More Literary Debutante Ball Fashion Advice from Marie-Helene

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Marie-Helene Bertino

The cover of How to be Well Dressed, from the Amy Vanderbilt Success Program for Women

I was delighted to be asked to act as fashion godmother again for this Friday’s Literary Debutante Ball, especially since this year we will be honoring the role of literary mentors. If you will (will you?) and if I may be so bold (I may!), allow me to act as your fashion mentor.

As I advised in last year’s blog: Be Bold. Be Comfortable. Do Your Best. As was the case last year, there is no dress code for this year’s ball. Office casual, cocktail dresses, bedazzled shirts with over-achieving torsos paired with Olsen twin sunnies: all good. Khakis and blazers, hoodies under sports coats, sharp black suits: all good.

Faux tuxedo shirt on top with a chicken costume on bottom: may I have this dance, sir?

This year will offer its own new twists and turns. As you may have heard, important nuptials will be taking place the day of our ball. Turtlerino Bertino, my male turtle, will finally be making an honest terrapin out of my other male turtle Leonardo. The wedding will take place in a Foreman Grill box and the bride will be wearing a repurposed napkin from Caesar’s Palace in Atlantic City where, as you know, they met. The ceremony will be three times as long as regular ceremonies because turtles are really slow.

Prince William of Wales will also be getting married that day, though I’m fuzzy on the details of when and where as that event has gone grossly underreported.

Neither wedding will interfere with our ball.

With all further ados a-done, here are two fashion DOs (I don’t recognize DON’Ts):

DO compliment the Associate Editor on her dress, which she will be making out of repurposed napkins from Caesar’s Palace where, as you know, she works.

“You are never fully dressed without a smile.” – some orphan. And clothes. DO wear clothes to our debutante ball.

And, here are more fashion nuggets from the life of yours truly:

“You’re never fully dressed without nude panty hose and red lipstick.” – my Mom

“Nothing, nothing is more important than fashion.” – William S. Randalls, my gym teacher in grade school.

“The only rule is don’t be boring and dress cute wherever you go.” – Paris Hilton

“Fashion is what you adopt when you don’t know who you are.” – Quentin Crisp

“Practice forgetting yourself. Self-respect is being conscious of yourself without being self-conscious.” – Five Clues to Becoming an Interesting Woman, The Amy Vanderbilt Success Program for Women

“Stop talking about your phone.” – One Clue to Becoming an Interesting Person, Marie-Helene Bertino

“What are you wearing, a napkin?! Mom, are you going to let her go out of the house like that?” – my brother Chip on the occasion of my first prom

“Two more rounds of suicides or it’s your ass.” – William S. Randalls, my gym teacher in grade school

“For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.” – Audrey Hepburn. I would add: then take a shower, eat a hoagie and throw some lip-gloss on, because no one wants to be the starving, bleeding-lipped weirdo with kid junk in her hair.

“Put your name on something, it better be the best. You only get one shot.” – George Foreman

In conclusion sweet reader, whenever I find myself feeling anxious about fashion, I fire up some lean chicken, watch my gay turtles do nothing, and reassure myself that no matter what I wear on April 29^th, Michael Cunningham will look better than me.

See proof of that and some fun and friendly faces from last year’s ball here:

I will be so charmed to see you at the ball. No matter what you wear, I think you look dope.

Until then I remain your dedicated Associate Editor,

Marie-the-lean-mean-grilling-Helene

Interview with 2011 One Story Mentorship Award-winner, Dani Shapiro

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Hannah Tinti

For the past few weeks, we’ve been featuring brief interviews with each of our 5 Literary Debutantes. Now, in our final week leading up to the 2011 One Story Debutante Ball, we thought we’d do the same for our Honoree, Dani Shapiro.

Dani Shapiro is the bestselling author of the memoirs Devotion and Slow Motion, and five novels including Black & White and Family History. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, One Story, Elle, The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times, and has been widely anthologized. She has taught in the writing programs at Columbia, New York University, The New School, and Wesleyan University, and is co-founder of the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy. At this year’s Literary Debutante Ball, One Story will be honoring Dani with our 2011 Mentorship Award, for her extraordinary support of emerging writers. Recently, I sat down with Dani to talk about her dual roles as author and mentor.

1. You’ve been a mentor for so many emerging writers. But who were your mentors and how did they help you along the way?

I’ve had extraordinary mentors, which is why, I think, it became so important to me to mentor writers myself when I found myself in a position to do so. I remember arriving at Sarah Lawrence as a freshman and wandering over to the building where most of the writing professors had offices, sort of like a homing pigeon. I knew where I belonged. Grace Paley was there, and her door was open wide, as it often was. Pillows were strewn on the floor. If memory serves, a student was sitting in her lap. Though I never sat in her lap, Grace became a mentor. She had a knack for saying things about the writing life that I didn’t understand when I was her student, but then years later, a lightbulb would go off in my head, and I’d think to myself: oh, so that’s what Grace meant. The writer Jerome Badanes was also a very important mentor to me. He became a dear friend over the years, and long after I graduated, he and I would meet in the city for expensive lunches we couldn’t afford and then we’d wander over to the old Shakespeare & Co. on Broadway and 80th Street and browse the stacks. He died far too young–he was in his mid-fifties and working on his second novel. I still think of Jerry nearly every day.

2. How difficult is it to balance your teaching and writing?

I’ve always aimed to be a writer who teaches, as opposed to a teacher who writes. And so the balance I’ve tried to strike has been to have the bulk of my time spent on my work so that I can approach my students’ work with clarity and generosity. To me, it’s a sacred relationship. Over the years, my teaching has morphed from doing a lot of university teaching to more private classes and writers conferences, which at the moment suits me well.

3. Any words of advice for our 5 debutantes?

Just after my first novel was published, some mean person sidled up to me at a cocktail party and said: “everyone has one book in them”. It was such a horrible thing to hear! It set me back for a while. We writers tend to take the nasty stuff to heart. And so I found my second book the hardest to write because there was suddenly this self-consciousness, this awareness that I was now A Writer. That I was no longer writing in the dark. That self-consciousness is deadly. We all need to trick ourselves, on a daily basis, into feeling like we’re back in that darkness. That’s where the best work comes from.

4. You’ve published 5 novels and 2 memoirs, but you also write short stories—you published “The Six Poisons” with One Story a few years back—any chance you’ll ever publish a collection?

I do tend to be drawn to the longer form, but very slowly, over the years, stories do emerge. I would love to some day publish a collection of stories, or perhaps a combination of stories and essays, if those hybrid collections are allowed to exist.

5. What are you looking forward to the most about the One Story Literary Debutante Ball on April 29th?

Seeing so many of my mentees from so many different writing workshops all gathered together in one room! I have a feeling that it will be a real “this is your life” moment. And of course, it isn’t every day that a writer gets to have a cocktail named in her honor. I’ll certainly have to have one or two “Six Poisons”.

One Story Literary Debutante Ball: The Silent Auction

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Hannah Tinti

On Friday, April 29th One Story will be hosting a Silent Art Auction at our Literary Debutante Ball! Curated by the artist David Goodman, over 50 works will be displayed together, highlighting the influence of one artist’s story upon the next. All of this art has been generously donated, and proceeds will go to supporting One Story.

We’ve got everything from jewelry to photography, from ceramics to paintings. All bidding starts at 50-70% of estimated retail value. Minimum bids range from $80 to $1000.

Want to bid, but can’t make it to Brooklyn for the party? Just fill out our absentee bid form and email or fax it to us before noon on April 28th. In the meantime, browse our online gallery.

Peter Straub at The Center for Fiction

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Adina Talve-Goodman

Tonight, One Story and The Center for Fiction present a craft lecture with Peter Straub! As a writer who transcends genre, Straub will lecture on how to write compelling fiction in any vein. Straub is a poet, short story writer, and was named the Grand Master of Horror at the 1998 World Horror Convention. One Story subscribers attend events for free! So put down your cheap scares and red food coloring and make way for the Master.

Issue #148: A Picture With Yuki

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Hannah Tinti

The One Story office is busy getting ready for our annual benefit, the Literary Debutante Ball (4/29). This year we’re celebrating 5 One Story authors who have published their first books in the past year. As we proofread our program, unload crates of wine from the UPS truck, book florists and caterers and frame art for our silent auction, I’m reminded how exciting it is to publish a talented new voice at the start of their career. Our current issue, “A Picture With Yuki,” introduces just such a emerging writer: Miroslav Penkov. Miro was born in Bulgaria and lived there until he was eighteen, when he moved to the United States. His first collection of stories, East of the West, will be published this July by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. The first time I read “A Picture With Yuki,” I was drawn in by the careful construction of the story, as well as the unique setting of a remote village in Bulgaria, but ultimately it was the compelling drama of the narrator and his wife when they cross paths with a young gypsy boy that won me over. That turn in the plot and the emotional fallout knocked the wind right out of me, and I found myself wondering about these characters, long after I’d finished reading. Check out our Q&A with Miro to learn more about how he crafted this unforgettable story, and be sure to keep an eye out for East of the West when it hits bookstores this summer.

Interview with 2011 Debutante, Robin Black

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Sam Katz

On April 29th, at our 2^nd Annual Literary Debutante Ball, One Story will be celebrating five One Story authors who have published their debut books over the past year. As a lead up to the event, we thought it would be a fun idea to introduce our Debs through a series of interviews on their debut book experiences.

This week, in our fifth installment, we had the pleasure of speaking with Robin Black, author of If I loved you, I would tell you this (Random House), a mesmerizing collection that includes the story she published with One Story, “Harriet Elliot.”

Robin Black’s If I loved you, I would tell you this, takes a compassionate but unsentimental look at families at times of crisis, decision, indecision and growth. Characterized by elegant, simple prose, these stories examine the most basic matter of how hope is – and sometimes is not – to be fabricated, again and again.

1) How did you celebrate when you found out your first book was going to be published?

When I learned that Random House had taken the book, I was up to my ears in the arrangements for my daughter’s bat mitzvah about a week later – and in a sense that huge celebration stood in for any I might have done for the book, which was actually fine. And perfectly symbolic too of the way that all along through this my family has helped me keep the highs and lows of book publication in some kind of perspective – most days, anyway. I did splurge on a couple of things. I went out and bought myself a ridiculously expensive handbag, red and really, really shiny which seemed somehow appropriately talismanic and frivolous all at once.

2) Your collection includes, “Harriet Elliot,” which you published with us in One Story. What happened from when you published in One Story to when your first book was accepted?

That One Story publication was absolutely a game-changer for me in terms of agents being interested in working with me and also just visibility. The Esquire Magazine book blog ran a little review of the story and I remember being blown away by that. Just by being noticed that way. In publishing, for better and also worse, there’s a kind of contagion of acceptance and One Story is one of those buzzy entities that backs up the buzz with unusual, consistent quality. When you’re published in One Story, you’re in amazing company, edited by amazing editors. That’s true of other literary journals I’ve been in as well, but what’s unique to One Story is the degree to which your work is showcased. I absolutely benefitted from all that as well as from the fact that during my work with Hannah the story got a lot, lot better. (A lot.)

3) During the editing of, If I loved you, I would tell you this, was there any single piece of advice you received or perhaps remembered from earlier in your career that helped ease the process?

My mother, who is a legal scholar, once said to me, “I have never regretted refusing to make an edit that seemed wrong to me, and I have invariably regretted giving in when I was sure I shouldn’t.” There haven’t been many times in the course of editing these stories – both for journals and for the book – where I have had to dig in and become, shall we say, stubborn. For the most part I have been enormously appreciative of the suggestions and improvements I’ve received. (And in fact, I’ve even been appreciative of the edits with which I’ve disagreed.) But my mother is right. When you know in your gut that something needs to stay a certain way, you have to go with it. And it helped me a lot having that advice from her for the few times when I needed it.

4) If I loved you, I would tell you this, was short-listed for the prestigious Frank O’Connor Story Prize. What was it like to get such huge international recognition for your first book?

Incredibly exciting. Just incredibly exciting. For me, that event, along with the initial book deal and then the foreign deals, was one where it was so exciting that for a long time I was in a kind of “I can’t compute” stupor. Just to be in that company is extraordinary! But then, I have to say, though that never exactly wears off, the longer I have been around the world of publication and all that attends it, the more I see that as flattering as any accolades are, they are also a little bit random. I’m not trying to be modest here, or even falsely modest, it’s just that after a year with a book out, I can’t help but see how much luck is involved in the whole thing. From those first story publications, when a piece crosses the desk of the right editor who happens to be in the right mood to appreciate it, all the way to being selected as finalist for something as fantastic as the O’Connor Prize, there is an unstable element in the mix, something unpredictable and not particularly rational. I feel so glad that people like and respond to the work – but I also feel very, very lucky.

5) What are you looking forward to the most about the One Story Literary Debutante Ball on April 29^th?

I like the idea of being part of a group, a kind of graduating class. The Debs of 2011. I feel like we should have a secret handshake and a class t-shirt. Reunions in the coming years. I’m so excited to meet the other authors and to share stories of having first books out, hear what it’s been like for them. Hear what they’re doing next. Writing the second book is an infamously treacherous adventure. I’d love to talk about that some. It’s also kind of hilarious because it’s happening on my 49th birthday. The world’s oldest debutante. Life turns out to be so spectacularly strange, and I am looking forward to reveling in that fact.

For more information about Robin and If I loved you, I would tell you this, visit her author website.

Interview with 2011 Debutante, Seth Fried

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Sam Katz

This week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Seth Fried, author of The Great Frustration (Soft Skull Press), a fantastic collection, due out next month, that includes the story he published with One Story, “Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre.“

The Great Frustration is a sparkling debut, equal parts fable and wry satire. Seth Fried balances the dark—a town besieged, a yearly massacre, the harem of a pathological king—with moments of sweet optimism—researchers unexpectedly inspired by discovery, the triumph of a doomed monkey, the big implications found in a series of tiny creatures. Fried’s stories suggest that we are at our most compelling and human when wrestling with the most frustrating aspects of both the world around us and of our very own natures.

1) How did you celebrate when you found out your first book was going to be published?

I was traveling with friends in Colombia when I got the news. We had just finished a rafting trip on the Rio Chicamocha near San Gil and had headed north to Cúcuta. We arrived in the evening, and when I checked my messages I found out that Soft Skull had agreed to publish my book. It just so happened that our arrival coincided with a local festival, so my friends and I commemorated the news by joining in the celebrations. We all drank lots of aguardiente, laughed, and sang songs until the sun came up.

Kidding. I’ve never done anything even remotely like that. The above anecdote was pieced together using Wikipedia.

Here is what actually happened: I randomly woke up one day at five in the morning. I stumbled over to my computer in my underwear and found an email waiting for me from my agent telling me that Soft Skull wanted to publish The Great Frustration (she usually calls with good news, but was traveling at the time). I nodded approvingly, and then went back to bed for a celebratory six more hours of sleep.

2) Your collection includes, “Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre,” which you published with us in One Story. What happened from when you published in One Story to when your first book was accepted?

Lots of stuff. Appearing in One Story is a very unique experience. By the time “Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre” was getting ready to come out, I had already been lucky enough to have published work in some of my favorite magazines. So I figured I was more or less prepared for what it would be like to have something run in One Story. But unlike other magazines, One Story has everyone reading just your story. The response ends up being sort of overwhelming. When “Frost Mountain” appeared, I had more people approach me about my writing in just that first week than I ever had before. The story was eventually awarded a Pushcart Prize, short-listed in Best American Short Stories, and anthologized in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2010. So yeah, lots of stuff. I’m incredibly grateful to One Story and am convinced that the success of “Frost Mountain” was a significant help in finding my book a home.

3) During the editing of, The Great Frustration, was there any single piece of advice you received or perhaps remembered from earlier in your career that helped ease the process?

I’m not sure if this is something I came up with myself or something someone told me: Whether you’re working with a book editor or a magazine editor, I think it’s a great idea to wait a while before responding to edits (time permitting). I routinely break this rule and am routinely embarrassed after the fact. I end up sending these really passionate emails about stuff that doesn’t matter. When I wait to respond, I usually end up seeing the value in a suggestion or coming up with an effective compromise.

4) You do a great job of staying connected with your readers through fun material like story trailers on your blog. If you were inclined to make a trailer for your career so far, what do you think it might look like?

5) What are you looking forward to the most about the One Story Literary Debutante Ball on April 29th?

I went to the ball last year and this happened: I was having an animated conversation with my friend and I gesticulated in such a way that I accidentally threw my beer bottle onto the ground. Fortunately it was empty, but I still had to pick up shards of glass while pretty much every writer I’ve ever heard of watched me. So this year I’m really looking forward to that not happening.

Also, the ball was a lot of fun in general. I’m looking forward to catching up with all the cool people I met last year and meeting some new people as well. With any luck no one will ask me, “Hey, aren’t you beer bottle guy?”

For more information about The Great Frustration , check out Soft Skull’s website. Or read more about Seth at his author website, Seth Fried’s Bare-Minimum-Blog Blog.

Interview with 2011 Debutante, Susanna Daniel

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Sam Katz

This week, in our third installment, we had the pleasure of speaking with Susanna Daniel, author of Stiltsville, a dazzling novel that includes the excerpt she published with One Story, “Stiltsville.”

Stiltsville offers a gripping, bittersweet portrait of a marriage — and romance — that deepens over the course of three decades, set against a vivid and lush South Florida background during the years of Miami’s coming-of-age. Named one of Amazon’s Best Debuts of 2010 and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers pick.

1) How did you celebrate when you found out your first book was going to be published?

I found out that my deal was signed via email, when I was working a full-time job, so there wasn’t much to do except turn around — to people who didn’t even know I wrote — and say, “My book is going to be published by HarperCollins.” They were puzzled, but happy for me. Then my good friend, a writer who published widely before I did, told me that she’d heard the book release day termed “the calm before the calm.” No one is going to throw a party for you, she said — so you have to do it for yourself. I meekly mentioned to my husband the idea of a little soiree at the house, and he said, “Let’s have a really BIG party!” We went all out for 130 guests in my house and backyard two days before the release, and my husband gave a introduction that stirred many to tears and totally upstaged me. Then on the day the book came out, we drove to a local bookstore and took a photo of my book on the shelves.

2) You published an excerpt of Stiltsville with us in One Story. What happened from when you published in One Story to when your novel was released?

Publishing an excerpt in One Story was the best possible way to introduce my book to the world. It was such an honor at the time, and continues to be. I’ve been a direct recipient of One Story‘s commitment to its contributors and to the literary community.

3) During the editing of Stiltsville, was there any single piece of advice you received or perhaps remembered from earlier in your career that helped ease the process?

I’d taken a great many years to write Stiltsville, so the editing process was pretty smooth. My editor did call late in the process to say — in a gingerly tone — that she thought the book might be stronger with one chapter cut. This chapter was the first part of the book I’d ever written (though it fell midway through the story), and it had been anthologized and had earned me two fellowships. The fact that it was now the weakest link in a novel struck me as fantastic news, almost like a reward for the work I’d done over the years. I immediately set to work eliminating the chapter and reworking the time-line. One piece of advice I’d received early on was that a first novel should be short and tight — 300 pages or fewer. This advice is sort of strict and specific, and of course doesn’t apply to many stories, but for my book it was fitting. Cutting that weak chapter strengthened the novel as a whole and kept the book tight.

4) The landscape of South Florida is treated with such meticulous care in your novel to beautiful effect. How do you think place influences your writing?

Many readers assume that the first novel is autobiographical, and sometimes it is — but often, I think, the setting is the most autobiographical part of any story. I don’t write fantasy stories, so the place and period of my work is essentially true, even historical. Florida is my past, which gives me the distance I need to use it as a setting for fiction. Stiltsville, specifically, is a perfect setting for domestic drama: it’s an island, essentially, and when a writer places her characters on an island, something is bound to be revealed.

5) What are you looking forward to the most about the One Story Literary Debutante Ball on April 29^th?

I relish the opportunity to be with people who regard literature as highly as I do, of course, and also I think there might be dancing.

For more information about Susanna and Stiltsville, check out her author website.