A hearty congratulations to two of our contributors who have been named 2011 National Book Award finalists!
Frequent contributor Edith Pearlman is recognized for her short-story collection Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories (Lookout Books, 2011). Pearlman’s stories have appeared in Issues 2.2, 4.2, 6.1, and 7.1, and a new story, “Life Lessons” is forthcoming in our January issue.
“Life Lessons” explores a daughter’s changing perspective of her father, nicknamed “Danny Boy” by the women who love him, including his wife, his two sisters, and some mysterious nurses. Pearlman recently sent us this comment on the story:
A newstand magazine—it may have been Real Simple—ran a contest in which the contestants were to remember a life-changing moment. The prize was substantial. Why not invent such a moment? I basely thought—and proceeded to rummage in my ideas drawer, where I found the young-for-her-age-girl; the piano teacher; the beautiful parents, the father slightly naughty. I put them all together, along with “Danny Boy,” one of my favorite ballads. The piece had very little to do with reminiscence (though a lot to do with life-changing moments). It had become a story, and I look forward to seeing it in print.
The nurses, however, are drawn from life.
We posted a sneak peek of the beginning of the story here.
Congratulations also to contributor Carl Phillips, a 2011 National Book Award finalist in poetry for Double Shadow (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011). Phillips’s poem “Until There’s Nothing, Just the Sea, a Sea of Leaves,” from his 2009 collection Speak Low, appeared in Issue 3.1.
The winners will be announced on Nov. 16 at a New York City gala.
