This Is Not Chick Lit
Page 30
SAMANTHA HUNT is a writer and artist from New York. She is the author of The Seas and the forthcoming novel The Invention of Everything Else. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Cabinet, and Seed Magazine and have been heard on Public Radio International’s This American Life. Hunt teaches writing at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
BINNIE KIRSHENBAUM is the author of two story collections, Married Life and History on a Personal Note, and five novels, On Mermaid Avenue, Pure Poetry, A Disturbance in One Place, Hester Among the Ruins, and An Almost Perfect Moment. She is a professor at Columbia University, Graduate School of the Arts.
DIKA LAM was born in Canada and lives in Brooklyn. She was a New York Times Fellow in the MFA program at New York University, and her work has appeared in Scribner’s Best of the Fiction Workshops 1999, Story, One Story, Failbetter.com, and elsewhere. The first chapter of her novel-in-progress won the 2005 Bronx Writers’ Center Chapter One contest.
CAITLIN MACY is the author of the novel The Fundamentals of Play and is at work on a collection of short stories. Her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and she is the recipient of a 2005 O. Henry Prize. She lives with her family in London.
FRANCINE PROSE is the author of fourteen books of fiction, including, most recently, A Changed Man and Blue Angel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her nonfiction includes the national bestseller The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women and the Artists They Inspired and Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles. Her next book, Reading Like a Writer, will be out in summer 2006 from HarperCollins. A recipient of numerous grants and awards, among them Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, Prose was a Director’s Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She lives in New York City.
HOLIDAY REINHORN lives in Los Angeles. Her debut collection of short stories, Big Cats, was named one of the best books of 2005 by the San Francisco Chronicle. She is a recipient of the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction and a Carl Djerassi Fiction Fellowship from the Creative Writing Institute at the University of Wisconsin/Madison. Reinhorn’s stories have appeared in Zoetrope, Tin House, Ploughshares, and Columbia, among other publications. She is currently at work on a novel.
ROXANA ROBINSON is the author of seven books: three novels, three short-story collections, and a biography of Georgia O’Keeffe. Her most recent book is the collection A Perfect Stranger. Robinson was named a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Four of her books were named Notable Books of the Year by The New York Times. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, One Story, Daedalus, Best American Short Stories, The New York Times, and elsewhere. She lives in New York City and teaches at the New School.
CURTIS SITTENFELD’S first novel, Prep, was a national bestseller. Chosen as one of the Ten Best Books of 2005 by The New York Times, it will be published in twenty-three foreign countries, and its film rights have been optioned by Paramount Pictures. Her second novel, The Man of My Dreams, was published by Random House in May 2006. Sittenfeld’s nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Salon, Allure, Glamour, and on Public Radio International’s This American Life.
LYNNE TILLMAN’S last novel, No Lease on Life, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her most recent book is This Is Not It, a collection of stories and novellas. Her new novel American Genius: A Comedy will be published by Soft Skull Press in October 2006. Tillman is a fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities and a recent recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.
MARTHA WITT is the author of the novel Broken as Things Are. Her short fiction and translations are included in the anthologies Post-War Italian Women Writers and The Literature of Tomorrow. She is a recipient of a Thomas J. Watson Traveling Fellowship, a Spencer Fellowship, a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship, and a New York Times Fellowship, as well as residencies at the Yaddo and Ragdale artist colonies. Originally from Hillsborough, North Carolina, she now lives in New York City with her husband and two children.
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION FOR INDIVIDUAL STORIES
“The Thing Around Your Neck” by Chimamanda Adichie, copyright © 2004 by Chimamanda Adichie. Reprinted with permission of The Wylie Agency.
“Two Days” by Aimee Bender, copyright © 2006 by Aimee Bender
“An Open Letter to Doctor X” by Francine Prose, copyright © 2006 by Francine Prose
“Gabe” by Holiday Reinhorn, copyright © 2006 by Wil-Horn Enterprises, Inc.
“Documents of Passion Love” by Carolyn Ferrell, copyright © 2006 by Carolyn Ferrell
“Volunteers Are Shining Stars” by Curtis Sittenfeld, copyright © 2006 by Curtis Sittenfeld
“Selling the General” by Jennifer Egan, copyright © 2006 by Jennifer Egan
“The Seventy-two-Ounce Steak Challenge” by Dika Lam, copyright © 2006 by Dika Lam
“Love Machine” by Samantha Hunt, copyright © 2006 by Samantha Hunt
“Ava Bean” by Jennifer S. Davis, copyright © 2006 by Jennifer S. Davis
“Embrace” by Roxana Robinson, copyright © 2006 by Roxana Robinson
“The Epiphany Branch” by Mary Gordon, copyright © 2006 by Mary Gordon
“Joan, Jeanne, La Pucelle, Maid of Orléans” by Judy Budnitz, copyright © 2006 by Judy Budnitz
“Gabriella, My Heart” by Cristina Henríquez, copyright © 2006 by Cristina Henríquez
“The Red Coat” by Caitlin Macy, copyright © 2006 by Caitlin Macy
“The Matthew Effect” by Binnie Kirshenbaum, copyright © 2006 by Binnie Kirshenbaum
“The Recipe” by Lynne Tillman, copyright © 2006 by Lynne Tillman
“Meaning of Ends” by Martha Witt, copyright © 2006 by Martha Witt
Every book is a group effort, anthologies exponentially so. I am very grateful to each of the contributing authors, whose imagination, prowess, and generosity are an extraordinary example for all writers. Special thanks to Julia Cheiffetz, whose prodigious editorial skill and belief in the cause are an inspiration, and to all the folks at Random House who have been so excited by this collection, especially to Jynne Martin, publicity genius, and to Beth Pearson, production editor. Many thanks to Quinn Heraty, a patient and brilliant protector; to the talented and generous Joan Beard and Wendy Kenigsberg; to Tess Strand Alipour, who always comes through; to Angela Heckler; to Jessica Crispin; to the remarkable beings keeping all things Grace bubbling along, especially Emberly Nesbitt, Anne Ishii, Eryn Loeb, Jen Kirwin, Jessica DuLong, Sara Zuiderveen, and design god Kevin McElroy. Deepest gratitude to my students and to my friends, who showed such support, in New York and from remote perches, and to Carol and Jack Merrick.
About the Editor
ELIZABETH MERRICK is the author of the novel Girly and the founder and director of the Grace Reading Series. She received a BA from Yale University, an MFA from Cornell University, and an MA in creativity and art education from San Francisco State. Recent honors include fellowships from the Saltonstall Foundation, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has taught at New York University and Cornell, and lives in New York, where she directs a writing school. Visit her at www.elizabethmerrick.com.
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the authors’ imaginations and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Introduction copyright © 2006 by Elizabeth Merrick
Compilation copyright © 2006 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.<
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Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Copyright information for the individual stories in this collection can be found on page 322.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
This is not chick lit: original stories by America’s best women writers.
p. cm.
Edited by Elizabeth Merrick.
1. Short stories, American—Women authors 2. Women—United States—Fiction. 3. American fiction—21st century. I. Merrick, Elizabeth.
PS647.W6T5 2006
813'.01089287090511—dc22 2006045206
www.atrandom.com
eISBN: 978-1-58836-569-9
v3.0