Just received this note about our very own Lighthouse short story workshopper Gary Schanbacher’s first book:

Dear Mr. Schanbacher,
 
On behalf of PEN New England, congratulations!  I have the pleasure of informing you that your book, “Migration Patterns ”, has been selected as one of two Honorable Mentions for the 2008 Hemingway Foundation/ PEN Award for a first work of fiction.
 
The Hemingway Foundation/ PEN Award winner this year is Joshua Ferris for “Then We Came To The End”.  There were two finalists: Ravi Howard for “Like Trees Walking” and Rebecca Curtis for “Twenty Grand”. Two other books received honorable mention:  Margot Singer for “The Pale of Settlement” and your boo k. The judges this year were Ana Castillo, Jennifer Haigh, and Ernest Hebert.

With this honor, Schanbacher gets a one-month residency at Ucross in Wyoming.  He’ll hardly notice some of us stowed away in his luggage.  What an honor, and what a deserving recipient.  Buy his book if you haven’t yet, folks.  You won’t be sorry you did!
Stories