| Title | : | Best Debut Short Stories 2022 |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 164622163X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781646221639 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 240 |
| Publication | : | First published September 20, 2022 |
Who are the most promising short story writers working today? Where do we look to discover the future stars of literary fiction? This book will offer a dozen answers to these questions.
The stories collected here represent the most recent winners of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, which recognizes twelve writers who have made outstanding debuts in literary magazines in the previous year. They are chosen by a panel of distinguished judges, themselves innovators of the short story form: Deesha Philyaw, Emily Nemens, and Sabrina Orah Mark. Each piece comes with an introduction by its original editors, whose commentaries provide valuable insight into what magazines are looking for in their submissions, and showcase the vital work they do to nurture literature’s newest voices.
Best Debut Short Stories 2022 Reviews
-
did not pack as much punch as the 2021 edition for me. standout short stories from this collection (and worth seeking out separate from the book itself):
• “a wedding in multan, 1978” by yasmin adele majeed
• “them bones” by ck kane
• “the chicken” by rz baschir (A FAVORITE!!!!!!!!! 10/10 in love wow will be hunting down everything this writer has ever published) -
The editors Yuka Igarashi and Sarah Lyn Rogers start their introduction by mentioning the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once to discuss the prevalence of multiverses in popular culture and its understandable allure in the present chaotic times we live in. I read last year's (2021) Dau Prize finalists, was quite impressed and this year's batch also makes me want to check out the planned novels of some of these debut writers. The range of these selected short stories, previously published in various journals and literary magazines, is expectedly quite broad.
The ones that wowed me are:
A Wedding in Multan, 1978 by Yasmeen Adele Majeed
The Cacophobe by Seth Wang
Sacrilege by Edward Salem
The Black Kite and The Wind by Erin Connal
Worthy mention: Work Wives by Preeti Vangani
Before each short story is a note by the editor of the journal the story was originally published in but I would suggest reading the short story first and the commentary after to avoid being unduly influenced by it. Similarly, the overview intro by the two editors of this anthology may blunt some of the impact of certain stories, I personally think it's best to approach them without preconceived notions or information on the subject matter.
Some of the short stories are simply not to my taste eg. climate dystopia (which we are already facing), child narrators or second person narrative. -
I finished reading BEST DEBUT SHORT STORIES 2022: The Pen America Dau Prize edited by Yuka Igarashi and Sarah Lyn Rogers this past weekend. The prize was judged by Sabrina Orah Mark, Emily Nemens and Deesha Philyaw. I love short stories so I was really excited to read this book full of debut writers. I loved these stories! I loved how before each story there’s an editor’s note from the editor who first published the story. There’s great range in these stories that travel around the world and such a wide array of distinct characters. The writing in every story is fantastic and I really enjoyed reading this whole book! My fave stories are Writing With Blood by Catherine Bai which is about a Chinese American girl and The Chicken by RZ Baschir which has that weird edge that I love. I can’t wait to read the 2023 edition next year!
.
Thank you to Catapult for my gifted review copy! -
This is the best volume in this series so far. The book is loaded with strong, captivating writing. Even the stories I didn't like kept me interested to the end, and that's a difficult task. Highly recommended.
-
I read this collection over several weeks, and the truth is that while I enjoyed it very much, because I also read a few novels concurrently, I can't recall many details about the individual stories. As happens with short stories sometimes, none of them really stayed with me long after reading them. But I did enjoy the writing, the diversity of voices, characters, and settings in this collection. It's really lovely for these to be available to people outside of the world of literary journals and for the judges to include an introduction explaining what stood out about each story for them to earn it distinction as one of the best.
I look forward to finding more of these collections in the future, and to trying to find more stories by the included authors as well. -
Several stories a bit too avant garde for me especially the last 3. The concepts were interesting and worth exploring, but I found it hard to connect with the characters to feel swept into the story and buy into it. Needed more feeling not just description of the world the writer created.
The chicken will stick with me. Work wives will stick with me.
From them bones — “I thought about big stuff. I would realize that when you’re a teenager you think you’re the first person to have these thoughts and feelings. And some days your thoughts feel so big nothing else exists and you can’t understand how other people can live their lives while ignoring these big thoughts. You deduce that they just might not have them.” -
Some truly exquisite stories. Made me want to write & write & write some more.
