Watchlist (58 page)

LINCOLN MICHEL is the Editor-in-Chief of electricliterature.com and the Co-Editor of
Gigantic
magazine. He is also the Co-Editor
Gigantic Worlds
, an anthology of science flash fiction. His own work has appeared in
Granta
,
Tin House
,
NOON
,
The Believer
,
American Short Fiction
,
Pushcart Prize XXXIX
, and elsewhere. His debut collection,
Upright Beasts
, was published by Coffee House Press in 2015. You can find him online at
lincolnmichel.com
and
@thelincoln
.

ANNIE MCDERMOTT studied literature in Oxford and London before spending a year in Mexico City, working as a teacher, editor, and translator. Her translations of the short fiction of the Mexican writer Juan Pablo Villalobos have appeared in the magazines
World Literature Today
and
The Coffin Factory
, and she has also translated the Argentinian poet Karina Macció for the magazine
Palabras Errantes
. She also reviews fiction and poetry for
The Literateur
and
Modern Poetry in Translation
.

BONNIE NADZAM's work has appeared in
Harper's Magazine
,
The Iowa Review
,
Epoch
,
Tweed's
,
Granta
, and many other journals. Her first novel,
Lamb
, was the recipient of the Center for Fiction's Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize in 2011 and was long-listed for the Women's Prize for Fiction in the UK in 2013. She is co-author with Environmental Philosopher Dale Jamieson on
Love in the Anthropocene
(OR Books, September 2015) and her second novel,
Lions
, is forthcoming from Grove Press in 2016.

ALISSA NUTTING is author of the novel
Tampa
and the short story collection
Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls
. Her fiction has appeared in publications such as
The Norton Introduction to Literature
,
Tin House
,
Bomb
, and
Conduit
; her essays have appeared in
Fence
,
The New York Times
,
O: The Oprah Magazine
, and other venues. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at John Carroll University.

DEJI BRYCE OLUKOTUN graduated with an MA in creative writing from the University of Cape Town. He also holds degrees from Yale College and Stanford Law School. His novel
Nigerians in Space
, a thriller about brain drain from Africa, was published by Unnamed Press in 2014. Olukotun's work has been featured in
Slate
,
Guernica
,
The New York Times
, the
LA Times
, the
Los Angeles Review of Books
,
The Millions
,
Joyland
,
Words without Borders
,
World Literature Today
, and other publications. He founded the digital freedom program at PEN American Center, which focuses on online free expression and surveillance.

DALE PECK's twelfth book,
Visions and Revisions
, a memoir, was published in April 2015 by Soho Press, which will also be reprinting his first five novels throughout the year. He lives in New York City with his husband.

JIM SHEPARD is the author of seven novels, including
The Book of Aron
, and four story collections, including
Like You'd Understand, Anyway
, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Story Prize. His short fiction has appeared in, among other magazines,
Harper's
,
McSweeney's
,
The Paris Review
,
The Atlantic Monthly
,
Esquire
,
DoubleTake
,
The New Yorker
,
Granta
,
Zoetrope: All-Story
, and
Playboy
. He's won a Guggenheim Fellowship, five of his stories have been chosen for the Best American Short Stories, two for the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and one for a Pushcart Prize. He teaches creative writing and film at Williams College, and lives in Williamstown with his wife Karen, his three children, and three beagles.

MIRIAM SHLESINGER held an honorary doctorate from the Copenhagen Business School (2001), the 2010 Danica Seleskovitch Prize, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Israel Translators Association. She was co-editor (with Franz Pöchhacker) of the
Interpreting Studies Reader
(Routledge, 2002), and since 2006 was co-editor of
Interpreting: International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting
(John Benjamins) as well as associate editor of
Benjamins Translation Library
. She taught translation and interpretation (both theory and practice) at Bar Ilan University, Israel. She passed away in 2012.

CHIKA UNIGWE was born in Enugu, Enugu State. She has degrees from the University of Nigeria and the KU Leuven. She holds a PhD from the Leiden University in Holland. She is the author of three novels, including
On Black Sisters Street
and
Night Dancer
. She has won the 2012 Nigeria Prize for Literature, a BBC Short Story Competition, a Commonwealth Short Story award, and was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing. Her other writing awards include a Rockefeller Foundation award, a UNESCO-Aschberg Fellowship, a Ledig House Fellowship, and a 2013 Cove Park Fellowship. She is the most recent winner of the Nigeria Literature Award, and a 2014 Sylt Fellowship for African writers. Her works have been translated into several languages including German, Hebrew, Italian, Hungarian, Spanish, and Dutch.

JUAN PABLO VILLALOBOS is the author of
Down the Rabbit Hole
and
Quesadillas
(both FSG). His work has been translated into fifteen languages. He was born in Mexico and currently lives in Barcelona.

CARMEN YILING YAN
was born in China and raised in the United States. Since starting out as a fan translator, her translations of Chinese science fiction have appeared in
Lightspeed
,
Clark
esworld
, and
Galaxy's Edge
. Her writing has been published in
Daily Science Fiction
. She currently attends UCLA.

CHARLES YU is the author of the novel
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
and the short story collections
Third Class Superhero
and
Sorry Please Thank You
. His fiction has appeared in a number of magazines and journals, including
Oxford American
,
The Gettysburg Review
,
Harvard Review
,
Mid-American Review
,
Mississippi Review
, and
Alaska Quarterly Review
.

Born in 1981, ZHANG RAN graduated from Beijing Jiaotong University in 2004 with a degree in computer science. After a stint in the IT industry, Zhang became a reporter and news analyst with
Economic Daily
and
China Economic Net
, during which time his news commentary won a China News Award. In 2011, Zhang quit his job and moved to southern China to become an independent writer. He began publishing science fiction in 2012, with his debut story, “Ether,” winning the Yinhe (Galaxy) Award as well as the Xingyun (Nebula) Award. His novella,
Rising Wind City
, won the Yinhe Award and a Silver Xingyun Award.

MY THANKS

To Kate Johnson: super agent, who believed in this book long before it was a book and without whose wisdom, support, and guidance this book would not exist.

To John Oakes: publisher extraordinaire, generous, enthusiastic, and patient even as our cell phone calls were dropped as I was driving up into the mountains.

To Andy Hunter, Jennifer Abel Kovitz, Julie Buntin, and everyone else at Catapult.

To Aimee Bender, T. C. Boyle, Etgar Keret, and Jim Shepard for your early support of this project.

To Sean Bernard, Steven Hayward, Mark Irwin, Dana Johnson, Katherine Karlin, Alexis Landau, and Bonnie Nadzam for your friendship.

To all of my contributors: it's been an honor, deeply moving, and deeply satisfying to work with so many of my heroes.

To my parents, Jeanne and John Hurt, and to my sister, Emily Hurt, for your unconditional love and support.

Most of all to Marielle and Ezra: for everything.

“The Taxidermist,” by David Abrams. Printed by permission of the author.

“Viewer, Violator,” by Aimee Bender. Printed by permission of the author.

“Adela, primarily known as The Black Voyage, later reprinted as The Red Casket of the Heart, by Anon.,” copyright © 2012 by Chanelle Benz. First appeared as “Our Commutual Mea Culpa” in
The Cupboard
, vol. 12. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“California,” by Sean Bernard. First appeared in
Poets & Writers
. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“The Relive Box” by T. Coraghessan Boyle. Copyright © 2014 by T. Coraghessan Boyle. Originally published in
The New Yorker
, March 17, 2014. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., on behalf of the author.

“Lifehack at Bar Kaminuk,” by Mark Chiusano. Printed by permission of the author.

“Nighttime of the City” by Robert Coover. Copyright © 2014 by Robert Coover. Originally appeared in
Vice
, March 28, 2014. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., on behalf of the author.

“The Entire Predicament,” from
The Entire Predicament: Stories
by Lucy Corin. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Thirteen Ways of Being Looked at by a Blackbird SR-71,” by Paul Di Filippo. Printed by permission of the author.

“Scroogled,” by Cory Doctorow. First appeared in
Radar Online
. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Strava,” by Steven Hayward. Printed by permission of the author.

“Moonless,” by Bryan Hurt. Printed by permission of the author.

“The Gift,” by Mark Irwin. Printed by permission of the author.

“Testimony of Malik, Israeli Agent, Prisoner #287690,” by Randa Jarrar. Printed by permission of the author.

“Buildings Talk,” by Dana Johnson. Printed by permission of the author.

“Ladykiller,” by Miracle Jones. Printed by permission of the author.

“Sleeping Where Jean Seberg Slept,” by Katherine Karlin. Printed by permission of the author.

“Second Chance,” copyright © Etgar Keret. Published by arrangement with the Institute of the Translation of Hebrew Literature.

“Drone,” by Miles Klee. First appeared in
3:AM Magazine
. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“What He Was Like,” by Alexis Landau. First appeared in
Amor Fati
. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Dinosaurs Went Extinct around the Time of the First Flower,” by Kelly Luce. Printed by permission of the author.

“Transcription of an Eye,” by Carmen Maria Machado. Printed by permission of the author.

“Our New Neighborhood,” by Lincoln Michel. Printed by permission of the author.

“The Witness and the Passenger Train” by Bonnie Nadzam. Copyright © 2014 by Bonnie Nadzam. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., on behalf of the author.

“The Transparency Project,” by Alissa Nutting. Printed by permission of the author.

“We Are the Olfanauts,” by Deji Bryce Olukotun. Printed by permission of the author.

“Making Book,” by Dale Peck. First appeared in
Zoetrope: All-Story
. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Ether,” by Zhang Ran. First published in Chinese in
Science Fiction World
; translated by Ken Liu and Carmen Yiling Yan. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Safety Tips for Living Alone,” by Jim Shepard. First appeared in
The Canary Press
. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Prof,” by Chika Unigwe. Printed by permission of the author.

“Terro(tour)istas,” by Juan Pablo Villalobos. First published in Portuguese in
Estadão
; translated by Annie McDermott. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Coyote,” by Charles Yu. Printed by permission of the author.

¹
Appears in the French translation as “Alela.”

²
The earliest edition attests to a far more implicit positivism, arguably a glass-half-full tone, emphasized in the substitution of “yes?” for “no?”

³
Here, punishment. There is yet another edition, likely from the turn of the century, which, as such, establishes that upon meeting the children, Adela applies a poultice to their wounds, thereby tinging her kindness with practices of the occult.

⁴
A Gothic novel by Byron's jilted lover, Lady Caroline Lamb, that Byron himself reviled as a “Fuck and Publish” in which the innocent, Calantha (the avatar for Lamb), is seduced by the evil antihero, Glenarvon (a thinly veiled portrayal of Byron). Both Calantha and Lamb were subsequently ruined.

⁵
See Mamney, “In works such as Shakespeare's
Othello
, the female character is a canvas onto which the male character ejaculates his fears of emasculation and desire for dominance.”

⁶
The reference to Beau Brummell (1778–1840), the innovator of the modern man's suit and inspiration of the Dandy movement, many scholars believe, infers that Quilby will not suffer Brummell's profligate fate of dying penniless and mad.

⁷
Nineteenth-century audiences suspected that Adela suffered from syphilis. This disease was thought to result in hardened lesions on the trunk, which serves to give a double resonance to “thornback.”