Purdue prof picked for 'Best American Short Stories'

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Editors of "The Best American Short Stories 2016" have selected a Purdue University professor for inclusion in the latest edition of its anthology series.

Sharon Solwitz, an associate professor of English, will have "Gifted" published in the anthology. The short story was originally published in the spring 2015 issue of New England Review. The short story is set in 2001.

"It's the day before 9/11. Thea is in London for work and resisting - like a good married lady - the advances of a colleague, when she gets a call from her husband. Their 12-year-old son is in the hospital with an undefined mass in his belly. It's not about adultery, though. It's about Thea and her sister, and what it's like to have been an illustrious teenager and come down in the world," Solwitz said.

Selections for "The Best American Short Stories 2016" were curated by guest editor Junot Díaz, author of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," and "This Is How You Lose Her," a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist. The anthology will be released in the fall.

Solwitz's literary honors include a Pushcart Prize, the Dan Curley Award, the Tara Fellowship in Short Fiction (from the Heekin Foundation,) the Katherine Anne Porter Fiction Prize, the Nelson Algren Prize (three times), the Hemingway Days Festival Prize, as well as awards and fellowships from the Kansas and Illinois Arts Councils. Her collection of stories "Blood and Milk" won the Carl Sandburg Prize and the adult fiction award from the Society of Midland Authors, and was runner up for the National Jewish Book Award. Her novel "Bloody Mary" came out from Sarabande in 2003. Her short fiction has been published in numerous magazines including Ploughshares, the Chicago Tribune, Tikkun and Mademoiselle. Most recently Moment Magazine awarded her first prize for her story, "After Talking, What?" Solwitz's novel "Once, in Lourdes" is tentatively scheduled for publication in 2017. 

Writer: John Hughey, 765-494-2432, hugheyj@purdue.edu

Source: Sharon Solwitz, ssolwitz@purdue.edu