Author: Anya Groner

Meridian Editors’ Prize

Anya Groner Buster, childhood, Editors' Prize, Meridian, short story, Sister, Winner Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

I’m so happy that my short story “Buster” won the Editors’ Prize at Meridian: the Semi-Annual Journal from the University of Virginia! Here’s the first paragraph.

“The year my twin and I turned eight, we decided to kill our neighbor’s cat. Buster was an enormous marmalade and, a couple times a week, he left the heads of decapitated songbirds in our front yard. He belonged to the girl across the street: Liza Parker. Liza was in our grade but not our class. She wore button-up dresses every day and had her mother drive her to school each morning because she thought the bus was too dirty. When we saw her outside her house, she’d turn around and go inside, or, if Buster was there, she’d bend over and pet him and whisper, “Dirty orphans,” in a singsong voice that we could hear from the opposite sidewalk where we stood.”

Read the rest of the story  in Meridian’s May issue, which will be available in print and online!

AWP Reading

Anya Groner AWP, Derrick Harriell, Kevin Fitchett, MFA, News, Ole Miss, Rachel Smith, reading, Ryan Bubalo, Seattle Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
I’m reading at the Ole Miss AWP Off-site Reception and Reading hosted by MFA alumnus Ryan Bubalo. Details are below! Please join!
Thursday, February 27th, 2014
6-8:00 p.m (reading starts at 7:00)
The Academy
501 E. Pine Street, Suite 206
Seattle, WA 98122
The Academy is a gorgeous private venue a few blocks from the convention center, and our secret clubhouse for the evening. The password is “hotty toddy.”
Featured Alumni and Faculty Readers:
Kevin Fitchett lives in Oakland California, where he teaches at Berkeley City College and Oakland Military Institute. In 2012 he received his MFA from the University of Mississippi, where he also received the inaugural Elvis Meets Einstein Award. He is second in all-time scoring for Lakeland College soccer. His poetry appears in FIELD.
Anya Groner‘s essays, poems, and stories can be read in journals including Ninth Letter, The Oxford American, The Rumpus, The Georgia Review, and elsewhere.  In 2010, she received her MFA from the University of Mississippi, where she was a John and Renee Grisham fellow in fiction. Currently, she teaches writing at Loyola University in New Orleans and is at work on a novel.
Derrick Harriell is the author of poetry collections COTTON and ROPES (both Aquarius Press- Willow Books).  He works as assistant professor of English and Afro-American Studies at the University of Mississippi.
Rachel Smith grew up in Seattle and received her MFA in creative writing (fiction) from the University of Mississippi, where she held a teaching fellowship and was the recipient of the Bondurant Prize. Her writing has appeared in Brevity and been a finalist for the Copper Nickel prize in fiction. She directed the documentary film MINUSTAH Steals Goats, which was an Official Selection at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam and is forthcoming from 7th Art Releasing.
We hope to see you there!

REGISTRATION IS OPEN!!

Anya Groner class, essay, Loyola University, New Orleans, News, Personal Essay, Walker Percy Center Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

I’m teaching a class called Writing The Personal Essay for the Walker Percy Center.

The class starts on March 24th and enrollment is open to the public. Here’s a description:

Writing the Personal Essay
Instructor: Anya Groner • Mondays from 7 – 9 pm • begins March 24

Classes are held at Loyola University in New Orleans
We will read and discuss the writing of essayists such as David Sedaris, Eula Biss, Joan Didion, John Jeremiah Sullivan, and others, paying special attention to the literary elements that make good writing come alive. Short, generative writing exercises will give students the opportunity to practice specific craft skills, leading up to a final project, a personal essay which we will workshop toward revision. We will also look at markets for creative nonfiction and at the process of submitting work for publication.

I’d love for you to join us! Check out my class and the other fantastic writing classes the Walker Percy Center sponsors  HERE!

Gravesend

Anya Groner childhood, crime, Gravesend, interview, LARB, Los Angeles Review of Books, New Interview, novel, William Boyle Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

I interviewed William Boyle about his stunning debut novel Gravesend.

“I used to sit out on my grandparents’ porch with a cassette recorder and tape them talking. And they were always talking about the people passing by, the people parking their cars. So I had a pretty early obsession with the rhythms of what they were saying but also with the wonderful gossipy content. My grandfather would say things like, “Look at this bastard. He lives around the block and he’s gotta park in front of my joint.” 

Check it out at the Los Angeles Review of Books!

My Childhood Espionage

Anya Groner childhood, crime, essay, News, Oxford American, Sister Tags: , , , Leave a comment

My essay “Suspecting The Smiths” is up at the Oxford American.

“From the ages of nine to eleven, I worked as a spy. No one paid me, nor did I report my findings to any higher-ups. I discussed my cases with my partner, who went by code name Mountain Chicken Mother of the Buddha. Mountain Chicken also happened to be my identical twin sister, and during morning recess or summer afternoons at the neighborhood pool we let lifeguards, teachers, and stray dogs in on our findings. Eventually, the Department of Labor, the U.S. Postal Service, the Virginia State Police, and the State Corporation Commission got involved. Our next-door neighbors were indicted in September of 1998 by a federal grand jury, Joe Bob on eighteen counts and his wife, Jeannie, on fifteen.”