SALT Publishing announces Scott Prize winners

Congrats to winners of the Scott Prize from the UK's SALT Publishing. Of the ten shortlisted books, including The Greatest Show, at least five will be published in the next eighteen months, including three with SALT, one with Black Lawrence Press, and mine with LSU Press. In these times, when it is more and more difficult to publish short story collections, it's good to know there are still presses out there willing to support the form. Kudos to Jen Hamilton-Emery, fiction editor at SALT, for putting together such a great short list.

And while I'm at it, let me put in a plug for my favorite SALT book of the moment: Eduardo Chirinos' Reasons for Writing Poetry. Eduardo is one of Peru's premier poets, a writer I met when we were on the faculty at the University of Montana (he's still there). I've heard him read poems in Spanish and listened to the same poems in English, and I could listen todos los dias to them in either language. Thanks to G.J. Racz for the exquisite translations. Now all of us who don't read Spanish can enjoy Eduardo's art.

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.

Back inside the tent

from Charlie Chaplin's movie, The Circus

This blog started as an experiment, a high-wire walk with no practice and no net. What did I know of blogging? Nada. But I stepped out there and fell and climbed back up and learned something. Then, I pulled the curtains.

It was time for a new show. For more than two years my blogging mojo has gone into HimPlus17, where my wife and I chat about our age difference (I’m 17 years younger).

But I’ve kept this blog in reserve, mostly for the title. It’s the same as a short story collection I’ve been dreaming up. Someday, I thought, I might need a venue for news about the manuscript as it became a book.

Not quite there yet. But that collection is finished ... and I’m hopeful, especially now. Why?

Here’s a hint.