Issue #0

Glimmer Train Stories, #32

Plot

Review All the authors represented offer well-crafted, interesting human stories. These are not graduate workshop "I'm-narcissistically-estranged-so-let-me-deconstruct-before-you" stories. These are readable. -- Victoria Amador, Bloomsbury ReviewGlimmer Train mixes original stories by world-famous authors like Joyce Carol Oates with those of never-published newcomers in a package that's as carefully arranged as a bouquet of flowers. -- Jack Neely, Special Report Product Description Rare book From the Publisher This collection presents seven great short stories (including the winner of our Spring 1999 Short Story Award for New Writers) and two outstanding interviews with writers Russell Banks and Lynne Sharon Schwartz. About the Author LAURA OLIVER teaches creative writing in the Fine Arts Department of St. John's College in Annapolis, and has published numerous essays in both regional and national publications. "Ant Farm" is her first published piece of fiction. RUSSELL BANKS has published thirteen works of fiction, including more recently The Sweet Hereafter, Affliction, and Cloudsplitter. He is interviewed here by Rob Trucks. PETER LEFCOURT's publications include five novels, most recently The Woody which was published by Simon & Schuster. JANA MARTIN's nonfiction has been widely published in Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, and the Village Voice. She's the author of two non-fiction books, and her novel Rubber Days is in progress at this writing. "Hope" is her first published short story and won 1st Place in Glimmer Train's Short-Story Award for New Writers. LYNNE SHARON SCHWARTZ is an acclaimed novelist, but her recent memoir, Ruined by Reading, has also been warmly welcomed by serious readers. She is interviewed here by Nancy Middleton. Prize-winning short-story writer LEE MARTIN has been widely published and is the editor of the American Literary Review. NANCY REISMAN's short stories have also been widely published and have earned her numerous awards. She teaches at the University of Florida in Gainesville. VICTORIA LANCELOTTA's fiction has appeared in numerous highly regarded journals and has been anthologized in Fiction 2000. SIOBHAN DOWD has edited several books on behalf of International PEN's Writers-in-Prison Committee. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. From "Ant Farm" by Laura Oliver-Sometimes, I think, it is as if adolescence is a carnival ride Adam wants to get off but can't, and I watch his angry, desperate face fly past me again and again, belted in for the duration. From Rob Trucks's interview with Russell Banks- But in some ways, you know, an awful lot of the overt aspects of any work of art are telling. They tell us what the artist is insecure about, in a way. What you push in the reader's face is very often what you're least secure about. And as you grow more secure about it, you think about it less and you have less necessity to assert it. From "The Power Breakfast" by Peter Lefcourt-"I was asked to leave Hollywood." Jesus, you could have knocked me over with a taco. You really had to be pretty far gone to get run out of that town.. From "In My Other Life" by Janet Belding- Let's say I'm a man, in his early sixties, vital enough. I still walk eighteen holes with my son. Not a touch of emphysema-what does one cigarette a day do, and only in the years before my kids were born? No prostate trouble, a full head of then, grey hair. This is true. Let's say it's true. From "Hope" by Jana Martin- This suitcase was pale blue satin inside, a little moldy, a little crushed. But it still gave off a scent, like lavender and boiled potatoes. Like Irish sisters never married. The name on the tag was written in parlor hand: O'Toole. From Nancy Middleton's interview with Lynne Sharon Schwartz-I think that reading so early perhaps channeled me into seeing everything verbally. If I had had a few more years of looking at the world without reading, I might have bec