Shanie Latham

New Stories from the Midwest 2016 is Now Available!

| Ted Wheeler

51cxgh58lol-_sx326_bo1204203200_Have an Amazon gift card leftover from Christmas laying around? Looking for a fiction anthology to assign to your students for the spring semester? Lately been wondering what the best fiction to come out of the Midwest looks like?

Well, wonder no more, get your copy of New Stories from the Midwest 2016 now!

In addition to my story “On a Train from the Place Called Valentine” (which originally appeared in Boulevard magazine) the anthology features stories from acclaimed authors such as Charles Baxter, Stuart Dybek, Joyce Carol Oates, Laura Van Den Berg, and Christine Sneed. It’s an impressive lineup.

Thanks so much to series editors Jason Lee Brown and Shanie Latham, and guest editor Lee Martin, for putting together such an amazing anthology, and New American Press for seeing it to print. You’ve all done the region proud!

New Stories from the Midwest is an anthology series that presents the best literary writing published in the Midwest during the most recent two-year period. The editors select from a large pool of stories gathered from distinguished journals and magazines like Cincinnati Review, Glimmer Train, Hobart, Mid-American Review, Narrative Magazine, Ploughshares, Tin House, and dozens more. Writers featured in the 2016 volume include such luminaries as Charles Baxter, Peter Ho Davies, and Joyce Carol Oates, as well as new voices and rising stars such as Laura Van Den Berg and Rebecca Makkai. Be sure to watch for New Poetry from the Midwest as well!

Update on New Stories from the Midwest 2015

| Ted Wheeler

Check out this all-star lineup of authors for New Stories from the Midwest 2015, due out this summer from New American Press. I’m so honored to have my story “On a Train from the Place Called Valentine” bring up the caboose for this great anthology. Are you kidding me? Baxter, Oates, Ostlund, Sneed, van den Berg, Weil. Two Dybeks! Congrats to series editors Jason Lee Brown and Shanie Latham, and guest editor Lee Martin, for putting together such a superlative anthology!

Thomas M. Atkinson “Grimace in the Burnt Black Hills”
Charles Baxter “Forbearance”
Catherine Browder “Departures”
Claire Burgess “Upper Middle Class Houses”
Peter Ho Davies “Chance”
Stephanie Dickinson “JadeDragon_77”
Jack Driscoll “All the Time in the World”
Nick Dybek “Three Summers”
Stuart Dybek “Tosca”
Abby Geni “Dharma at the Gate”
Albert Goldbarth “Two Brothers”
Baird Harper “Patient History”
Rebecca Makkai “Dead Turtle”
Monica McFawn “Out of the Mouths of Babes”
John McNally “The Magician”
Emily Mitchell “Three Marriages”
Devin Murphy “Levi’s Recession”
Joyce Carol Oates “A Book of Martyrs”
Lori Ostlund “The Gap Year”
Nicole Louise Reid “A Purposeful Violence”
Christine Sneed “In the Bag”
Anne Valente “The Lost Caves of St. Louis”
Lauren van den Berg “Lessons”
Josh Weil “Long Bright Line”
Theodore Wheeler “On a Train from the Place Called Valentine”

“On a Train” Selected for New Stories from the Midwest 2015

| Ted Wheeler

new20stories20201320front20cover20201420aug2016The last days of 2015 are dwindling, but there’s still a little time to sneak in some good news before the calendar turns. So…I’m happy to share that guest editor Lee Martin has picked my story “On a Train from the Place Called Valentine” to appear in the New Stories from the Midwest 2015 anthology!

The story was originally published in Boulevard and is now part of the title/anchor novella of my short fiction collection, Bad Faith, that will be out this summer from Queen’s Ferry Press. Here’s a post I wrote about the story before, and this one too. In short, “On a Train from the Place Called Valentine” is a psychological thriller that follows heroine Amy Gutschow after she jumps a freight train outside Aurora, Nebr and through her confrontation with a pathetic but dangerous ladies man, Aaron Kleinhardt, after she hops off the train in Valentine, Nebr.

Stories of mine made honorable mention in the two previous editions of New Stories from the Midwest. (“The Approximate End of the World” in 2012 and “The Current State of the Universe” in 2013.) I’m super excited to have one of mine make it in this time!

New Stories from the Midwest 2015 should be out in three months or so, and I’ll have more links, photos, and ordering information closer to the release.

Thanks so much to the Series Editors, Jason Lee Brown and Shanie Latham, guest editor Lee Martin, editor of Boulevard Richard Burgin, and New American Press for publishing the anthology!

New Stories from the Midwest, 2012: Honorable Mention

| Ted Wheeler

I’m a little slow on the uptake here, but I should note that New Stories from the Midwest 2012 (aka Best of the Midwest) has been released from Indiana University Press and is ready for your consumption. While none of my work is included in this fine anthology, “The Approximate End of the World” (published by Boulevard of all places) is included as one of “Thirty Other Distinguished Stories.” Never let it be said that I wasn’t distinguished in defeat.

The anthology does include work from such luminaries as Dan Chaon, Charles Baxter, Anthony Doerr, Lee Martin, Christine Sneed, and Mark Wisniewski, among other great writers, and was guest edited by John McNally. According to the jacket copy, “The stories, written by Midwestern writers or focusing on the Midwest, demonstrate that the quality of fiction from and about the heart of the country rivals that of any other region.” Damn right!

Be sure to check it out if you’re interested. Jason Lee Brown and Shanie Latham do a great job putting this together, and it’s surely something Midwestern writers in particular should support.