Rick DeMarinis (1934–2019)
Author of The Art & Craft of the Short Story
About the Author
Rick Demarinis is the author of numerous novels and short story collections including The Year of the Zinc Penny, The Mortician's Apprentice, A Clod of Wayward Marl, The Voice of America: Stories, His Borrowed Hearts: New and Selected Stories, and The Art and Craft of the Short Story. His short show more stories have appeared in several magazines and journals including Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, GQ, The Paris Review, and The Iowa Review. He has won many awards including the Drue Heinz Prize for short fiction, the Literature Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Jesse H. Jones Award for fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters, and the Independent Publishers Award for the best book of short fiction. He has taught creative writing at the University of Montana, San Diego State University, Arizona State University, and the University of Texas at El Paso. (Bowker Author Biography) Rick Demarinis is the author of six novels, including "The Year of the Zinc Penny" (1989), a "New York Times" Notable Book, and three previous collections of short fiction. In 1990 he received a Literature Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Until 1999 he taught creative writing at the University of Texas, El Paso. He and his wife, Carol, recently returned to their home in Missoula, Montana. (Publisher Provided) show less
Works by Rick DeMarinis
Your Story [short fiction] 2 copies
Associated Works
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Second Annual Collection (1987) — Contributor — 202 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1934-05-03
- Date of death
- 2019-06-12
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New York, New York, USA
- Awards and honors
- American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award (Literature ∙ 1990)
Drue Heinz Prize for short fiction (1986)
Jesse H. Jones Award for fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters (1999)
Independent Publishers Award for the best book of short fiction (2000)
Members
Reviews
The Art & Craft of the Short Story by Rick DeMarinis
The short story in English is an especially protean type of expression which can cause fits for those who try to define how it is supposed to work. The author's humility in taking this task on is admirable, and so is the more modest strategy of talking about the different aspects of craft by using examples from stories both real and fake. Someone who is really just coming to the idea of writing stories for the first time will probably be baffled by the lack of a simple statement of what makes a good short story versus a bad one, but someone who's tried their hand at them might find a lot they can resonate with in the examples he gives.… (more)
Not very well organized, and chapters like "Form" are less about form than about attempting unconventional forms, but this monograph is definitely one step more advanced and insightful than the usual "Writer's Digest" craft books, etc, with regard to the creative process and the writer's choices and the special requirements and character of the short story form.
1 
malrubius | 4 other reviews | Apr 2, 2013 |
malrubius | 4 other reviews | Apr 2, 2013 | A fine piece of instructive writing full of excellent examples. The thing that makes this book so good is that the author doesn't just preach his points - he illustrates them. He draws heavily on examples from his own writing, but this is fully justified by their applicability to the point he is trying to make. I learned a lot from this book.
1 Farringdon | 4 other reviews | Dec 9, 2009 |
Farringdon | 4 other reviews | Dec 9, 2009 | Lists
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 21
- Also by
- 6
- Members
- 397
- Popularity
- #61,078
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 9
- ISBNs
- 45
- Languages
- 2
- Favorited
- 1