The Review of Contemporary Fiction
Scibner's Best of the Fiction Workshops 1997 by John Kulka, Natalie Danford and Alice HoffmanJohn O'Brien
Kulka, John, and Natalie Danford, eds. Alice Hoffman, guest ed. Scribner’s Best of the Fiction Workshops 1997. Scribner, 1997. 400 pp. Paper: $13.00.
I have a problem with how conventional most of the pieces in this anthology are, but there is a need for such an annual as a way of giving younger writers exposure that they will not otherwise get. The anthology will also be useful to book editors looking for new writers, and I know that some of the authors have wound up with book contracts based upon what editors saw here. A few weeks ago I was talking to an editor at a large commercial house who was complaining that he was not coming across fresh material by young writers, and this annual could become an effective vehicle for discovering such writers. [John O’Brien]