Scribners Best of the Fiction Workshops 1998

Scribner's Best of the Fiction Workshops

by Carol Shields (Editor), John Kulka (Editor), Natalie Danford (Editor)

From Simon & Schuster, Scribner's Best of the Fiction Workshops 1998 showcases the most exciting and innovative invoice in North American fiction from 1998.

Gathered from 100 different workshops, these remarkably diverse stories possess the quality of works by more established authors, while offering the pleasure of discovering the unpredictable and irresistible voices of an up-and-coming generation .

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published February 24, 1998

About the author

Carol Ann Shields was an American-born Canadian author. She is best known for her successful 1993 novel The Stone Diaries, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Governor General's Award. Her novel Swann won the Best Novel Arthur Ellis Award in 1988.

Reviews

[Nita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought this book from the Princeton public library's used book sale. It happened to contain a short story written by one of my then-clients during his time in grad school at Temple (what a relief when I read it and it was legitimately good). Was fun to read short stories by authors who have, since 1998, gone on to publish even more, including

Kiran Desai
Julie Otsuka
Adam Marshall Johnson

The latter, of course, now publishes under simply Adam Johnson, and is the Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Orphan Master's Son. In his short story Your Own Backyard, he shows that his writing chops have developed over decades of work.

I didn't read all the short stories because honestly I'm more of an essay girl, but all the stories I did read I enjoyed.

That's about how sophisticated of a review I can provide more than two years after the fact :)

[Sherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a variety of stories, most of them well-written. I skipped a handful of stories - either because they didn't interest me or were poorly written. My favorite (and by far the best) was the very first story in the book. It left me hungry and wanting to know more. I look forward to finding more by that author.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike the previous year's edition, this collection had no bad stories. However, there were also not as many five-star stories as last year either. Highlights from this collection include "A Man of Few Words," "The Shooting," "Through the Timber," "Clean," and "Evacuation Order No. 19."

[Matthew Austin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great collection of stories from new, younger authors.