The Iowa Award: The Best Stories from Twenty Years - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0877453136 ISBN 13: 9780877453130

Publisher: Univ of Iowa Pr, 1991

Synopsis

A collection of Iowa Short Fiction Award-winning stories from the past twenty years, by such authors as Dan O'Brien, Marly Swick, Mary Hedin, Lon Otto, and Lucia Nevai

About this title

Reviews

YA-- A collection of short fiction selected from the annual volumes of the Iowa Short Fiction Award winners. These stories have a wonderful variety of places and people, and the selections are usually so complete and compelling that readers will want to go on to more by the same author. One of the volume's strengths is that there is a statement of biography and a brief paragraph or two of critical information prior to each entry.

Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

The Iowa Short Fiction Award, established in 1969, entails publication of the winner's first collection of stories. For this anniversary volume the director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop has gathered stories from each of the 25 prize-winning collections (there were two winners in some years). Though diverse in subject matter, the stories deliver a common immediacy developed by the authors' close observations of intimate, small-scale happenings. Susan Dodd's "Rue" finds a world of emotion in a middle-aged woman's long-postponed search for the husband who abandoned her. "Little Bear" by Robert Boswell explores a bewildered young soldier's unfulfilled search for meaning in the cold wet trenches of Korean battlefields. In "Elba" by Marly Swick, intergenerational relationships shift with news of a grandchild born to a daughter given away 25 years earlier. Philip F. O'Connor in "American Gothic" delivers a spellbinding evocation of teenage cruelty among a group of library pages. Most of these tales are contemporary in tone and format, developed in nonlinear, impressionistic fashion. While some do not live up to their authors' later work, all are skillfully told.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Iowa Award, given annually to a promising writer of short stories, assures the publication of the writer's first book of stories. Since it began in 1969, many now prominent writers gained their first recognition here, including Robert Boswell, Cyrus Colter, Dianne Benedict, and Dan O'Brien. Conroy, the director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and noted writer of "Midair" and "Stop Time," has selected one story from each of the award-winning collections. The book attests to the continuing vitality of the short story; highly recommended for most library collections.
- Paul Kaplan, Dakota Cty. Lib. System, Apple Valley, Minn.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Univ of Iowa Pr
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0877453136
• ISBN 13: 9780877453130
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 329