Flannery O'Connor Award

Established in 1981, partially as a response to commercial publishing's apparent preference of the novel over the short story form, the Flannery O'Connor Award competition invites only collections of stories to be submitted for consideration. Thus far 21 practitioners of the genre have won the award: publication by the University of Georgia Press. This volume brings together one story by each of the past winners. Skillfully crafted, eclectic both in subject matter and narrative style, these tales by such emerging writers as Molly Giles, Salvatore La Puma, Tony Ardizzone and others testify to the durabilty of the genre. In the best of them, memory--whether tinged with loss or heightened by hope--enhances voice and confers the ring of truth. In ``Inside Dope,'' Gail Galloway Adams's protagonist remembers with painful clarity her brother-in-law Bisher, ``a type, if men don't recognize, at least the women will.'' A bicycle painted ``Peacock Blue'' in boyhood reminds Francois Camion's narrator of a time in his life when innocence was pushed aside for tragedy; Susan Neville's beautifully wrought ``Banquet'' eloquently mirrors the mind of a dying old woman as she observes and reminisces about her loved ones at a family gathering; wry good humor touched by pathos buoys the nostalgic reflection in Antonya Nelson's ``The Expendables,'' wherein Gypsies and Sicilians and weddings and funerals clash to resounding effect; and in an achingly poignant tale from Philip F. Deaver, ``Wilbur Gray Falls In Love With An Idea,'' the eponymous narrator, haunted by loss, battles depression and grief by running ``six miles a day, rain or shine.'' (June)