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THE EMPTY HOUSE

THE EMPTY HOUSE

$19.95Price

ISBN: 978-0-9883166-7-6

Pub Date: Fall 2013

Pages: 196


By Nathan Oates


WINNER OF THE 2012 SPOKANE PRIZE FOR SHORT FICTION


From the northern wilderness of Alaska to the mountains of Guatemala, from rural Ireland to war-torn Haiti and beyond, the characters in these award-winning stories travel with dreams of escape but find themselves ensnared by cultural misunderstandings, political strife, and the weight of family: a professor heads to Ireland with his wife and children, hoping to mend his broken marriage; a father and son find themselves caught up in a near civil war in Haiti; a young man travels to Guatemala, trying to understand what happened to his brother who disappeared there years before. These characters walk the fine line between safety and danger, good and evil, life and death, and on their way find their truest selves revealed.


Oates' is the first book that Lost Horse Press has collaborated with Eastern Washington University’s Willow Springs Editions to publish the annual book contest administered by MFA creative writing students. The staff of Willow Springs Editions is comprised mostly of MFA creative writing students under the direction of poet Christopher Howell and publisher Christine Holbert, founding director of Lost Horse Press. As part of an internship, students gets hands-on experience in every phase of the publishing process, from acquisitions to editing, design and production, promotions and marketing.

    Nothing is wasted in a Nathan Oates story. The plots are brisk, the stakes are high, the characters want things, and we want them to get what they want. The pages of The Empty House turn so quickly that the reader finishes the book with the best sort of complaint: Why couldn’t it last a little longer?

    —Kyle Minor, author of In the Devil’s Territory and Praying Drunk

     

    Nathan Oates is an extraordinary young writer whose collection is utterly remarkable. His stories are dense and intricate, very close to the heart, taking us to places we’ve never been and will never be. In Oates’s skilled hands these are works rendered perfectly by a master of place, character, action, a writer with a stunningskill set. The Empty House announces the arrival of an astonishing new voice on the literary scene.

    —Frederick Barthelme, editor and publisher of New World Writing

    Nathan Oates received his Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing at the University of Missouri and has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prize awards. He has been published in Antioch Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Fugue, among others. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and two children, where he works as an assistant professor of English at Seton Hall University.


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