FRANK O'CONNOR 2012 LONGLIST

The longlist for the 2012 Frank O'Connor Award has been released. My forthcoming collection Mother America (New Island, May 2012) is on it. To be fair any book that qualifies and is sent in by the publisher is on it, so it's not an achievement as such, but it's still nice :) This is my fourth time to be longlisted. It would be beyond fab to make the shortlist but, jaypers, look who else is on it: Joyce Carol Oates! Don DeLillo! Caitlin Horrocks is not on it, so that's a shame.

There are eight Irish books on this year's longlist (a record surely?). Maybe this points to a renewed interest from publishers in the short story form? The other Irish on the longlist are Órfhlaith Foyle, Mary Costello, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Eileen Casey, Jim Mullarkey, James Martyn Joyce and AN Other who is not on the list below...there are two authors with short story collections newly published who spring to mind, one of whom has clearly been accidentally ommitted and the other one's publisher clearly didn't send in the book. Or, maybe the eighth Irish person is neither of those two and is published abroad and is being classified on the longlist as being from that country? And I just don't recognise the name. Hmm.

In these recessionary times the purse has been reduced to €25,000 - but this is still the world's largest short story collection prize money. All credit to the stalwart efforts of those in the Munster Literature Centre. Patrick Cotter and his team do excellent work.

The shortlist will be announced in June and the winner in July. The winner will appear at the Cork Intl Short Story Festival in September. (Where there are lots of great classes which I will post on anon.)

The 2012 Longlist

Steve Almond, God Bless America, Lookout Books, USA
A. J. Ashworth, Somewhere Else, or Even Here, Salt Publishing, UK
Diane Awerbuck, Cabin Fever, Umuzi, South Africa
Lou Beach, 420 Characters, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, USA
Frank Bill, Crimes in Southern Indiana, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, USA
Will Boast, Power Ballads, University of Iowa Press, USA
Greg Bottoms, Swallowing the Past, Texas Review Press, USA
Laura Boudreau, Suitable Precautions, Biblioasis, Canada
Shannon Cain, The Necessity of Certain Behaviors, University of Pittsburgh Press, USA
Neil Campbell, Pictures from Hopper, Salt Publishing, UK
Eileen Casey, Snow Shoes, Arlen House, Ireland
O Thiam Chin, The Rest of Your Life and Everything That Comes With It, ZI Publications, Singapore
Charles Christian, This is the Quickest Way Down, Proxima, UK
Dave Chua, The Beating, Ethos Books, Singapore
K. L. Cook, Love Songs for the Quarantined, Willow Springs Editions, USA
Mary Costello, The China Factory, The Stinging Fly Press, Ireland
Eugene Cross, Fires of Our Choosing, Dzanc Books, USA
Don DeLillo, The Angel Esmeralda, Picador, USA
Stanley Donwood, Household Worms, Tangent Books, UK
Catherine Eisner, Listen Close to Me, Salt Publishing, UK
Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, Alfred A. Knopf, USA
Matthew Firth, Shag Carpet Action, Anvil Press, Canada
Órfhlaith Foyle, Somewhere in Minnesota, Arlen House, Ireland
Matthew Francis, Singing a Man to Death, Cinnamon Press, UK
David Galef, My Date With Neanderthal Woman, Dzanc Books, USA
Dagoberto Gilb, Before the End, After the Beginning, Grove Press, USA
Namita Gokhale, The Habit of Love, Penguin Group, India
Lorna Goodison, By Love Possessed, HarperCollins Publishers, Jamaica
Daniel Griffin, Stopping for Strangers, Véhicule Press, Canada
Tessa Hadley, Married Love, Jonathan Cape, UK
Sarah Hall, The Beautiful Indifference, Faber and Faber, UK
Hanjum Hasan, Difficult Pleasures, Penguin Group, India
Tania Hershman, My Mother Was an Upright Piano, Tangent Books, UK
Keith Jardim, Near Open Water, Peepal Tree Press, USA
James Martyn Joyce, What’s not Said, Arlen House, Ireland
Suzanne Kamata, The Beautiful One Has Come, Wyatt-Mackenzie Publishing, USA
Jackie Kay, Reality, Reality, Picador, UK
Etgar Keret, Suddenly, a Knock in the Door, Chatto & Windus, Israel
Fiona Kidman, The Trouble With Fire, Random House, New Zealand
Zoe Lambert, The War Tour, Comma Press, UK
Krys Lee, Drifting House, Faber and Faber, USA – South Korea
Adam Levin, Hot Pink, McSweeney’s, USA
Peter Markus, We Make Mud, Dzanc Books, USA
Rowena Mcdonald, Smoked Meat, Flambard Press, UK
Jon McGregor, This Isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You, Bloomsbury, UK
K. R. Meera, Yellow Is the Colour of Longing, Penguin Group, India
Ana Menendez, Adios, Happy Homeland!, Grove Press, USA
Clemens Meyer, All the Lights, And Other Stories, Germany
Kevin Moffett, Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events, HarperCollins Publishers, USA
Jim Mullarkey, And, Doire Press, Ireland
Sabina Murray, Tales of the New World, Grove Press, Australia
Stuart Nadler, The Book of Life, Picador, USA
Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Mother America, New Island, Ireland
Éllis Ní Dhuibne, Shelter of Neighbours, Blackstaff Press, Ireland
Joyce Carol Oates, The Corn Maiden, Grove Press, USA
Rajesh Parameswaran, I Am an Executioner, Bloomsbury, USA
Cassandra Parkin, New World Fairy Tales, Salt Publishing, UK
Lucia Perillo, Happiness Is a Chemical in the Brain, W. W. Norton & Company, USA
Dave Pescod, All Embracing, Route, UK
Alice Petersen, All the Voices Cry, Biblioasis, Canada
Stephanie Powell Watts, We Are Taking Only What We Need, BkMk Press, USA
Wayne Price, Furnace, Freight Books, UK
Stephanie Reents, The Kissing List, Hogarth, USA
Rebecca Rosenblum, The Big Dream, Biblioasis, Canada
Pamela Ryder, A Tendency to Be Gone, Dzanc Books, USA
Nathalie Serber, Shout Her Lovely Name, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, USA
Johanna Skibsrud, This Will Be Difficult to Explain, W. W. Norton & Company/ Hamish Hamilton, Canada
Yasuko Thanh, Floating Like the Dead, McClelland & Stewart, Canada
Lysley Tenorio, Monstress, HarperCollins Publisher, USA-Philippines
Laura Maylene Walter, Living Arrangements, BkMk Press, USA
Diane Williams, Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty, McSweeney’s, USA
D. W. Wilson, Once You Break a Knuckle, Bloomsbury/ Hamish Hamilton, Canada
Lucy Wood, Diving Belles, Bloomsbury, UK
Barbara Unković, Moon Walking, Old Line Publishing, Croatia
Dina Zaman, King of the Sea, Silverfish Books, Malaysia

Breakdown by Nationality:

Australia 1
Canada 8
Croatia 1
Germany 1
India 3
Ireland 8
Israel 1
Jamaica 1
Malaysia 1
New Zealand 1
Singapore 2
South Africa 1
UK 17
USA 28
USA – Philippines 1
USA – South Korea 1