Brevity (eBook)

David Galef has published over a dozen books, including the novels Flesh, Turning Japanese, and How to Cope with Suburban Stress; the short story collections Laugh Track and My Date with Neanderthal Woman; and the short story anthology 20 Over 40. He is a professor of English and the creative writing program director at Montclair State University.

AcknowledgmentsA Short IntroductionVignettes. Readings: Colette: "The Other Wife"; Isaac Babel: "An Incident on the Nevsky Prospekt"Character Sketches. Readings: L. E. Leone: "The Argument for a Shotgun"; Josefina Estrada: "The Extravagant Behavior of the Naked Woman"Letters. Readings: Yasunari Kawabata: "Canaries"; Phil Karasik: "Mickey the Dog Phones Home"Diary Entries. Readings: Will Stanton: "Barney"; Mark Budman: "The Diary of a Salaryman"Lists. Readings: Sei Shōnagon: "Annoying Things"; Steve Martin: "Disgruntled Former Lexicographer"Fables. Readings: Anonymous: Untitled; Raphael Dagold: "The Two Rats and the BB Gun"Anecdotes. Reading: The peasant and the genie Prose Poems. Readings: Yusef Komunyakaa: "Nude Interrogation"; Len Kuntz: "Story Problems"Soliloquies, Rants, Riffs, and Themes. Readings: Christine Byl: "Hey, Jess McCafferty"; John Edgar Wideman: "Witness"Perfect Miniatures. Readings: John Collier: "The Chaser"; Jeffrey Whitmore: "Bedtime Story"Intermission: Cutting Down. Bruce Taylor: "Exercise"Surrealism. Readings: Richard Brautigan: "A Need for Gardens"; Donald Barthelme: "The Baby"What If? Readings: Wayland Hilton-Young: "The Choice"; Dicky Murphy: "The Magician's Umbrella"Genre. Readings: Roxane Gay: "The Mistress of Baby Breath"; Tara Orchard: "My Love"Setting. Readings: Bharati Mukherjee: "Courtly Vision"; Alice Walker: "The Flowers"Twists. Readings: Luisa Valenzuela: "Vision Out of the Corner of One Eye"; Saki: "The Open Window"Two Viewpoints. Readings: Robert Schipits: "Dialogue Between Two Teenagers, One Interested in Cars and One Not"; Ryan Ridge: "Shaky Hands & All"Mass Compression. Readings: Bruce Holland Rogers: "Dinosaur"; Susan O'Neill: "Memento Mori"Metafiction. Readings: Ptim Callan: "Story"; Jorge Luis Borges: "Borges and I"Vanishing Point. Readings: Merilee Faber: "We came around the corner"; Dean Clayton Edwards: "It was pretending"; Davian Aw: "She raised the glass"; Augusto Monterroso: "The Dinosaur"The FutureConclusionBibliographyPermissionsIndex