PATRICIA ENGEL DEBUT COMING IN 2010

When she spoke to The Roving Editor back in April, Patricia Engel promised to keep us posted about two book projects she had in the works. Now comes the excellent news that her debut short story collection is to be published in the US by Grove/Atlantic in autumn of next year.

Publishers' Marketplace reports that the book, entitled Vida, 'follows a single narrator growing up in small town New Jersey and navigating her identity as a daughter of the Colombian diaspora'. It will doubtless include the stories 'Lucho' and 'Dia'. This is to be a two-book deal, and Vida will be followed by a novel, as yet untitled.

Here is how Patricia described what motivates her as a writer, and why she is drawn to short stories in particular: 'I love the vulnerability of the form and that there is nowhere for the author to hide. A short story requires swift seduction but can be as memorable and transformative as the drawn out affair of a novel. I write stories for the pure thrill of it. If it didn’t feel like a party when I sit down to write, I probably wouldn’t do it.' (Read the rest of her Q&A here.)

Congratulations, Patricia -- enjoy the party!