Sycamore Review has been providing its readers with author interviews for more than 20 years. Now, we’ve collected 15 of those interviews in a new anthology due out this summer from Parlor Press.

TELLING STORIES, TALKING CRAFT is a collection of conversations with some of the finest contemporary fiction writers. These distinguished authors discuss their lives and their craft in candid, thought-provoking interviews. You’ll find:

Charles Baxter on the myth of productivity
Kate Bernheimer on taking women seriously
Larry Brown on happy endings
Robert Olen Butler on war and fear
Michael Chabon on his reputation in Finland
Lan Samantha Chang on fiction since 9/11
Peter Ho Davies on kitchen sink drafts
Andre Dubus III on bartending
Richard Ford on getting in fistfights
Jane Hamilton on landscape and Home Depot
Nick Hornby on the Da Vinci Code
Ha Jin on being called a traitor
Nami Mun on fictional gaps
Benjamin Percy on zombies and cemeteries
Steve Yarbrough …MORE

BY DANA BISIGNANI, Wabash Prize Coordinator

After careful consideration, guest judge Peter Ho Davies selected Adam Prince’s story “Island of the Lost Boys” as this year’s winner. Davies writes that Prince’s story is “notable for its acute observations, wry wit, and delicate characterization. The latter is true of even the secondary figures–each is vividly particular–but especially of the complex central character, a risky choice of protagonist who could so easily collapse into sordid stereotype, but who is here delineated with an exacting and surprising sensitivity. The result is a quietly, almost furtively, heartbreaking story.” This story will be showcased in our upcoming issue, 22.2, due out later this summer.

In addition, Davies chose Kerry Jones’s story “The Last Innocent Year” as this year’s first runner-up, describing her work as “a feeling, and detailed, coming-of-age story told in the voice of a frank (though never over-wrought) emotion. The evocation of place, …MORE

If you’re attending this year’s AWP conference in Denver, be sure to stop by our table and visit. We’ll have staff at the table Thursday through Saturday. We love meeting readers, contributors, and those interested in submitting. You can also enter a raffle to win an bookseller gift card. Look for us at booth I-13. (Photo: L-R, Editor-in-Chief Anthony Cook, Poetry Editor Josh Wild, and Managing Editor Katie Connor.)

BY ANTHONY COOK, Editor-in-Chief

Our reading session is closed as of today, April 1. Thank you to all who submitted. We have received a lot of exciting work, some of which we’re still reading. One thing is already clear, though: Issue 22.2, due out in July, is shaping up to be a fantastic one. It will feature interviews with Benjamin Percy and Eleanor Wilner, fiction by Brock Clarke and the winning entry of the 2010 Wabash Prize for Fiction (selected by guest judge Peter Ho Davies and to be announced soon), poetry by David Wagoner, book reviews, a personal essay about pen pals, some exciting illustrations by artist Amber Albrecht, and much more.

In the meantime, we will continue to accept submissions to the 2010 Wabash Prize for Poetry throughout the summer. Poet Jane Hirshfield will serve as final judge. The winner will receive $1,000 and publication in Issue 23.1-Winter/Spring …MORE

BY ANTHONY COOK, Editor-in-Chief

Sycamore Review is excited to announce that Jane Hirshfield will be judging the 2010 Wabash Prize for Poetry.

An award-winning poet, translator, and essayist, Jane Hirshfield is the author of six collections of poetry, including After (shortlisted for England’s T.S. Eliot Prize and named a “best book of 2006” by the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the London Financial Times), Given Sugar, Given Salt (finalist for the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award), The Lives of the Heart, and The October Palace, as well as a book of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. She also edited and co-translated The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Komachi & Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan, Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, and Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems. …MORE

BY ANTHONY COOK, Editor-in-Chief

We’d like to congratulate Sherman Alexie. The PEN/Faulkner Foundation announced today that it has selected his story collection War Dances as the winner of its 2010 award for fiction. Finalists included Barbara Kingsolver for The Lacuna, Lorraine M. Lopez for Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories, Lorrie Moore for A Gate at the Stairs, and Colson Whitehead for Sag Harbor.

Alexie’s poetry was featured in Issue 22.1-Summer/Fall 2009 of Sycamore Review. Order a copy today.