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After the Workshop
Copyright © 2010
by John McNally
Counterpoint Press
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McNally ... clearly
knows the world he admires yet takes down. His wacky literary archetypes, naked humor and sharp observations
offer up an entertaining look at the writing life and the people who prop it up.
— Publishers Weekly
Spiked with hilarious digs at
the entire literary egofest, yet rooted in a great love for the necessary magic of stories, McNally’s irresistible
novel of the search for authenticity and meaning offers high comedic catharsis. — Booklist
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The Book of Ralph
Copyright © 2004
by John McNally
Free Press
How to Buy
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[T]his enjoyable first novel is a nostalgic trip back to late 1970s suburban Chicago and
the foibles of eighth-grader Hank and his twice left-back delinquent pal, Ralph.
A conceit worthy of a fine novelist. — Washington Post
McNally's talent for characterization and his lush sense of place make for funny and oddly compelling reading.
— Booklist
Funny as hell ... McNally knows how to balance the hair-raising with the hysterical better than any young writer at work.
— Virginia Quarterly Review
This book is charming, sensitive, and at times flat out hysterical. I knew kids like Ralph--and they scared me--but none of them had his heart, his humor, or ultimately his entertaining story. I hated to say goodbye at the end of the book." --Mitch Albom, author of The Five People You Meet In Heaven and Tuesdays With Morrie
— The Inside Flap
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Bottom of the Ninth
Copyright © 2010
by John McNally
U of Iowa P
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Skillfully edited by John McNally, Bottom of the Ninth: Great Contemporary Baseball Short Stories collects
nineteen contemporary baseball short stories from a successful mix of well-established writers, lesser knowns,
and a few up-and-comers. These stories are characterized by the same dramatic elements that draw people to the
sport itself — the mythologizing of players, the obsessions and romance of the game, the bonds between players
and fans, parents and children. From a key play, a missed catch, a chance lost, these are tales of characters
facing high stakes and calls to action, metaphorically and literally, in the bottom of the ninth. — from the
publisher
[T]he gem of the [Writing Baseball] series so far, to be treasured by any reader who enjoys baseball fiction.
— SportsFan Magazine
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The Creative Writer's Survival Guide
Copyright © 2004
by John McNally
University of Iowa P
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Beginning with “The Writer’s Wonderland — Or: A Warning” and ending with “You’ve Published a Book —
Now What?” The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide is a must-read for creative-writing students and teachers,
conference participants, and aspiring writers of every stamp. Directed primarily at fiction writers but suitable
for writers of all genres, John McNally’s guide is a comprehensive, take-no-prisoners blunt, highly idiosyncratic,
and delightfully subjective take on the writing life.
McNally has earned the right to dispense advice on this subject. He has published three novels, two collections of short
fiction, and hundreds of individual stories and essays. He has edited six anthologies and worked with editors at university
presses, commercial houses, and small presses. He has earned three degrees, including an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop,
and taught writing to thousands of students at nine different universities. But he has received far more rejections than
acceptances, has endured years of underpaid adjunct work, and is presently hard at work on a novel for which he has no
guarantee of publication. In other words, he’s been at the writing game long enough to rack up plenty of the highs and
lows that translate into an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to become a writer or anyone who is already a writer
but doesn’t know how to take the next step toward the writing life.
In the sections The Decision to Become a Writer, Education and the Writer, Getting Published, Publicity,
Employment for Writers, and The Writer’s Life, McNally wrestles with writing degrees and graduate programs,
the nuts and bolts of agents and query letters and critics, book signings and other ways to promote your
book, alcohol and other home remedies, and jobs for writers from adjunct to tenure-track. Chapters such
as “What Have You Ever Done That’s Worth Writing About?” “Can Writing Be Taught?” “Rejection: Putting
It in Perspective,” “Writing as a Competitive Sport,” “Seven Types of MLA Interview Committees,” “Money
and the Writer,” and the all-important “Talking about Writing vs. Writing” cover a vast range of writerly
topics from learning your craft to making a living at it. McNally acts as the writer’s friendly drill
sergeant, relentlessly honest but bracingly cheerful as he issues his curmudgeonly marching orders.
Alternately cranky and philosophical, full of to-the-point anecdotes and honest advice instead of
wonkish facts and figures, The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide is a snarky, truthful, and immensely
helpful map to being a writer in today’s complex world.
I write this blurb in distress because for years I’ve been stealing John McNally’s sharp insights into writing and
publishing and passing them off as my own. Now this generous so-and-so is sharing his vast experience as a writer
and editor with everyone. Worse yet, this book, despite its instructional value, is irresistibly, un-put-downably
readable. — Timothy Schaffert, author, Devils in the Sugar Shop
This has got to be the most comprehensive nuts-and-bolts how-to that has ever been written about writing. McNally
has answered every one—every one!—of the questions that always come up in a Q&A session when the writer’s impulse
is to talk about Art and the audience wants to know: how do I get to be you? I look forward to having this book in
hand. It’s a fine addition to the ever-growing literature of creative writing, and it covers everything. —
Janet Burroway, author, Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft and Bridge of Sand
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Ghosts of Chicago
Copyright © 2008
by John McNally
Jefferson Press
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McNally follows two smart and rambunctious novels with a triumphant return to the short story. His second
collection (his award-winning debut was Troublemakers, 2000) is set in a precisely drawn yet mythical
Chicago, McNally’s hometown. Spooky and tender with McNally’s signature mix of compassion and irony, these
complex stories feature characters haunted by their dead and missing, dazed by drugs and obsession, and
living in strange isolation. We meet a boy who finds wisdom in monster movies, and two beleaguered children’s
television show hosts, most poignantly the very proper Miss Betsy, who is dramatically undone by her lover’s
death in Korea. Legendary Chicagoans, from Nelson Algren to John Belushi and Walter Payton, headline the book’s
curious melding of realism and aberration as McNally’s finely crafted prose plays in evocative counterpoint to
the odd predicaments, shadowy tragedies, and unforeseen redemptions achieved in these imaginative and
mysterious stories. McNally has always been an embracing and funny writer. He now reaches deeper psychic
levels in these edgy, knowing, and rough yet entrancing short stories. — Booklist
Review
Chicago novelist McNally’s latest collection of stories resurrects Chicago icons such as Nelson Algren and
Romper Room host Miss Betsy in fictional form. In one tale, Gene Siskel tires of the movie he’s watching and
decides to taunt Roger Ebert instead. — TimeOut Chicago
The ghosts in these stories are indeed haunting, but in the most profound, heartbreaking, hilarious and human
ways. Cumulatively McNally's stories have the pulse and swagger of the finest sociological novel, but
individually they have a wholly different effect. Lives are laid bare with stunning clarity in tales in
which one moment, one exquisitely crafted turn of phrase has the power to reveal the truths and lies,
disappointments and wonders of a lifetime, an era and a city. — James P Othmer, author, The Futurist
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High Infidelity
Copyright © 1994
by John McNally
Quill/William Morrow
How to Buy
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For the first time, High Infidelity brings together top authors,
including Margaret Atwood, John Updike, Ethan Canin, and
Russell Banks, as well as new voices, in a collection about a
tantalizing and titillating subject that fuels our collective
fascination — adultery. Daring, hilarious, moving, sexy,
outrageous, haunting and horrifying, this anthology presents
storytelling at its best and boldest. — from the jacket
What with one complication after another, adultery generates
complexity of emotion, thought, and circumstance, not to mention
obsession. This collision of passions and abandonment of reason has
inspired writers to create tragedies and comedies, melodrama and
satire, cliches and wholly unexpected revelations, and the full
range of these interpretations is found in this provocative anthology.
— Booklist
Using adultery as a common thread, editor McNally gathers
over twenty stories by both well-known and new writers. This
literary collection reveals affairs which transform all involved,
charting acts of love, lust, and revenge alike. Updike and others
contribute to a unique coverage. — Midwest Book Review
Adultery has long shadowed marriage and has long fascinated
writers and readers alike for obvious reasons. Forbidden love
affairs are full of romance, lust, guilt, danger, and ecstasy. What
with one complication after another, adultery generates
complexity of emotion, thought, and circumstance, not to
mention obsession. This collision of passions and abandonment
of reason has inspired writers to create tragedies and
comedies, melodrama and satire, cliches and wholly
unexpected revelations,
and the full range of these
interpretations is found in this provocative anthology. Editor
McNally has chosen stories that portray standard affairs
between intelligent adults, an unsettling liaison between a
41-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl, true love between
previously heterosexual women, and an imaginative take on
two historical figures. — Booklist
These stories, like all good fiction, are about the
human predicament, about love lost and love found,
about people doing the best they can with what
they've got. — San Francisco Chronicle
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The Student Body
Copyright © 2001
by John McNally
U of Wisconsin P
How to Buy
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Fiction, like life, has its lessons, and it's a wild ride on the learning
curve when
storytelling goes to school. The short stories in this collection
negotiate the heights,
the depths, and the unexpected angles of campus intrigue, sexual and
intellectual awakenings
and reckonings, and all the heartache and hilarity of a sentimental
education. The work of
such well-known authors as Stephen King,
Marly Swick, and Ron Carlson appears here as well
as stories by most promising new voices. The results are sometimes
harrowing (in King's story,
a serial killer roams a campus), sometimes droll (in Lucia Perillo's "The
Wife of an Indian,"
an academic adjusts his ethnicity to get tenure), and often poignant (as
in
Dan Chaon's story
of the aftermath of an accident that injures a fraternity president.)
— from the jacket
This wonderfully eclectic group of smart tales about professors and
students proves that on
either side of the teacher's desk there are equal measures of yearning,
trickery, passion,
sorrow, and comedy. — Karen Stolz, author of World of Pies
The Student Body is a real education. These fine and often funny
stories by Richard
Russo, Ron Carlson, and other teachers/writers prove that academic writing
can rank at the
head of the class. — Rita Ciresi, author of Pink Slip and Blue
Italian
A rich and varied anthology that will interest creative writing professors
and students as well
as the general public. Richard Russo's powerful story, The Whore's Child,
is worth the price
of admission alone; but there are other equally impressive and memorable
stories. I will
definitely put this on my list of required books in my fiction writing
classes. —
Judith Slater, author of The Baby Can Sing and
Other Stories
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Troublemakers
Copyright © 2000
by John McNally
U of Iowa Press
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Troublemakers is an often hilarious, sometimes frightening,
occasionally off-the-wall collection of stories about men living
on the edge. From the streets of Chicago's southwest side to
the rural roads of Nebraska to the small towns of southern
Illinois, these men tread a very fine line between right and
wrong, love and hate, humor and horror. Each story is a
Pandora's box waiting to be opened: a high school boy with a
new driver's license picks his brother up from jail; a UPS driver
suspects his wife of having an affair but cannot find any tangible
evidence of her indiscretion; an unemployed man's life begins to
unravel after he discovers a dead man in a tree in his own
backyard; two boys spend Halloween with an older thug; a
young college teacher's patience is tested by both his annoying
colleagues and the criminals who haunt his neighborhood. In
story after story, McNally's troublemakers lead readers to a
place no less thrilling or dangerous than the human heart itself. —
from the jacket
Winner of the 2000 John Simmons Short Fiction Award.
John McNally is an electrifying writer whose stories burrow
under the skin. His world becomes our world, his way of
seeing, ours. Resistance is futile. — Richard Russo
I love Troublemakers. With a palpable reality breathing from
every page, this book has tough people in tough spots. John
McNally's writing is so good that the characters won't leave
you alone, but will stay in your mind for days. Read these
stories and you are entering the world of a brilliant writer. —
Chris Offutt
John McNally has that rare gift of achieving both humor and
poignancy, and his ability to evoke the personal past in all its
delicious detail makes one think of an American Roddy Doyle. —
T Coraghessan Boyle
Troublemakers is, on every page, in every sentence,
simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and absolutely
heartbreaking. John McNally's work will remind you of the
greatest stories you ever heard from your best friend, or your
long-lost cousin, or the improbable barroom genius you end up
next to at the end of the night, except they're even better: vivid
and moving and eloquent and full of the kind of moral weight
that reminds you what stories are for. He has things to tell, and
he does so, beautifully. — Elizabeth McCracken
Troublemakers is a fantastic debut. The author has an exquisite
feel for simple, everyday aches, the heartbreaking common cruelties that
people swallow, dazed, barely missing a beat. As McNally's narrators
— mostly uneasy sidekicks to the "troublemakers" of the title-bear
witness to and absorb the shock of neighborhood events, readers are left a
bit breathless and feel as though they are right there. — School
Library Journal
It is refreshing to see writing like this receive its due in the world of
contemporary short fiction. McNally is a master at capturing distinct,
recognizable character types without ever falling into predictable clichi.
— Chicago Tribune
Troublemakers consists of 11 incredibly rendered stories of boys
and men who have been marginalized. While the stories are connected by
McNally's searing, darkly comic style of storytelling, each one develops a
fresh set of characters and demonstrates a new dimension to the author's
fierce prose and controlled craft. — San Francisco Bay
Guardian
Troublemakers confirms McNally's status as a major and exciting new
talent. — The Capital Times
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What the Critics Say
