Granta & Tin House Receive Recognition for Their Fantastic Short Stories

 

Another literary win is in the bag for Benay clients, Tin House and Granta. The O. Henry Prize recognizes great pieces of short fiction and is “intended to ‘strengthen the art of the short story and to stimulate younger authors.’” Tin House has two winners with Kristen Iskandrian’s “The Inheritors” and Dylan Landis’ “Trust.” Granta has one winner with Mark Haddon’s “The Gun.” 

You can read “The Inheritors” in Tin House’s summer 2012 “Summer Reading” Journal Issue 52.

You can read “Trust” in Tin House’s summer 2013 “Summer Reading” Journal Issue 56.

You can read “The Gun” here (but you must be a subscriber to Granta Magazine).

Benay is always excited and happy to see our clients get well-deserved recognition. We wish Tin House and Granta the best.

Tin House Gains More Speed with N.Y. Times Rave Review of 'American Dream Machine'

by Colleen McClintock

Tin House Books saw yet another rave review of Matthew Specktor’s novel American Dream Machine appear in the print copy of the New York Times’ June 2nd Sunday Book Review. The same review was published early on the New York Times website, the previous Friday.

In laymen’s terms, the exposure that both Tin House and Specktor received within one single weekend was downright impressive. The review was featured on the eleventh page of the Book Review section, and took up the entire space of the page; a feat not easily achieved in the Times.  It was written by Christine Sneed, a well-established author, herself. It is perhaps because of this that Sneed was able to tap into the sentimentality of Specktor’s novel in her review, calling its dismal tone “elegaic” and deeming it as a “hip bildungsroman” narrated by the protagonist, Nate, in the fashion of a “fever dream.”

A photo of Matthew Specktor featured in the Times' review
of American Dream Machine, June 2.

This is arguably the biggest of praises that Tin House has seen this year via American Dream Machine, but it is definitely not the first, as the Times – and others – have featured smaller-scale reviews of the book since its April release.

But it is not just novels like American Dream Machine that give Tin House its chutzpah; titles are only part of it. There are factors like last year’s VIDA count that also come into play.

The VIDA count is an annual survey taken by the feminist literary group, VIDA, to see where the most gender equality lies in the world of publishing. In 2012 Tin House stood out among the lot as one of the most progressive in terms of gender balance, along with fellow Benay client, Granta Magazine.

Tin House also reinforces itself as a living, breathing institution through the yearly workshops they hold for up-and-coming writers. They are residential programs run by the very same editors of Tin House Books and of their sister lit mag, Tin House Magazine. The workshops are entered strictly through application and acceptance, but hold little pretense elsewhere and promise much growth for those who enroll. It is Tin House’s way of aiding new writers in reaching the successes that authors like Specktor have reached. In this, they ensure the survival and perseverance of a literary tradition based on craft, style, and most importantly, passion.

If you’d like to learn more about Tin House Books, please feel free to visit their website by clicking here. To see excerpts from American Dream Machine, please visit the book's page on the Tin House website. 

Akashic Writer, David McConnell Tries on Nonfiction; Says the Shoe Fits, Just Differently

Akashic author, David McConnell alongside the cover of
his new book, American Honor Killings:
Desire and Rage Among Men

What can be said when a writer leaves his or her fiction post, if only temporarily, to take on something harder, more factual?  It’s an interesting move, given that a fiction writer’s whole professional existence is heavily shrouded in the unreal.  It’s almost like a singer deciding to put the old pipes to rest and pick up some drumsticks; same general area but still is, for the most part, all new territory.

Yet, when novelist David McConnell describes the method to the madness of his new non-fiction book, American Honor Killings: Desire and Rage Among Men, it all makes perfect sense.  The book, released from Benay client Akashic Books just two weeks ago, is pretty much the non-fiction cousin of his previous two novels, The Firebrat and The Silver Hearted.  The subject matter is unanimous; very young, typically foolish male protagonists who get tangled in their respective webs of extreme bias and violence. 

In 2003 McConnell brought The Firebrat to life through the tale of an aspiring, witty writer who decides to out him and his subsequently outraged partner via short story.  The firestorm that commences sends the young man through a crash course of identity change that even his cocky intelligence can’t best.  In 2010 McConnell wove another tale of crime and secrecy in the context of a wartime seaport.  An old wino and a naïve sailor must band together to hide the fortunes of a few shady investors, but their worldviews clash.  The drunkard’s power-trip and the naif’s moral conscious clash with unexpected and rather unpleasant results.

The "Betrayal" issue of Granta,
released, Spring 2013.

Intricate, no?  Except poring over the details of these two stories was not enough for McConnell.  He describes why in a recent interview with Patrick Ryan, Associate Editor for Benay’s other client, Granta Magazine.

“I wanted to do something more urgent than wordsmithing in my mansard,” McConnell explains. “Violence has always loomed large for me as an imaginary thing. But violence is also on our cultural stage in a way it hasn’t been in earlier generations.”

Right you are, Mr. McConnell. 

With tragedies like Sandy Hook happening right in Benay’s very own backyard, we know all too well what he means.  Though American Honor Killings does not deal with quite that same situation, it stays along the same vein.  The book recounts six cases in which young men, harboring large amounts of seemingly irrational violence in them, have lashed out and killed.  The victims in each and every one of these cases were all homosexual men.  McConnell’s book specifically tries to crack the logic behind these killings, delving deep into the psyche of unstable, hate-ridden young men like his featured perpetrators.

McConnell writes in his book about one specific murder that it was driven by “an authentic instance of hatred that can’t be psychologized away – an idea of what’s right, not simple emotion, caused him to kill.”  When Patrick Ryan addresses this statement in the Granta interview, asking why it is not a case of the famously coined term “gay panic,” McConnell explains that all of the killers he writes of were reasoning individuals that used a “sober world view” throughout all of their actions.  “I’d say the crimes all primarily involve a diseased sense of self,” says McConnell, “more than they involve anything like a reaction to another, very different, human being.”

It is in this that McConnell’s own reasoning behind his book is revealed.  A writer can make a character as fascinating or as dull as they would like, but in the end it is just a character, and their perverse and violent world holds the sanctity of the fact that, in the end, it is not real.  It’s only natural that David McConnell came to realize this and, having dealt with such pressing subject matter, could no longer resist the temptation to dive into it for real.

To view excerpts from American Honor Killings: Desire and Rage Among Men please click here, where you can peruse sample pages and/or purchase the paperback and digital editions.  Please feel free to visit the Akashic and Granta websites and browse the additional upcoming features and titles that both publishers have to offer - they have much authorial talent, old and new, at your disposal.

- Colleen McClintock