It's an odd book, unconventional in the sense that its 262 pages are made up of 157 chapters, many of them that could stand alone as very small fictions or vignettes. Many are only a page or less of text, and though there's digression in the story line, the book still resists being a "novel in fragments." As one reviewer put it the sections or mini-chapters "build upon, echo, reflect, and shatter each other."Check out some early reviews at B&N, Good Reads, and 3G1B.
The forlornly funny stories in And Also Sharks celebrate the socially awkward, the insecure, the unfulfilled, and the obsessed.
A disgruntled follower of a self-esteem blog posts a rambling critical comment. On the hunt for the perfect coffee table, a pregnant woman and her husband stop to visit his terminally ill ex-wife. The office cat lady reluctantly joins her fellow employees’ crusade to cheer up their dying co-worker. A man grieving his wife’s miscarriages follows his deluded friend on a stealth photo-taking mission at the Auto Show. A shoplifter creates her own narrative with stolen anecdotes and a kidnapped baby.
In this collection, society’s misfits and losers are portrayed sympathetically, and sometimes even heroically. As desperately as these characters long to fit in, they also take pride in what sets them apart.
And Also Sharks, my new short story collection, ended up being scheduled for a spring publication instead of fall, and it's out now!
In his fourth collection, Terrance Hayes investigates how we construct experience. With one foot firmly grounded in the everyday and the other hovering in the air, his poems braid dream and reality into a poetry that is both dark and buoyant. Cultural icons as diverse as Fela Kuti, Harriet Tubman, and Wallace Stevens appear with meditations on desire and history. We see Hayes testing the line between story and song in a series of stunning poems inspired by the Pecha Kucha, a Japanese presentation format. This innovative collection presents the light- headedness of a mind trying to pull against gravity and time. Fueled by an imagination that enlightens, delights, and ignites, Lighthead leaves us illuminated and scorched.
I have made a mistake. Not a leave-chewing-gum-in-your-pocket-and-put-it in-the-wash kind of mistake. More like leave-an-infant-alone-with-an-open-can-of-paint thinner. They got my ballpoint pens, Indiglo waterproof watch, plastic map case, Velcro-close shoes, condoms & KY. I still have my cell phone. That’s one consolation. And I have plenty of stuff. It’s not like being in jail and needing to fashion a weapon out of a singular fork. Victorians were the first great collectors. They collected animal bones, shells, postcards, hat pins. They collected hair and braided it into art. There is something so inherently wrong with that and yet Doreen finds it charming.
Congratulations to contributor Ted Sanders, whose story "Obit" (in the Winter 2008 issue, 30.2) will be included in the PEN/ O. Henry Prize Stories 2010!
Congratulations to issue 31.1 contributor Julia Story, who has won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry from Sarabande Books for her collection Post Moxie.
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We'd like to offer our congratulations to the writers below, whose work our editors have selected for Pushcart nominations. In alphabetical order by author last name:
We're a little late spreading the word about this, although I'm sure many of you reading are already well aware. The 2009 NEA literary grant winners have been announced! And we're very excited to see a number of Indiana Review contributors on this list, some from way back in the day. We saw Xochiquetzal Candelaria (23.2), Bob Hicok (30.2, 28.2, 26.1, 24.2, 19.1), Julia Kasdorf (18.1), Michael McGriff (31.1), Orlando Ricardo Menes (30.1, 25.1, 19.1), Aimee Nezhukumatathil (31.1, 30.1, 27.1, 26.1), and Jane Springer (30.1). (I hope I didn't miss any of our former contributors!)
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Our heartiest congratulations to Pilar Gomez-Ibanez for her poem "Losing Bedrock Farm," selected by Naomi Shihab Nye as our 2008 Poetry Prize winner. Of this poem, Nye said it was an "exquisite and perfect poem," adding "I don't use the word 'perfect' often." The 2008 Indiana Review Poetry Prize-winning poem will appear in our winter 2008 issue, 30.2. You can pre-order single copies or subscribe here..jpg)
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