Longtime readers of this blog will know that last year I feel head over heels in love with Amy Hempel’s short fiction. She is a master of the short form, publishing four collections, one including a novella, over the course of her career. Her output could never be described as prolific but for writing of Hempel’s calibre the wait is more than worth it. Her collected fiction contains so many gems; ‘The Man in Bogota,’ one of the finest pieces of flash fiction ever written, ‘When It’s Human Instead Of When It’s Dog,’ my favourite from her debut collection, featuring the most subtly beautiful fictional relationships I have ever read, ‘The Harvest’ with it’s slowly building avalanche of emotion, ‘Beg, Sl Tog, Inc, Cont, Rep,’ that manages to be a gripping tale of knitting, and then you realise the story is actually about more than togs and needles and your heart breaks under the weight of it.
And when I say your heart breaks when reading Hempel’s best work, I mean proper, shattering, heart breaking. If Amy Hempel has a trademark quality, it has to be her unerring ability to smash your heart into little bitty pieces, then duct tape them back together before you finish reading. It’s why I love her work.
I have yet to find another reader or writer on my various friend lists who has read much Amy Hempel, so as part of Short Story Month 2010, I thought I would run my first competition draw. I have a spare, brand spanking new copy of Amy Hempel’s Collected Stories, that’s all four collections in one handy little paperback. All you need to do to win it is post a comment to this post before midnight, GMT, Monday May 31st, telling my who your favourite short fiction author is and why. Names of comment posters will be entered and the winner pulled from the ubiquitous competition hat.
Please, surprise me. Tell me which short fiction author you think I should be reading.
Listen to her reading a selection of her stories here
Interview with Rob Hart on chuckpalahniuk.net
‘She Breaks Your Heart,’ Palahniuk on Hempel
Dan Powell 
7 Responses to Short Story Month – you should be reading Amy Hempel
The author that hooked me onto short fiction was Tim Winton (Australian author). He has published longer novels, but has a couple of collections of short pieces, “Scission” and “Minimum of Two.”
Yep Tim Winton gets the nod from me too. Very subtle and also has the ability to whack you round the heartstrings in a single short story.
I also very much admire Margot Lanagan and Cate Kennedy, two more Aussie short fiction authors.
That’s three authors I haven’t yet tried. Will aim to fix that. Thanks for the recommendations, Adam and Lily.
Keep ’em coming folks.
One of my favourite short stories ever is called The Yellow Sweater written by Canadian Hugh Garner. He was an amazing writer. I also like Alice Munro. But you know what? Nothing beats a Stephen King story collection on a hot day at the beach. I’d love to check out Amy’s work. She sounds amazing.
I see Tim Winton has had a few votes – and although I too love his descriptive narrative and exploration of character; I’ll now throw my hat in the ring for another favoured short story author – Nick Earls.
Yes – alot of his characters and settings are within Brisbane or at least Australia – but his prose has such a witty beauty about it that even when you are laughing till your sides hurt, there are strong messages which haunt you for the rest of the day.
Insightful into the human frailty of emotion, Nicks characters are always colourful, 3 dimensional and above all – believable.
check him out.. you won’t be sorry.
I recently read a fascinating Steampunk short story that made me wish i was a better writer.
The Giving Mouth by Ian R. MacLeod
Thanks for the recommendations, everyone, will be checking them out soon. Was planning to do the draw today but have been battling a nasty tummy bug the last 26hours or so. Will get my eldest to pull a name from the hat tomorrow.
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