Joan, Frank
Posted by Donna Levin on June 07, 2010 | READ & ADD COMMENTS BELOWIn Envy Country is Joan Frank’s fourth book, second collection of short stories, and winner of the ND Sullivan Prize for Short Fiction.
If you’re tired of hearing intellectuals dourly predict the death of the novel, you do not want to hear them on the subject of short story collections. Since I, “frankly” (you had to know that was coming), am more likely to pick up a novel than a book of stories, I asked Joan what draws her to that form. She started by acknowledging, with admirable restraint, that “story collections have not generally been perceived as the anointed form in latter-day literary publishing.” But, “I started with short stories because they … were to me like short, commuter-airplane hops as opposed to long, transoceanic crossings. It also felt delicious that a wee bit could stand in for a great deal more.”
Joan’s “wee bit” does stand in for a great deal more, as the Boston Globe observes: “[The stories] are bitingly ironic, provocative scenes of contemporary life, so complete that they will satisfy readers who typically grab 400-page novels.”
Like many writers, Joan grew up not just loving but almost living in books, but she “struck off into the world early, determined to avoid the conventional path of fiction writers (graduate school and teaching). Instead I worked many strange jobs and read only nonfiction during those years, believing it more useful.”
So she wrote journalism until “some instinctive urge” led her to a short story workshop taught by Anne Lamott, who became the first of several mentors. Later she earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina.
This inspires – nay, demands – that I interject that how crucial these mentors are to almost every writer alive. Whenever I hear someone say, “Well, Hemingway and Fitzgerald didn’t get MFAs…” All right, all right, another time.
Joan will be reading at Reader’s Books in Sonoma on June 8th at 7:30 pm. The address is 130 East Napa Street, Sonoma, the phone there is 707-939-1779 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 707-939-1779 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 707-939-1779 end_of_the_skype_highlighting < the fault for this short notice is all mine.
You have plenty of time, though, to get to Copperfield’s Books on June 29th at 7:00 pm. Address: 2316 Montgomery Drive, Santa Rosa; phone 707-578-8938 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 707-578-8938 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 707-578-8938 end_of_the_skype_highlighting www.copperfieldsbooks.com.
A lot more about Joan at www.JoanFrank.org. That’s .ORG, not .com. JoanFrank.com takes you to another person. The gall of some people.
Comments
Adair said on Tuesday, June 08, 2010:
great piece on Joan, Donna. Wondering if the title story reminded you of anybody ..