The shortlist for the Scott Prize

Here's some great good news. My short story collection manuscript, The Greatest Show, is on the shortlist for The Scott Prize, an award that carries publication with the fine independent press, SALT Publishing.

SALT is an international publisher, headquartered in the U.K., with a bunch of great books and writers in its catalogue. Congrats to all those who made the shortlist. I've checked you all out, and I’m feeling lucky to have my manuscript among yours.

The Greatest Show came out of my unending fascination with my hometown, Hartford, Connecticut, and its history. On July 6, 1944, a fire erupted during a matinee performance inside a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus tent, killing more than 160 people and injuring hundreds more. My father would have been inside the tent that day had his divorced parents not argued and his mother kept him from an outing with his dad. Years later, when I was an adult, the fire still haunted Hartford's cultural consciousness. My stories grow out of that haunting.

My gratitude goes to the folks at SALT.