What do you think?
Rate this book
The Pushcart Prize XLI: Best of the Small Presses 2017 Edition
“Resounding testimony to the persistence of intelligent, creative, and compassionate expression” commented Booklist on last year’s Pushcart Prize. “A wonderful edition” said Publishers Weekly. Features appeared in The New York Times Book Review and elsewhere.
Pushcart’s 41st Edition is edited with the assistance of 200 distinguished Contributing Editors and was selected from more than 8,000 stories, essays and poetry nominated by a complete roster of today’s outstanding non-commercial publishers.
The Pushcart Prize has been honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from The National Book Critics Circle, the Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers/Barnes & Noble and is acclaimed by readers and reviewers internationally.
Pushcart’s 41st Edition is edited with the assistance of 200 distinguished Contributing Editors and was selected from more than 8,000 stories, essays and poetry nominated by a complete roster of today’s outstanding non-commercial publishers.
The Pushcart Prize has been honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from The National Book Critics Circle, the Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers/Barnes & Noble and is acclaimed by readers and reviewers internationally.
- GenresShort StoriesEssays
650 pages, Paperback
Published November 8, 2016
4 people are currently reading
48 people want to read
About the author
Bill Henderson
112 books19 followersBill Henderson (born April 5, 1941) is an American author, editor and publisher best known for his memoirs and the Pushcart Prize series.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 29, 2017
4,5 Stars. Excellent collection of short stories and poems from the independent presses. Only a few duds, but mostly very compelling writing.
March 21, 2017
A strong collection of vivid fiction, poignant essays, and poems that resonate with relevancy, but this year's edition was punctuated with a weak selection here and there. The following five pieces were those I reread and will take with me after closing the book:
1. Scream (or Never Minding) by Lia Purpura: A thought-provoking essay about cultural ubiquities, namely, art and mindless consumption (it is no wonder I was drawn to this essay). Purpura asserts that the saturation of a certain art piece, such as Scream by Edvard Munch, dilutes its meaning, and becomes sort of a mimicry. By "seeing the Scream again and again, we agree not to." Purpura includes insight to the piece-- things I did know, and things I did not know, proving that no many how many times you see something, you may not be educated on its history and meaning. In fact, the more you see it, the more likely you are to not know its meaning. I, myself, am a sucker for all things novelty and kitsch, so when I see a Starry Night mug, I want it. (actually, I have them, ha! from the Van Gogh exhibit I saw in Ottawa). We want ownership of these masterpieces in one way or another. She also talks about consumption and its negative impact on our environment. "If I asked, Would you like to help stop wrecking the earth, you'd say, Of course, yes. However, she asserts despite people's immediate good intentions, their habits remain the same due to a word she coins "aesthesioplasia" aesthesio (sensation) + plegia (paralysis). Our culture numbs us to our harmful habits, like meat-eating and bottled water, because they are right in front of us always, normalizing them. We are a culture of neverminding.
2. Voltaire Night by Deb Olin Unferth: I encountered Deb Olin Unferth in college, and her stories seem to have their own sly sense of humor. The story starts with a depressed, but funny writing instructor— so human you cannot help but like her, inciting a post-workshop bar outing in order for her to spew about the depressive break up she just went through. She calls the night “Voltaire Night” after Voltaire's Candida: ”In Voltaire’s Candide, there’s a certain passage where a huge crowd wants to board a boat, all vying for the same seat Candide---luckless man, but in this one instance he is lucky and in possession of some extra cash---has offered to pay for. The seat will go, he says, to the man or woman most bad off among them. One by one they choose their woes and tell their tales. That scene---communal, classroom-like, someone in charge judging their stories and making promises no one could keep---these students, with me as their leader, reminded me of that.” We sense nothing good can some from this, and that sense is what hooks the reader. The worst story comes from a freelance designer, who, in an effort to earn some extra cash for his growing family, volunteers for a high-paid, demanding, and undesirable experiment. I won’t spoil the story with the details, but as we read about this man’s increasingly unfortunate circumstances, we contend that he is, by far, the winner of Voltaire Night. That is, until we reach the end, and witness how he and his wife react to their circumstances. Olin Unferth makes us question whether it is our circumstances that make for a bad situation or simply our reaction to them.
3. The Carnation Milk Palace by Melissa Prichard: A well-written fiction piece about 1960's New Years Eve party at a wealthy family's mansion (nicknamed after the product that earned them their wealth) with acute observations about class. The story, told in third-person omniscient, focusing on Charlotte, a high schooler, contrasts her life to her lower-class, "scholarship kid" friend, Moira: “Not only did her bursting-at-the-seams family exemplify the enthusiasm to overbreed, then accept handouts from more practical members of their faith who covertly practiced birth control, Moira was rebellious, shifty-eyed, a smart aleck whose bohemian tendencies were fast putting her on perdition’s low road." The story also explores the love affair Charlotte's mother has with wealth, exemplified by her ever-present regret for snubbing a college admirer, the Carnation Milk Palace owner, who ended up accumulating a substantial amount of wealth and success. This love affair often compromises her mother's morals and judgments and Charlotte, after the party, realized that "terrible things happened all of the time, secret, violating things" in these affluent environments.
4. Anna May Wong Blows Out Sixteen Candles by Sally Wen Mao- A lyrical poem written in punchy couplets that explores how Asian women are continually portrayed in movies and media, specifically in the 80s (though this still, unfortunately, remains true today) as negative, minor appearances when not completely absent. These portrayals perpetuate the Asian woman stereotypes, and rob these actresses of their agency and individuality. The narrator begs to be cast, instead of a minor character pouring tea, as a "pothead / an heiress, a gymnast, a queen. Cast me as a castaway in a city / without shores."
5. I Sing You For An Apple by Eric Wilson. A hilarious account of a translator with a PHD in Germanic languages following a famous scholar and poet from the Faroe Islands-- the only problem is that it turns out that Faroese is quite different from the Danish that the translator is familiar with and assumed the poet knew, and he was only vaguely familiar with the similar language Old Icelandic, so not only is the poet's strange behavior not translatable, but his actual speech is a bit of a puzzle for the translator as well.
1. Scream (or Never Minding) by Lia Purpura: A thought-provoking essay about cultural ubiquities, namely, art and mindless consumption (it is no wonder I was drawn to this essay). Purpura asserts that the saturation of a certain art piece, such as Scream by Edvard Munch, dilutes its meaning, and becomes sort of a mimicry. By "seeing the Scream again and again, we agree not to." Purpura includes insight to the piece-- things I did know, and things I did not know, proving that no many how many times you see something, you may not be educated on its history and meaning. In fact, the more you see it, the more likely you are to not know its meaning. I, myself, am a sucker for all things novelty and kitsch, so when I see a Starry Night mug, I want it. (actually, I have them, ha! from the Van Gogh exhibit I saw in Ottawa). We want ownership of these masterpieces in one way or another. She also talks about consumption and its negative impact on our environment. "If I asked, Would you like to help stop wrecking the earth, you'd say, Of course, yes. However, she asserts despite people's immediate good intentions, their habits remain the same due to a word she coins "aesthesioplasia" aesthesio (sensation) + plegia (paralysis). Our culture numbs us to our harmful habits, like meat-eating and bottled water, because they are right in front of us always, normalizing them. We are a culture of neverminding.
2. Voltaire Night by Deb Olin Unferth: I encountered Deb Olin Unferth in college, and her stories seem to have their own sly sense of humor. The story starts with a depressed, but funny writing instructor— so human you cannot help but like her, inciting a post-workshop bar outing in order for her to spew about the depressive break up she just went through. She calls the night “Voltaire Night” after Voltaire's Candida: ”In Voltaire’s Candide, there’s a certain passage where a huge crowd wants to board a boat, all vying for the same seat Candide---luckless man, but in this one instance he is lucky and in possession of some extra cash---has offered to pay for. The seat will go, he says, to the man or woman most bad off among them. One by one they choose their woes and tell their tales. That scene---communal, classroom-like, someone in charge judging their stories and making promises no one could keep---these students, with me as their leader, reminded me of that.” We sense nothing good can some from this, and that sense is what hooks the reader. The worst story comes from a freelance designer, who, in an effort to earn some extra cash for his growing family, volunteers for a high-paid, demanding, and undesirable experiment. I won’t spoil the story with the details, but as we read about this man’s increasingly unfortunate circumstances, we contend that he is, by far, the winner of Voltaire Night. That is, until we reach the end, and witness how he and his wife react to their circumstances. Olin Unferth makes us question whether it is our circumstances that make for a bad situation or simply our reaction to them.
3. The Carnation Milk Palace by Melissa Prichard: A well-written fiction piece about 1960's New Years Eve party at a wealthy family's mansion (nicknamed after the product that earned them their wealth) with acute observations about class. The story, told in third-person omniscient, focusing on Charlotte, a high schooler, contrasts her life to her lower-class, "scholarship kid" friend, Moira: “Not only did her bursting-at-the-seams family exemplify the enthusiasm to overbreed, then accept handouts from more practical members of their faith who covertly practiced birth control, Moira was rebellious, shifty-eyed, a smart aleck whose bohemian tendencies were fast putting her on perdition’s low road." The story also explores the love affair Charlotte's mother has with wealth, exemplified by her ever-present regret for snubbing a college admirer, the Carnation Milk Palace owner, who ended up accumulating a substantial amount of wealth and success. This love affair often compromises her mother's morals and judgments and Charlotte, after the party, realized that "terrible things happened all of the time, secret, violating things" in these affluent environments.
4. Anna May Wong Blows Out Sixteen Candles by Sally Wen Mao- A lyrical poem written in punchy couplets that explores how Asian women are continually portrayed in movies and media, specifically in the 80s (though this still, unfortunately, remains true today) as negative, minor appearances when not completely absent. These portrayals perpetuate the Asian woman stereotypes, and rob these actresses of their agency and individuality. The narrator begs to be cast, instead of a minor character pouring tea, as a "pothead / an heiress, a gymnast, a queen. Cast me as a castaway in a city / without shores."
5. I Sing You For An Apple by Eric Wilson. A hilarious account of a translator with a PHD in Germanic languages following a famous scholar and poet from the Faroe Islands-- the only problem is that it turns out that Faroese is quite different from the Danish that the translator is familiar with and assumed the poet knew, and he was only vaguely familiar with the similar language Old Icelandic, so not only is the poet's strange behavior not translatable, but his actual speech is a bit of a puzzle for the translator as well.
January 21, 2017
Always one of the highlights of my reading year ... this year's edition didn't have as many "oh wow" type stories that made me wonder how someone could write so perfect a story but there are, as always, some excellent work in here. "Blue of the World" by Douglas W. Milliken and "Avarice" by Charles Baxter were both awesome. There were several others that I starred as well (including more poems than usual). Like every year some are hits and some are misses but then again all art is subjective ... I keep reading this collection every year because the hits hit harder and the misses I can still respect.
December 14, 2018
I started this over the summer and just finished it today. There were a few stories in here that blew me away, many I loved. Some excellent poems mixed in there too. I’m still kicking the experience around, but I for sure enjoyed sampling some of the best works from small press publications in 2017.
May 21, 2017
Clearly, a book intended to be the "best" of something is going to have plenty of great things to read. This was no exception, and though there's a lot to read here and the stories are often very dense I found it to be worth the effort.
August 4, 2017
The brilliant! The dull! Everything in between!
June 30, 2020
Great variety of stories and poems.
May 23, 2022
Some real gems in here, as usual. Fiction, nonfiction and poetry.
December 30, 2016
This is one of my most anticipated books every year! My favorites this time around:
*I Sing You for an Apple, by Eric Wilson: a translator's experience shepherding an inebriated author from the Faeroe Islands on a road trip
*Scream (or Never Minding), by Lia Purpura: the willful not-caring that it takes to live in the world
*If You Can't Say Anything Nice Write a One-Star Review, by Jane Lancellotti: On Willa Cather: "I've seen trash on the curb with more plot than this."
*Voltaire Night, by Deb Olin Unferth: whoever tells the worst story wins
*More Than This, by David Kirby: a poem on grief
*The Carnation Milk Palace, by Melissa Pritchard: a 1960's New Year's Eve party
*Bloodlines, by Lauren Slater: story of a marriage
*I Sing You for an Apple, by Eric Wilson: a translator's experience shepherding an inebriated author from the Faeroe Islands on a road trip
*Scream (or Never Minding), by Lia Purpura: the willful not-caring that it takes to live in the world
*If You Can't Say Anything Nice Write a One-Star Review, by Jane Lancellotti: On Willa Cather: "I've seen trash on the curb with more plot than this."
*Voltaire Night, by Deb Olin Unferth: whoever tells the worst story wins
*More Than This, by David Kirby: a poem on grief
*The Carnation Milk Palace, by Melissa Pritchard: a 1960's New Year's Eve party
*Bloodlines, by Lauren Slater: story of a marriage
October 9, 2017
Another great volume in a favorite series; comments on each piece blogged at A Just Recompense.
Read
April 12, 2017Variable and essential, duh.
Read
May 18, 2017Amazing collection of short stories, poems, and essays.
I was surprised at how little flash fiction showed up this year.
The standouts were:
Chris Drangle's "A Local's Guide to Dating in Slocomb County" (It also turns out Chris is not just a gifted writer, but he's also an incredibly nice person)
Liz Ziemska's "The Mushroom Queen" (Disturbing, funny, weird--kind of like fungi)
Vladislava Kolosova's "Taxidermy" (Also, her first published story. I'm jealous and impressed.)
Emma Duffy-Comparone's "The Devil's Triangle" (The magic of this story is the unsettling feeling that you are being lied to throughout it.)
Micah Stack's "The G.R.I.E.F." (This story is beautiful and sad and so many things)
I was surprised at how little flash fiction showed up this year.
The standouts were:
Chris Drangle's "A Local's Guide to Dating in Slocomb County" (It also turns out Chris is not just a gifted writer, but he's also an incredibly nice person)
Liz Ziemska's "The Mushroom Queen" (Disturbing, funny, weird--kind of like fungi)
Vladislava Kolosova's "Taxidermy" (Also, her first published story. I'm jealous and impressed.)
Emma Duffy-Comparone's "The Devil's Triangle" (The magic of this story is the unsettling feeling that you are being lied to throughout it.)
Micah Stack's "The G.R.I.E.F." (This story is beautiful and sad and so many things)
November 28, 2017
"New Technologies of Reading". Woodward, Angela., "Things I Know to be True ". Fortmeyer, Kendra., "Laika". Batkie, Sara.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews