The Art of the Short Story

The Art of the Short Story: Jill McCorkle on Old Crimes with Amy Hempel

Wednesday, 7:00 pm EDT February 28, 2024

The Center for Fiction
& Livestreamed

Continuing our series about the possibilities of writing in the short form, we welcome Jill McCorkle (Life After Life, Hieroglyphics) to celebrate her wry and rich collection: Old Crimes and Other Stories. Old Crimes delves into the lives of characters who hold their secrets and misdeeds close, even as the past continues to reverberate over time and across generations: In “Low Tones,” a woman uses her hearing impairment as a way to guard herself from her husband’s commentary. In “Lineman,” a telephone lineman strains to connect to his family even as he feels pushed aside in a digital world. In “Confessional,” a young couple buys a confessional booth for fun, only to discover the cost of honesty. Legendary short-fiction writer Amy Hempel (Sing to It) joins McCorkle in conversation about her perceptive, intimate stories of longing, affection, and regret. After the conversation, McCorkle will sign books.

In Conversation

Jill McCorkle

Jill McCorkle

Jill McCorkle has the distinction of having published her first two novels on the same day in 1984. Of these novels, the New York Times Book Review said: “one suspects the author of The Cheer Leader is a born novelist. With July 7th, she is also a full grown one.” Since then she has published five other novels—most recently, Hieroglyphics—and four collections of short stories. Five of her books have been named New York Times notable books and four of her stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories. McCorkle has received the New England Booksellers Award, the John Dos Passos Prize for Excellence in Literature, the North Carolina Award for Literature and the Thomas Wolfe Prize; she was recently inducted into the NC Literary Hall of Fame. McCorkle has taught at Harvard, Brandeis, and NC State where she remains affiliated with the MFA Program in creative writing and she is core faculty in the Bennington Writing Seminars.

Photo Credit: Tom Rankin
Amy Hempel

Amy Hempel

Amy Hempel is the author of five collections of stories, most recently Sing to It. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a United States Artists Fellowship, the PEN/Malamud Award, the REA Award, the Vursell Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, and more.

Photo Credit: Vicki Topaz

Featured Book

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Old Crimes and Other Stories

By Jill McCorkle

Published by Algonquin Books

PURCHASE

Old Crimes delves into the lives of characters who hold their secrets and misdeeds close, even as the past continues to reverberate over time and across generations. And despite the characters’ yearnings for connection, they can’t seem to tell the whole truth. In “Low Tones,” a woman uses her hearing impairment as a way to guard herself from her husband’s commentary. In “Lineman,” a telephone lineman strains to connect to his family even as he feels pushed aside in a digital world. In “Confessional,” a young couple buys a confessional booth for fun, only to discover the cost of honesty.

Profoundly moving and unforgettable, for fans of Alice Munro, Elizabeth Strout, and Lily King, the stories in Old Crimes reveal why McCorkle has long been considered a master of the form, probing lives full of great intensity, longing and affection, and deep regret.

“Jill McCorkle has had an extraordinary ear for the music of ordinary life since the beginning of her career, able to work with the voices we know so well to write these stories about what they will not tell us, what they would rather not tell us, what they hope to tell us, what too often goes unsaid. And this collection is a new wonder.” —Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

About this series