Tag: Short Story Friday

Short Story Friday: The Newlyweds by Joshua Foster

So the last time we had a Short Story Friday, I mentioned that I had wanted to post Joshua Foster’s “The Newlyweds” but was unable to because the link that Theric had submitted was no longer good. I’m pleased to report that the Powers That Be at Dialogue read AMV and have generously provided me with a PDF edition of the story.

Title: The Newlyweds (PDF file)

Author: Joshua Foster

Publication Info: Dialogue; vol 41, No. 2 (Summer 2008)

Submitted by: Theric Jepson

Why?: Theric says: “.

Although it seems like the typical set of characters, these poor dumb kids were very appealing to me.”

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Short Story Friday: Separate Prayers by Ann Edwards-Cannon

I wanted to bring you Joshua Foster’s “The Newlyweds” today, which Th. suggested more than a year ago, but Dialogue’s recent website revamping has put the story back in the paid archive (which it should) so for our purposes, that story is going to have to wait. There are a couple of more items in the spreadsheet, but I don’t want to deal with them just yet (for a variety of reasons), so since I’m off from work today, I decided to randomly poke around the 1980s Sunstone mags (since last time I did this, I had poked around in Dialogue’s archives).  I only got two editions in when I found this story by Ann Edwards-Cannon, which received honorable mention in the 1981 Sunstone Fiction Contest. I think it’s worth featuring. Also: we need more submissions so if you have time and interest, click on the links on the bottom of this post and help me find some more stories.

Title: Separate Prayers (PDF file, the story is on page 33 of the file)

Author: Ann Edwards-Cannon

Publication Info: Sunstone 30 (November-December 1981)

Submitted by: Wm Morris

Why?: Wm says: “I’ll be honest here: I was looking for a story that seemed like it fit in to this time period in both American and Mormon literature because we haven’t really featured it much so far. I think “Separate Prayers” very much is of its time (which I don’t see as a bad thing). It’s feminist, but in a downbeat way. It’s a time when fathers — even when they are history professors — can retire as cranky farmers (and resist developers). It’s a time when husbands cook and do the dishes and that fact means something, but doesn’t have quite the weight that it might have had 15 years previous. It’s a time when therapy still could possibly mean Freud. It comes across to me (and I could be totally wrong here) like a post-Doug Thayer, trailing end of second-wave feminism, Sunstone crowd short story. It’s also well-written with several spot on details.”

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Short Story Friday: Outsiders by Margaret Young

It’s time to get back to AMV’s Friday Features. And I wanted to do so by digging into the Dialogue archives and pulling out a short story that I had never read or even heard of but one that was by an author whose work I was familiar with. I haven’t read it yet — and I’m booked this weekend so I may not get to it until Sunday afternoon or evening. But this it what fit the bill. Enjoy (I hope)…

Title: Outsiders

Author: M. J. Young (Margaret Young)

Publication Info: Dialogue 24:1 (Spring 1991)

Submitted by: Wm Morris

Why?: I don’t know yet.

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Short Story Friday: Holey Discourse, a Kent Larsen translation of a Verissimo story

What makes this story appropriate for Short Story Friday is not the content of the work or the religious affiliation of the author, but rather the fact that the translator is LDS and introduced in to an LDS context (his circle of friends on Facebook — and then by submitting it to me). It’s a short dialogue between a Catholic bishop and his impish, philisophical conversant.

Title: Holey Discourse

Author: Luiz Fernando Verissimo; translation by Kent Larsen

Publication Info: Facebook Note, 2009

Submitted by: Kent Larsen

Why?: Kent says: “I love the wordplay philosophical games, and the ability of the author to find an argumentative way out.”

Wm adds: I like that the wordplay actually translates in to English. Ah, Latin!

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Short Story Friday: Otherwise Afflicted by Steve Evans

When Steve first sent this to me for review for Popcorn Popping (because in the beginning if either Steve, Brian G. or I were going to post our own work the other two had to agree that it was worth posting), I experienced one of those authorial twinges of pain because it was exactly like a project I had planned out about a year or so previous but hadn’t completed. That is, a series of shortish short stories or vignettes that all centered around one common experience (with Steve it was writing someone’s name on the temple prayer roll; mine was about priesthood duos visiting homes*).  But I quickly got over it and instead reveled in the fact that this sort of thing was clearly in the air.  What I like about this story is how fantastically Mormon it feels.

Title: Otherwise Afflicted

Author: Steve Evans

Publication Info: Popcorn Popping, 2006

Submitted by: Katya

Why?: Katya says: “I’ve been going through the Popcorn Popping archives and found this story very interesting, but was disappointed that there wasn’t much discussion about it there. Reposting it will hopefully amend that.”

Wm adds: “Agreed. Thanks, Katya!”

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* Note: that would be Gentle Persuasions

Short Story Friday: Tales of Teancum Singh Rosenberg by James Goldberg

I like to reward work of Mormon narrative art that is well crafted AND made available for free online so I awaited the Mormon Artist Contest Issue (which my sister Katherine co-edited and my other sister Ann helped copyedit) with much anticipation. It features work by Mormon artists under the age of 30, and AMV’s own Tyler Chadwick scored an honorable mention with his poem “For the Man in the Red Jacket.”

However, to my dismay, short fiction was not to be found among any of the winners or honorable mentions — we have 3 poems, a personal essay and a short play. Certainly all well-w0rth reading (and it’s interesting how many of the works featured play with scripture in somewhat similar ways to my Speculations series and Theric’s The FOB Bible), but my core literary love is fiction, and so it was a delight to discover a bonus addition to the issue — a set of tales by special edition co-editor James Goldberg that are informed by his interesting mix of ethnic identities.

Title: Tales of Teancum Singh Rosenberg

Author: James Goldberg

Publication Info: Mormon Artist, Nov. 2009

Submitted by: William Morris

Why?: Wm says: “I like how Goldberg takes these three ethnic elements from his own poly-ethnic background — that is Mormon, Sikh, Jew — as well as certain elements from each of those cultures storytelling traditions and melds them together. It both legitimizes and complicates the concept of Mormon ethnicity, but setting aside all the theory — it’s a fun series of mini-tales to read.

Also: how can I not reward a mixture of humor, folk tale and parable?”

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Short Story Friday: Pride of Lions by Eugene Woodbury

Because this story by Eugene Woodbury features this line: “I don’t need a chaperon, Forrest.” And it’s an interesting, slightly subversive (read the story and Eugene’s note below) but in a good way, slice of home literature.

Title: Pride of Lions

Author: Eugene Woodbury

Publication Info: The New Era, 1993

Submitted by: Eugene

Why?: Eugene says: When an editor at The New Era correctly recognized the homage to Christian Slater (Pump up the Volume, Heathers), I restrained myself from quipping, “Oh, so you watch R-rated movies too?”

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Short Story Friday: “County Doctor” (Wm’s Kafka translation)

Due to popular demand, the rather non-existent market for literary translations of short work, and just because I’m such a nice guy, this week’s Short Story Friday is my translation of Kafka’s Ein Landarzt. You have the weekend to read it and respond. On Monday I will update this post and talk about the choices I made, the process of translation and a little bit about my reading of the story. But I wanted to give devoted AMV readers the chance to read it without extra-textual influences first.

Story: County Doctor: A translation of Kafka’s “Ein Landarzt” for the American West
(liner notes for the translation)

Author: Franz Kafka, translation by William Morris

Year: Translation 2004, Story 1920

Publication Info: Self-published via Google Docs

Short Story Friday: Now and at the Hour of Our Death by Todd Robert Petersen

We’re starting back up with feature Fridays at AMV. Starting late, but starting nonetheless, and we’re kicking off with the return of Short Story Friday. Today (actually tonight), it’s a story by Todd Robert Petersen. Why? Because his Marilyn Brown Unpublished Novel Award-winning Rift* has just been published by Zarahemla Books. For more on Rift, see Laura’s recent interview with Todd. For a taste of his work, click on the link below.

Title: Now and at the Hour of Our Death

Author: Todd Robert Petersen

Publication Info: Dialogue, Summer 2003

Submitted by: Theric Jepson

Why?: Theric writes: “.

I think Petersen is the best short story writer we have at the moment. This particular story is often mentioned to me by others as being their favorite.”

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*Full disclosure: this is going to sound like bragging, but I do think it’s best to disclose any conflicts of interest. So here it is: I read a draft of Rift and commented on it. I have not read the final version of the novel. Also: I very much enjoyed the version I read even though I was initially put off by the idea that Todd was writing a rural Utah novel when I specifically applauded him for the international flavor of his short stories in Long After Dark.

AMV weekend update

It’s summer. I’m feeling lazy. There’s been a drop in weekend comments. Therefore, Short Story Friday is going on hiatus until after labor day. BUT… when it comes back, it will have some new friends. It’s been a blast focusing on stories, but it’s time for our weekends to include a broader palette — the literati should not live on short fiction alone. So there will be an aforepromised analog to Short Story Friday focusing on poetry (no clever name for that yet — suggestions welcome). And I’m going to start a new series called Weekend (Re)Visitors, which will feature brief posts reflecting on and/or quoting from a novel, film or play. The revisiting will sometimes be one of us looking back at a work we’ve already written about and sometimes be a work that’s new to us, but has already been written about by others.

And while I’m doing administrative announcements: AMV’s webhost recently raised monthly hosting fees. It’s still the cheapest of the reliable webhosts, but that means an extra $10 per year. If you plan on doing any back to school shopping, please consider using our Amazon affiliate link (we get a small percentage of any sales that are made during the shopping session a consumer has after clicking through to Amazon with that link). My last t-shirt design generated a lot of traffic (more than 500 visitors in two days to the AMV Spreadshirt store), but no sales. It was perhaps a bit too geeky and esoteric. I’m going to roll out another design in August so if you want to support AMV, but don’t like the two designs we have so far, don’t buy a pity shirt — wait and see.