The nominations for New Yorker Story of the Year are now closed. The finalists (with links to the discussions on this blog) are posted below, with the ballot included at the bottom of the page.
A few things to note about the finalists:
I left out some fictions that I really liked, such as Colum McCann’s “Transatlantic” because they were excerpts from novels and I like to keep this a short story contest.
Of the ten finalists, only three of the stories are by women. I liked the Zadie Smith fiction, but again that was an excerpt. I didn’t much care for the Alice Munro stories or the Tessa Hadley or the Alice McDermott or the Rivka Galchen or the Lorrie Moore. No one nominated these stories and I didn’t feel they belonged in the group of finalists.
The finalists:
Means of Suppressing Demonstrations by Shani Boianju
Birnam Wood by T. Coraghessan Boyle
Citizen Conn by Michael Chabon
The Cheater’s Guide to Love by Junot Diaz
The Proxy Marriage by Maile Meloy
Chapter Two by Antonya Nelson
The Semplica-Girl Diaries by George Saunders
A Brief Encounter with the Enemy by Said Sayrafiezadeh
Sweet Dreams by Peter Stamm
Breatharians by Callan Wink
VOTE!
