Grant Faulkner
Grant Faulkner is an American writer, the executive director of National Novel Writing Month, and the co-founder of the online literary journal 100 Word Story.
| Grant Faulkner | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Fiction writer, essayist, executive director of National Novel Writing Month |
| Nationality | United States |
| Alma mater | Grinnell College; San Francisco State University |
| Notable work | Fissures |
Contents
Biography
Grant Faulkner was born and raised in Oskaloosa, Iowa. He earned a B.A. in English from Grinnell College and an M.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.[1] He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, the writer Heather Mackey, and their two children.[2]
In 2011, Faulkner and Lynn Mundell co-founded 100 Word Story, an online literary journal that publishes stories that are exactly 100 words long.[3] Stories published in 100 Word Story have been included on Wigleaf’s Top (Very) Short Fictions list[4] and anthologized in Queen’s Ferry Press’s 2015 Best Small Fictions.[5]
In 2012, he became Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), taking over from founder Chris Baty.[6] With more than 400,000 writers signing up to take part in NaNoWriMo’s programs in 2014, it’s the largest writing event in the world.[citation needed]
NaNoWriMo emphasizes that everyone has a story to tell, and that everyone’s story matters. “Humans are naturally wired to tell stories because that’s how we make meaning of the world,” Faulkner said. “So everyone has a story—or many stories—to tell.”[7]
In 2014, Faulkner co-founded the Flash Fiction Collective, a reading series in San Francisco, with writers Jane Ciabattari and Meg Pokrass.
Literary work
Faulkner’s stories and essays have appeared in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Writer’s Digest, The Southwest Review, Green Mountains Review, and Puerto del Sol.
In 2015, Faulkner released Fissures, a collection of one hundred 100-word stories, published by Press 53.
One reviewer wrote, “In Grant Faulkner’s collection of very short fiction, Fissures [One Hundred 100-Word Stories], Faulkner manages to elevate his language, presenting each word here with the rhetorical weight of a novel and with a poetic aptitude that is anything but self-indulgent. Faulkner has, instead, carefully crafted these stories, and each word comes at the reader as high currency.”[8]
The 100-word story form is often likened to prose poetry,[9] which is one thing that drew Faulkner to the form. “I’ve always liked forms that blur,” he said. “To say that a piece of writing is a prose poem versus a story is just a matter of an author’s intention, an author’s definition.”[10]
Faulkner regularly presents at conferences, including the Frankfurt Book Fair, Book Expo America, the Bay Area Book Festival, the Oakland Book Festival, the Writer’s Digest Conference, and the San Francisco Writers Conference, among others.[11]
List of works
Books
- Fissures
- The Names of All Things
Selected short stories
- "Charms" - Fiction Southeast
- "First Time" - New Flash Fiction Review
- "Us" - decomP
- "Six Stories About Gerard and Celeste" - Paragraph Magazine
- "Bright Mess" - Superstition Review
- "Bodies at Risk in Motion" - Green Mountains Review
- "Castings" - Counterexample Poetics
- "Dear X" - Flash Flood
- "Filter" - The Cortland Review
- "The Filmmaker: Eight Takes" - Eclectica
- "Model Upside Down on the Stairs" - PANK
- "Life Knowledge" - Revolver
- "The Names of All Things" - The Southwest Review
- "Heat" - Word Riot
Essays
- Naked (On the Page) and Afraid - Writer’s Digest
- Writing Flash Fiction: Telling a Story with What’s Left Out - Writer’s Digest
- More Ideas Faster: Writing With Abandon - Poets & Writers
- Going Long. Going Short. - New York Times Draft Blog
- What Makes NaNoWriMo Work: Breaking Down the Mythology of the Solitary Writer - Writer’s Digest
Selected interviews
- An Interview with Grant Faulkner - Superstition Review
- An Interview with Grant Faulkner, author of Fissures - Fiction Southeast
- The Write Stuff: Grant Faulkner on Watching Objects Rust and the Slow Reveal - SF Weekly’s Litseen
- How could creative expression not change the world? Interview with Grant Faulkner - Art Is Moving
- Grant Faulkner: A Modern Day Pioneer Inspiring Creativity Through Writing – Unzpipped
- An Interview with NaNoWriMo’s New Executive Director – NaNoWriMo blog
References
- ↑ http://www.sfsu.edu/~sfsumag/archive/spring_13/one_month_50000_words.html
- ↑ http://www.grinnell.edu/sites/default/files/documents/GrinMagFall13.web_.pdf#page=33
- ↑ http://www.thereviewreview.net/interviews/flash-fiction
- ↑ http://wigleaf.com/2015top503.htm
- ↑ http://queensferrypress.com/blog/tag/the-best-small-fictions/
- ↑ http://blog.nanowrimo.org/post/16535099276/an-interview-with-grant-faulkner-olls-new
- ↑ http://www.levistrauss.com/unzipped-blog/2014/11/grant-faulkner-a-modern-day-pioneer-inspiring-creativity-through-writing/
- ↑ http://atticusreview.org/microfiction-at-work-a-review-of-fissures-by-grant-faulkner/
- ↑ http://writersrelief.com/blog/2013/07/prose-poetry-short-prose-flash-fiction/
- ↑ http://blog.superstitionreview.asu.edu/2015/06/06/an-interview-with-grant-faulkner/
- ↑ http://www.grantfaulkner.com/bio/
