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At One Story, we like to toot our author’s horns. This week, we’re tooting for One Story author Irina Reyn, whose first novel, What Happened to Anna K was released today! In this re-telling of Tolstoy’s classic tragedy, Anna Karenina, Irina Reyn changes the setting to modern day New York City, within a community of Russian-Jewish immigrants. What Happened to Anna K is an Indie Next pick, and also an Amazon ‘Best of the Month’ pick. It’s been receiving amazing reviews, including this one from Publisher’s Weekly:

“Set among early 21st-century Russian Jewish immigrants in New York City, Reyn’s debut beautifully adapts Anna Karenina’s social melodrama for a decidedly different set of Russians. . . [her] sparkling insight into the Russian and Bukharan Jewish communities, and the mesmerizing intensity of her prose, make this debut a worthy remake.”

Visit Irina’s Website!

Listen to her on NPR!

Buy her book for 40% this month at Amazon!

Today the New York Public Library’s very cool Digital Bookmobile is in Queens, at Cunningham Park. Tomorrow it is going to be hitting Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Download your favorite short story collections, for free! For more info, go here.

I first read Nell Casey’s “How to Know Each Other” in 2007 at the Sirenland Writers Conference. I was immediately struck by Maggie’s voice, and, when I came to the end, I was moved by the final moment of the story in a way that I had not expected. It is a transcendent scene. A moment of true magic. For anyone who has ever been a caretaker for someone you love, either in illness or advanced age, this story will strike close to home. It is an arena that Nell Casey knows well–she recently edited a wonderful anthology called An Uncertain Inheritance: Writers on Caring for Family. (Read her Q&A to learn more.) But none of this experience would have made a difference if Nell did not find a way to create characters that literally walk off the page. Mercy, Maggie, Eve and their father are drawn so convincingly in such a compact and thorough way, that I found myself thinking of them, long after I put the story down, and worrying what was going to happen in their lives. It has now been a year and half since I first read “How to Know Each Other,” and I still tear up when I reach that perfect, perfect line: “You have been a wonderful wife.”

Many, many thanks to Chris and Hailey, our summer interns, who did a massive inventory of our issues, stuffed thousands of envelopes, answered customer complaints, logged subscriptions, designed our email blasts, learned html, posted ‘From the trenches’ on our blog, found two diamonds in the slush pile, spent an inordinate amount of time at Staples, brought us tasty doughnuts, and read 689 submissions.

We will miss you!

According to USA Today, Viggo Mortensen (a.k.a. Aragorn from Lord of the Rings) will be playing the father in the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Road. (See our earlier post on McCarthy vs. semicolons). The director, John Hillcoat, decided that the best landscape to depict the end of the world was Pittsburgh. Can NOT wait for this one to come out.

This may very well be my last post for the summer, as I have to return to school soon. That said, I’d like to thank all of you for reading the blog and I’d like to thank Hannah and Maribeth for giving me this great opportunity.

Over the course of my summer here at One Story, I’ve done a lot of slush reading. That in mind I found, probably, the best take of the submitter-reader relationship ever in The Onion Today. Poor Mike Mussina… He does the crossword puzzle every day you know. He is very tenacious, though, as he “told” the Onion:

“My next submission I think has a really good shot of getting in—’Works Of Ernest Hemingway If Hemingway Were A Robot,’” Mussina added. “You got your obvious ones like ‘The Amperage Also Rises,’ and ‘A Farewell To Cybernetic Arms.’ Then Joba [Chamberlain], in the bullpen the other day jokingly suggested ‘The Old Robot And The Sea,’ which at first I thought was stupid. But the more I thought about it, it actually might be pretty funny to just sort of point out the inherent absurdity of the original premise. Joba’s a funnier guy than he thinks.”

I guess Joba can go work on his stand-up routine while he rehabs from his shoulder injury. *Chris locks himself in the bathroom and cries over a lost season* Anyway, thanks again for reading and enjoy your stories!!!!

The L Magazine named the “best of New York City” in various categories, including the “Best Short Stories Published by NYC Publications”. First on the list? One Story issue #102, “What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us” by Laura van den Berg. The other three stories were in The New Yorker, Harper’s and A Public Space. You can order copies of the issue here.

One Story author Danit Brown’s first collection of stories, Ask for a Convertible, was released yesterday. It includes the story she published with us, “Selling the Apartment.” Here’s what Publisher’s Weekly had to say:

“Home isn’t just about place,” Efrat Greenberg scolds her daughter, Osnat, in “Ascent,” the last of the 13 linked stories in Brown’s debut collection spanning approximately 20 years. But the struggles and longings of these two Tel Aviv–born women who move to Ann Arbor, Mich., when Osnat is in junior high school echo in all of Brown’s characters. Efrat is woefully homesick: she moved for her American husband, Marvin, who accepted a teaching job after 13 years in Israel. Osnat seeks kinship from classmate and fellow immigrant Sanjay. The quest for connection is larger than the Greenbergs: in “Running,” family friend Harriet cements a friendship with an unpopular girl when the two teens concoct—after studying Anne Frank—an escape plan in case Nazis take over America. And then there’s Noam, a battle-scarred Israeli soldier who arrives in New York with big dreams, but ends up slinging hummus in a Chicago suburb. He and Osnat wind up together on the night of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. At once openhearted and close-minded, Brown’s characters often offend one another when they collide, and their stories capture the awkwardness of both coming to America and coming-of-age.” –Publisher’s Weekly

Visit Danit’s website.
Buy the book!
Read Danit’s story, “Hands Across America”, a hilarious and touching take on that strange moment in 1986.

One Story author Roxana Robinson was on Leonard Lopate yesterday, talking about her new novel, Cost. To listen to her NPR interview, go here.

The long list for the Man Booker prize is in:

Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger
Gaynor Arnold, Girl in a Blue Dress
Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture
John Berger, From A to X
Michelle de Kretser, The Lost Dog
Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies
Linda Grant, The Clothes on Their Backs
Mohammed Hanif, A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Philip Hensher, The Northern Clemency
Joseph O’Neill, Netherland
Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence
Tom Rob Smith, Child 44
Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the Whole

The Chair of judges, Michael Portillo, says of the list:

“With a notable degree of consensus, the five Man Booker judges decided on their longlist of 13 books. The judges are pleased with the geographical balance of the longlist with writers from Pakistan, India, Australia, Ireland and UK. We also are happy with the interesting mix of books, five first novels and two novels by former winners. The list covers an extraordinary variety of writing. Still two qualities emerge this year: large scale narrative and the striking use of humour.”

The Prize is awarded to any full-length novel, written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland and published this year, is eligible for the prize. The novel must be an original work in English (not a translation) and must not be self-published.

Past winners include Kazuo Ishiguro for Remains of the Day, Yann Martel for Life of Pi, Arundhati Roy for The God of Small Things, and Graham Swift for Last Orders.

The 2008 shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 9th September at a press conference at Man Group’s London office. The winner will be announced on Tuesday 14th October at an awards ceremony at Guildhall, London.