A More Perfect Union; Poems And Stories About The Modern Wedding

The format is approximately 5.75 inches by 8.5 inches. xv, [5], 295, [3] pages. Signed by the Editor (Hartman) on the verso of the half-title page. A charming anthology centers around the theme of getting married and includes works by Myra Epping, Carson McCullers, Mark Twain, Anne Tyler, Alice McDermott, Stephen Dixon, Francine Prose, Alice Munro, Sharon Olds, and Faye Moskowitz. Virginia Hartman is the author of The Marsh Queen, a novel from Gallery/Simon & Schuster. She holds an MFA from American University and teaches creative writing at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in the Hudson Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, the Washingtonian, Redux, Potomac Review, Delmarva Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Sligo Journal, and Bluebird City, among others, and her work has been anthologized in Gravity Dancers: Even More Fiction by Washington Area Women (Paycock Press). She is also the co-editor, with Barbara Esstman, of A More Perfect Union: Poems and Stories about the Modern Wedding. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her writing has been supported by the Sewanee Writer’s Conference and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her stories have been shortlisted for the New Letters prize, the Tennessee Williams Festival Prize, and the Dana Awards. In her fiction, readers might notice a preoccupation with the workings of the natural world, the intertwining of the intellect and the human heart, and the ways her characters must navigate between the sometimes overlapping forces of good and evil. Barbara Esstman worked as a writing instructor at various institutions, including George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, and American University, Washington, DC. Washington Independent Writers (board of directors). Her awards and honors include: Redbook fiction award, 1988; Virginia Commission on the Arts fellowship, 1998; National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1990; Pushcart Prize honorable mention, 1991; George Mason University Alumna of the Year Award. She is also an editor, with Virginia Hartman, of A More Perfect Union: Poems and Stories about the Modern Wedding. The collection contains contributions from well-known writers, including Anne Tyler, Carson McCullers, Alice McDermott, Alice Munro, Francine Prose, and Stephen Dixon. The volume also contains poetry by Anne Sexton, Jonathan Galassi, and Sharon Olds. The contributions range from tender to lighthearted. A Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote that among the works of lesser-known writers, a "standout" story is "Presents," by Faye Moskowitz. The reviewer felt that "the collection as a whole nicely covers the gamut of contemporary attitudes about tying the knot." From Stephanie Durban's Amazon review: It's easy to fall for the Cinderella fantasy of marriage, sketched as it often is with black-and-white strokes: the pledges of undying love, the white dress, the happily-ever-after that the wedding industry promotes. But many a woman on the verge of nuptials finds herself feeling pedestalized, psychically separated from friends and family. Her fears, anxieties, and trepidation may be tamped down, leaving room only for the more acceptable emotions of excitement and joy. In A More Perfect Union: Poems and Stories About the Modern Wedding, co-editors Virginia Hartman and Barbara Esstman expertly bring together 44 writers who offer up alternative, more realistic and colorful, universes of marital experience. Poet Jennifer Weinblatt's "Marriage Song for Many Voices" may strike a chord with many such brides-to-be: "marriage is a going forth we / don't talk enough about / the loss a risking what we are.," while a heartrending excerpt from Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding voices the feelings of those suddenly second-bested by a new groom or bride. And the hilarious "A Memo from Cinderella" puts the lie to the whole fantasy wedding: she had to work on a budget, too.…