Our 2017 Pushcart Choices

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WE HAVE an image in our heads of a back room at Pushcart Press. In the room are envelopes– stacks of postmarked envelopes. Corridors of mountains of stacks of mailed envelopes sent by every literary press or project in America– nominations for the 2017 Pushcart Prize. Ours is there, in the room, somewhere, among them.

We’re optimists, so we designed our mailing and its Intro letter– and chose our nominees– with a goal in mind: winning the elusive prize. The odds? What are odds!? We sneer at the odds! We have no “name” writers, and we aren’t a name ourselves to the good people at Wainscott, New York. But we’re here and we believe in ourselves and our project.

This year we published a number of excellent stories, poems, and profiles. Many could have been nominated. We used reasoning and rationalizations to make our selections– all such decisions are ultimately arbitrary, based on whim and whisper as much as logic. So it was with us.

OUR SELECTIONS and the reasons for them:

Elusive Instinct” by Ana Prundaru.

Simple, clear writing. Perfectly easy to get into, but with marked style as well. No easy trick to accomplish. A story whose tone and mood fits the stylish aesthetic to which we aspire.

“Dry Bones” by Sonia Christensen, and “The Fetus” by Clint Margrave.

Two well-written, powerful stories which begin with intriguing openings. Read the first sentences of both of them. The titles themselves are provocative and visual. More than this, the stories are works of art with depth of meaning to them.

“Operative 73 Takes a Swim”  by Wred Fright.

This one is so different from the norm in execution, ideas, and plot we believe it would catch anyone’s eye. Even in Wainscott, should any eye happen to glance at it, within the mountains and stacks. Like the others, it’s also a terrific little tale. Wred has published work with New Pop Lit on several occasions, is overdue for recognition from us. The lesson: keep sending us work!

Finally, we nominated two short-but-striking Appreciations of American writers, which we published as part of the ongoing All-Time American Writers Tournament.

One, about Philip K. Dick, is by D.C. Miller. The other, about Gene Wolfe, is by Robin Wyatt Dunn. Two able wordsmiths who can do much with a limited amount of words.
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We love and respect all the writers we’ve published, and all who’ve submitted work. Without the writer we’re nowhere– just a blank screen awaiting the magic of art.

Interview with Sonia Christensen

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(Literary news is when we publish the best new short fiction featured anywhere. In conjunction with the story “Dry Bones” we interviewed the author.)

NEW POP LIT: Hi Sonia. Are you a morning writer or evening writer?

SONIA CHRISTENSEN: Definitely evening, or better yet, night. There’s something about writing in the dark—it’s easier to be honest in the dark, I think, and it’s easier to get lost in your story.

NPL: When did you first begin writing?

SC: I was pretty young when I first started writing. There was a story I wrote in te fourth grade about a girl hiding under a tree (in some kind of cavern? Underground treehouse? Not sure). My mom kept that one in her memories box for years. And then I didn’t have to take gym in the seventh grade because I took writing instead, which is one of the best things that has happened to me to date. I’d say I got serious about writing my sophomore year of college though.

NPL: What was the impetus for your story, “Dry Bones?”

SC: Well the cat was actually real. I had to take the bus to work one day and I ended up walking with a coworker from the bus stop to the warehouse and there was an actual cat there and she did actually say “oh god it’s still there,” and that got my attention to say the least.

NPL: How much of the story is imagined? How much is reality?

SC: So the cat itself was real, although I only saw it the one day and I don’t know what happened to it. Everything else is fictional.

NPL: Who’s your favorite novelist? Story writer?

SC: I’m not sure, my favorites change so often. I just read Bastard out of Carolina and fell in love with Dorothy Allison. But I also love Daniel Woodrell and Gillian Flynn and lately again my childhood favorite, Agatha Christie. Short story-wise I’d have to say Lydia Davis, George Saunders and Tobias Wolff.

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Thanks, Sonia!