Sunday, May 3, 2015

Watchlist Countdown, Day 14: “The Gift” by Mark Irwin


     He was about the size of a wooden match and floated--arms spread out--like a skydiver in a small jar his wife had given him, perhaps because they were childless and he was always traveling.

       from “The Gift” by Mark Irwin

Odd, funny, entrancing.  I can’t say much more than that about Mark Irwin’s contribution to the Watchlist anthology, a story about a dude named Mark whose wife gives him a tiny man floating in a jar of water for their 25th wedding anniversary.  Like I said: odd, funny, and entrancing.  You won’t quickly forget this story.


Watchlist: 32 Short Stories by Persons of Interest, edited by Bryan Hurt, will be published by O/R Books on May 21.  The “persons of interest” contributing short stories to the anthology include Etgar Keret, Robert Coover, Aimee Bender, Jim Shepard, Alissa Nutting, Charles Yu, Cory Doctorow, David Abrams, Randa Jarrar, Katherine Karlin, Miracle Jones, Mark Irwin, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Dale Peck, Bonnie Nadzam, Lucy Corin, Chika Unigwe, Paul Di Filippo, Lincoln Michel, Dana Johnson, Mark Chiusano, Juan Pablo Villalobos, Chanelle Benz, Sean Bernard, Kelly Luce, Zhang Ran, Miles Klee, Carmen Maria Machado, Steven Hayward, Deji Bryce Olukotun, Alexis Landau and Bryan Hurt.



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