I just recieved the nicest letter from a writer whose book I reviewed: My most recent short story collection Months and Seasons is up for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. It's a prize from Ireland, the most lucrative short story award around, which Jumpra Lahiri won last year for Unaccustomed Earth. Leading names on this year’s list include Booker winner Kazuo Ishiguro, Orange Prize winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, winner of the (British) National Short Story Award and former judge for the Frank O’Connor Award James Lasdun, multiple prize-winning poet Sean O’Brien and previously short-listed authors Philip O Ceallaigh and Charlotte Grimshaw. And there I am. You can see the list here: http://www.munsterlit.ie/FOC%20Award%20page.html. At €35,000 the award is the largest in the world for the short story form and monetarily is greater than the Costa Book of the Year Award and the Orange Prize. Months and Seasons contains a dozen stories. With a combination of main characters from young to old and with drama and humor, the tales pursue such people as a supermodel who awakens after open-heart surgery, a famous playwright who faces a firestorm consuming the landscape, a reluctant man who attends a Halloween party as Dracula, and a New Yorker who thinks she's a chicken. You can get a taste of one story here: http://www.redroom.com/publishedwork/months-and-seasons Perhaps this will even lead people to buy my other books, the short story collection The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea and my very recent and well-reviewed first novel, The Brightest Moon of the Century. This shows, too, that your review helped push things forward. I thank you for your support. Best, Chris This is pure flattery for me since the contents of the book matter most. I just hope he makes it all the way to winning this wonderful prize.
The shortlist of six will be decided in late June with the winner announced on September 20th at the close of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Festival in Cork.
The judges are Lloren A. Foster, an Assistant Professor of English at Hampton University; Milka Jankowska who co-ordinates the International Short Story Festival in Wroclaw, Poland; and award-winning Irish author Vincent McDonnell.
China 2007
- Best of the hundreds of pictures we took on our trip to China with the Ohio State Alumni and AHI Tours. Copyright Robert and Sheri Harper
Hawaii
- Our October/November trip to Oahu and Kauai islands in Hawaii. Pictures taken with a Nikon digital camera by Bob Harper.
Midwest Critters
- These are some of the fine birds and beasts we encountered on our recent trip along the Snake River and to the Dakotas for a family reunion. All photos copyright Robert Harper, were taken on a Nikon Coolpix 5700.
Melakwa Lake Hike
- These are some pictures taken during our Labor day weekend hike to Melakwa Lake. This hike is one of the many found in the Denny Creek recreation area in the Cascade Mountains of WA state, at the exit off I-90 bearing the name. Follow the signs to Denny Creek road, pass the campground and eventually you get to the Melakwa Lake trailhead. Total trip length 8 miles, approximately 9 hours with 2950 gain. Good stopping points at 1 mile in at slippery rocks and at the second falls about 45 minutes further. Hemlock pass is another 2.5 miles. Once you reach the top, the trail drops 1/2 a mile, 350 feet to the lake.
Mushrooms
- These photo's were taken yesterday by my husband, Bob on our day workshop on Mushrooms at the Cedar River Watershed in Washington state. See my blog about this event for more information. I don't know all the names of the mushrooms shown. The photo's were taken with a Nikon. All photo's and text copyright Robert and Sheri Harper.
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