Daniel Woodrell? Why not the son of a famous poet like oh i don't know Franz Wright or Lucinda Williams? Why not somebody who hates hates hates literature altogether like George W. Bush or Joel Osteen or Elizabeth Hasselbeck or Tim Tebow or Terry Bradshaw? Why not a professional poker player or a really good amateur like Jim McManus? Why not an outsider artist like Henry Darger but instead somebody still alive and undiscovered and also less creepy? Why not a Czech animator, or a Filipino clown? Why not a trucker who listens to Cormac McCarthy books on CD whilst driving the run from Clinton, Mississippi, to Poughkeepsie, Arkansas? Ar sambady frim Kansas?
I do wonder what the criteria is for picking editors of Best American Short Stories. I was excited and intrigued by Salman Rushdie as a pick. I was floored by Lovely Bones as a novel, but I do think that well-respected short story writers are always better choices.
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