The Iowa Award: The Best Stories, 1991-2000

by Frank Conroy

According to the New York Times Book Review, the Iowa Short Fiction Award is among the most prestigious literary prizes America offers, and the Chicago Tribune has called the honor a respected prize that annually introduces readers to a writer whose work is little known outside the circle of literary magazine and university publications. In 1991, to both celebrate the stories discovered by the Iowa Short Fiction Award and its companion, the John Simmons Short Fiction Award, and to further acquaint readers with the prize-winning authors, Frank Conroy compiled The Iowa The Best Stories from Twenty Years. He follows that now with The Iowa The Best Stories, 1991-2000, a collection of twenty-one winning selections. Whether hurtling toward Earth in a disabled airplane, sharing silence with a prostitute, fantasizing about the Manson family, or hiding disgust for a dying friend, the characters in this new collection engage and captivate readers. The authors - from 1991 winners Elizabeth Harris and Sondra Spatt Olsen to newcomers John McNally and Elizabeth Oness - explore the nuances of love, lust, youth, old age, illness, nostalgia, obsession, idiosyncrasy, and surprise. Th

Genres: Short Stories

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Frank Conroy was an American author, born in New York, New York to an American father and a Danish mother. He published five books, including the highly acclaimed memoir Stop-Time, published in 1967, which ultimately made Conroy a noted figure in the literary world. The book was nominated for the National Book Award.
Conroy graduated from Haverford College, and was director of the influential Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa for 18 years, from 1987 until 2005, where he was also F. Wendell Miller Professor. He was previously the director of the literature program at the National Endowment for the Arts from 1982–1987.
Conroy's published works included: the moving memoir Stop-Time; a collection of short stories, Midair; a novel, Body and Soul, which is regarded as one of the finest evocations of the experience of being a musician; a collection of essays and commentaries, Dogs Bark, but the Caravan Rolls On: Observations Then and Now; and a travelogue, Time and Tide: A Walk Through Nantucket. His fiction and non-fiction appeared in such journals as The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, Harper's Magazine and Partisan Review. He was named a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.
In addition to writing, Conroy was an accomplished jazz pianist, winning a Grammy Award in 1986. His book Dogs Bark, But the Caravan Rolls On: Observations Then and Now includes articles that describe jamming with Charles Mingus and with Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman. The latter session occurred when Conroy was writing about the Rolling Stones for Esquire. Conroy had arrived at a mansion for the interview, found nobody there, and eventually sat down at a grand piano and began to play. Someone wandered in, sat down at the drums, and joined in with accomplished jazz drumming; then a fine jazz bassist joined in. They turned out to be Watts and Wyman, whom Conroy did not recognize until they introduced themselves after the session.
Conroy died of colon cancer on April 6, 2005, in Iowa City, Iowa, at the age of 69.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Co...

Reviews

[John Addiego · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great retrospective! It was fun to match the writers with the judges. I'm experiencing a renewed interest in short stories.

[Nora · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best of the best! As Frank Conroy says in his introduction, these stories are for readers who are "so hungry for freshness, originality, and the thrill of discovery they will crawl on their knees through a snowstorm for a taste of the real thing." My favorite stories were by Sondra Spatt Olsen, Susan Onthank Mates, and Thisbe Nissen.

[Randall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining in terms of characters and story lines.

[Al Kratz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gold mine for short story studies. Only a few in here I gave up on reading.

[Geralyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

i read about 3/4 of this which is a lot for short stories for me. was good, some terrible but some very good. the reason i read the book was because i read "above the thunder" by rene manfredi which i liked. and her short story in this was good as well.