After nearly 20 years of reading Playboy Magazine, I finally started READING Playboy Magazine. In the process I discovered there's all sorts of neat stuff in there...like fiction! Read on...
What better way to kick-off my Playboy fiction reviewing than with a story by the great short fiction writer Stuart Dybek. In terms of his popularity and where he's had the most success, Dybek resides on the academic end of the spectrum of contemporary fiction. In fact, I'd wager that only those well-steeped in the world of academic "program" fiction are likely to have heard of him at all. And if you've never studied writing at the university (grad or post-grad) level and you've still heard of Dybek, then you can consider yourself a Grand Champion contemporary lit fan. Myself, I was exposed to him through my good old friend and resident-expert-on-everything, Andrew Soliday, an alumnus of Western Michigan University, where Dybek taught. All that aside, if you're lo…
What better way to kick-off my Playboy fiction reviewing than with a story by the great short fiction writer Stuart Dybek. In terms of his popularity and where he's had the most success, Dybek resides on the academic end of the spectrum of contemporary fiction. In fact, I'd wager that only those well-steeped in the world of academic "program" fiction are likely to have heard of him at all. And if you've never studied writing at the university (grad or post-grad) level and you've still heard of Dybek, then you can consider yourself a Grand Champion contemporary lit fan. Myself, I was exposed to him through my good old friend and resident-expert-on-everything, Andrew Soliday, an alumnus of Western Michigan University, where Dybek taught. All that aside, if you're lo…