LORI OSTLUND, AUTHOR https://loriostlund.com Sat, 03 May 2025 00:21:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 https://loriostlund.com/wp-content/uploads/LO-siteicon-300x300.jpg LORI OSTLUND, AUTHOR https://loriostlund.com 32 32 167922263 Star Tribune Review of ARE YOU HAPPY? https://loriostlund.com/star-tribune-review-of-are-you-happy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=star-tribune-review-of-are-you-happy Sat, 03 May 2025 00:18:52 +0000 https://loriostlund.com/?p=2178

“Readers of Lori Ostlund’s new story collection Are You Happy? are likely to answer her titular question with a resounding yes after reading the book.”
—Cory Oldweiler, Star Tribune

Link here.

]]> 2178 Sneak Peak: “The Gap Year” in ELECTRIC LIT https://loriostlund.com/sneak-peak-the-gap-year-in-electric-lit/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sneak-peak-the-gap-year-in-electric-lit Sat, 03 May 2025 00:15:08 +0000 https://loriostlund.com/?p=2173

ELECTRIC LITERATURE published “The Gap Year,” one of the stories from ARE YOU HAPPY?, with a lovely intro by Kristen Arnett, in their RECOMMENDED READINGS this week. Link here.

]]> 2173 Publishers Weekly *starred* review of ARE YOU HAPPY? https://loriostlund.com/publishers-weekly-starred-review-of-are-you-happy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=publishers-weekly-starred-review-of-are-you-happy Sat, 03 May 2025 00:06:44 +0000 https://loriostlund.com/?p=2159

“[A] piercing collection . . . These stories will dazzle readers.”

 

—Publishers Weekly 

Link here
]]> 2159 Kirkus *starred* review https://loriostlund.com/kirkus-starred-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kirkus-starred-review Fri, 02 May 2025 22:23:08 +0000 https://loriostlund.com/?p=2148 
"Ostlund proves herself a master of the form."

-Kirkus Reviews

Link here
]]> 2148 “Just Another Family” to appear in 2024 Best American Short Stories https://loriostlund.com/just-another-family-to-appear-in-2024-best-american-short-stories/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=just-another-family-to-appear-in-2024-best-american-short-stories Wed, 12 Jun 2024 00:45:43 +0000 https://loriostlund.com/?p=1583 Read more]]>

I am beyond delighted to announce that my long short story/short novella “Just Another Family” was chosen by her and Lauren Groff for this year’s BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES. It appeared in NEW ENGLAND REVIEW in September 2023 and will be published in BASS 2024 in October 2025. Is it also the anchor in my forthcoming story collection, ARE YOU HAPPY? (Astra House, 2025). When my first story appeared in BASS back in 2010, I was at the start of my writing career and everything seemed to be falling in place so easily then, so perhaps I appreciated less the statistical odds stacked against such a thing: how many stories appear in journals in a given year vs just 20 being selected, the chances that a guest judge will be reading that gets your work. All this to say, I do not take it for granted.

 

]]> 1583 I sold my story collection and next novel https://loriostlund.com/i-just-sold-my-story-collection-and-next-novel/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=i-just-sold-my-story-collection-and-next-novel Thu, 04 Jan 2024 00:36:14 +0000 https://loriostlund.com/?p=1550 Read more]]>

In September 2023, I sold my completed story collection and a novel-in-progress! From the October 2023 Publisher’s Marketplace:

Author of THE BIGNESS OF THE WORLD and AFTER THE PARADE Lori Ostlund‘s ARE YOU HAPPY?, a story collection and novella that could be titled “guns, god, and gays,” which examines class, identity, and loneliness, as well as the specter of violence that hangs over women, the LBGTQ+ community, and all of us, with a novel to follow, to Emily Bell at Zando, in a two-book deal, by Henry Dunow at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner (world English).

UPDATE: in April 2024, both my book contracts and I followed my editor Emily Bell to Astra House. My collection will come out in March 2025.

]]> 1550 Finalist for Simpson Family Literary Prize https://loriostlund.com/finalist-for-simpson-family-literary-prize-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=finalist-for-simpson-family-literary-prize-2 Tue, 20 Feb 2018 16:52:08 +0000 https://loriostlund.com/?p=816 Read more]]> I was one of 4 writers named as a finalist for the $50,000 prize, awarded to a writer in mid-career. “The Simpson Family Literary Project administers the prize with the collaboration of the Lafayette Library and Learning Center Foundation and the UC Berkeley English Department. The Simpson Project is named in honor of Barclay and Sharon Simpson and their family, philanthropists whose mission is to help artists and students and underserved children.” Info here.

[repost of old post that went missing]

]]> 816 I Interviewed Anne Raeff (my wife) for The Rumpus https://loriostlund.com/i-interviewed-anne-raeff-my-wife-for-the-rumpus-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=i-interviewed-anne-raeff-my-wife-for-the-rumpus-2 Fri, 14 Oct 2016 16:17:58 +0000 https://loriostlund.com/?p=801 Read more]]> I loved doing this interview with Anne Raeff, my wife and first reader, for The Rumpus on the eve of the release of her Flannery O’Connor Award-winning collection, The Jungle Around Us (released October 1, 2016). I asked her about being married to another fiction writer and winning the same prize, being a self-described “bad Jew,” and learning to love cats.

]]> 801 German Edition of AFTER THE PARADE released https://loriostlund.com/german-edition-of-after-the-parade-released/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=german-edition-of-after-the-parade-released Fri, 14 Oct 2016 16:12:31 +0000 https://loriostlund.com/?p=799 With a new cover and title (Life Is a Peculiar Place), After the Parade is officially out in German!

]]> 799 Star Tribune Review of AFTER THE PARADE https://loriostlund.com/star-tribune-review-of-after-the-parade/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=star-tribune-review-of-after-the-parade Fri, 14 Oct 2016 16:10:13 +0000 https://loriostlund.com/?p=796 Read more]]> In August, I read in my home state of Minnesota, where half of my novel is set, for the first time. I was thrilled with the Star Tribune review of After the Parade that preceded my visit: “It is the story of an American man who must come to terms with his childhood. This sad, brilliant book is for all of us. Its Minnesota moments make it especially compelling for those of us who live here, especially if we grew up in small towns, where nothing, but everything, happened to us.”

Full review here.

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