My Wordstock Pick

Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It

by Maile Meloy

"Don't let the easy accessibility of Maile Meloy's writing fool you: she's capable of witchcraft.... These 11 stories are quick, powerful jabs, startling in their economy; you're propelled toward each ending, certain she won't be able to wrap it up in one more page, and you're proved wrong every time." -- Time

As we told you last week, Wordstock is putting a little extra focus this year on writers of short stories. In the spirit of this attention to stories, we're happy to announce that this year's Wordstock Book Club pick is one of the most celebrated collections of short fiction of recent years, a book The New York Times picked as one of the 10 Best Books of 2009.

Maile Meloy is one of the most celebrated young fiction writers in the US, and the 11 new stories collected in Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It show why. Rich yet spare, calm yet filled with tension, approachable yet highly intelligent, her prose is astonishing to behold. She makes the complicated storyteller's art seem effortless. We are thrilled to be able to bring this talented writer to Wordstock!

Maile Meloy's stories have been published in The New Yorker, and she has received The Paris Review's Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, the PEN/Malamud Award, the Rosenthal Foundation Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She will read from Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It and answer readers' questions at the Wordstock Book Fair on Saturday, October 9 at 2pm.