Barn Burning: Short Stories Barn Burning

Today we are joined by author Shannon Robinson whose debut short story collection The Ill-Fitting Skin won Press 53's award for Short Fiction. Our conversation was interrupted by a major storm, but we reconvened a few days later to finish talking about the first story in her collection, "Origin Story."

Shannon Robinson’s writing has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, Joyland, Nimrod, The Hopkins Review, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in fiction from Washington University in St. Louis, and in 2011 she was the Writer-in-Residence at Interlochen Center for the Arts. Other honors include Nimrod's Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts, a Hedgebrook Fellowship, a Sewanee Scholarship, and an Independent Artist Award from the Maryland Arts Council. She teaches creative writing at Johns Hopkins University and lives in Baltimore with her husband and son.

You can buy The Ill-Fitting Skin at all bookstores and on Press 53's website (www.Press53.com) and find Shannon at www.ShannonRobinson.org.

Are you a writer who would like to be on the podcast? Drop me a line at barnburningpodcast@gmail.com.

Has your life ever been changed by an author? Twenty years ago this week, my life was forever changed by something I read in a magazine. Looking back, it's silly to imagine but it's true: I became a lawyer because of P.G. Wodehouse. And Anthony Lane. Join us on Barn Burning as we read one of Wodehouse's minor masterpieces, The Great Sermon Handicap, featuring that timeless upstairs-downstairs pair, Bertram Wooster and his man Jeeves.

#thankyoujeeves

Who murdered the samurai? Was it the notorious thief Tajomaru? Was it the samurai's heartbroken wife? Or did he leave a message telling us who the real killer was? In a dark story about an inscrutable world, Akutagawa asks what is truth, what do we believe, and what stories do we tell ourselves?

CW: sexual assault

Translator: Takashi Kojima

Are you a writer and want to have your short story on the podcast? You can reach me at barnburningpodcast@gmail.com

Happy reading!

Hello, Barn Burners! I met acclaimed writer Thomas H. McNeely at Inprint in Houston to record him reading his story, Tickle Torture. The story is from his collection, Pictures of the Shark, which I read and recommend for its powerful and relatable depictions of a tumultuous childhood.

In a starred review, Kirkus has called Thomas H. McNeely's book, Pictures of the Shark: Stories "an emotionally taut and often haunting  collection."  An East End Houston native, McNeely has published short  stories and non-fiction in The Atlantic, Texas Monthly,  Ploughshares, and many other magazines and anthologies. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts,  the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford University, and the MacDowell  Colony.  His stories have been short-listed for the Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories and O. Henry Award  anthologies.  He currently teaches in the Stanford Online Writing Studio and at Emerson College, Boston. His website is www.thomashmcneelywriter.com and he can be found on Twitter @thmcneely. 

Are you a writer and want to have your short story on the podcast? You can reach me at barnburningpodcast@gmail.com!

Welcome back to Barn Burning! After an extended hiatus, the Barn Burning short story podcast is back with a killer episode about hamsters, motherhood, and grief. I was honored to have on writer-poet @LannieStabile to read and discuss her story "Muriel vs. the Hunger," which was published in Sledgehammer Lit in November 2021.
Lannie Stabile (she/her), a queer Detroiter, is the winner of OutWrite’s 2020 Chapbook Competition in Poetry and a back-to-back semifinalist for  the Button Poetry Chapbook Contest. Lannie was also named a 2020 Best of the Net finalist. Her debut poetry full-length, Good Morning to Everyone Except Men Who Name Their Dogs Zeus, was published in 2021 by Cephalopress. Her fiction debut, Something Dead in Everything, is out  now with ELJ Editions. Find her on Twitter @LannieStabile and her website, www.lanniestabile.com.
Are you a writer and want to have your short story on the podcast? You can reach me at barnburningpodcast@gmail.com!

Welcome back to Barn Burning, a short story podcast! I had the great pleasure of speaking with writer Wendy J. Fox about her story Tornado Watch, from her forthcoming collection of interconnected stories, What If We Were Somewhere Else? The book comes out in November 2021 and you can pre-order a copy here: https://bookshop.org/a/1986/9781951631055. You can also find Wendy at her website: https://www.wendyjfox.com/

Are you a writer and want to have your story on the podcast? You can reach me at barnburningpodcast@gmail.com!