Fiction from Epoch to be featured in major anthologies

Four short stories from a recent issue of Epoch, the Cornell literary magazine, have been selected for inclusion in major anthologies.

The stories, originally published in the January 2007 issue of Epoch (Vol. 56, No. 1), are:

Muñoz, whose MFA was in creative writing, is also the author of two story collections, "Zigzagger" and "The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue."

"Manuel Muñoz is one of the up-and-coming stars in American fiction," said Epoch editor Michael Koch, a senior lecturer in English at Cornell.

Peelle earned her Cornell B.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing. Her first published story, "Mule Killers," first appeared in Epoch and was included in "The O. Henry Prize Stories: 2006." She also has won two Pushcart Prizes and has a story in the current issue of Granta. Peelle, whose 2001 wedding to musician Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show was featured in The New York Times, will publish her first collection of short fiction with Harper Perennial next July.

"From what I'm hearing, her book is expected to be pretty big," Koch said.

He added that while many Epoch stories have been anthologized over the magazine's 61-year history, it is unusual "to have so many from one issue. Just for the last three years, we've had 14 -- including these four -- reprinted in major anthologies. Six have been O. Henry stories, and another 12 stories were shortlisted for the major anthologies."

Epoch publishes fiction, poetry, essays, graphic art and the occasional screenplay, and appears three times a year (in September, January and May). It has been in continuous publication since 1947 -- a story from the first issue was reprinted in "Best American Short Stories" -- and has a history of promoting new literary talent. In the 1950s and '60s, the magazine featured the first published fiction of Thomas Pynchon '59, Don DeLillo and Stanley Elkin; and early stories by Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates.

The magazine is staffed by faculty and graduate students in the Department of English Program in Creative Writing. All first-year MFA students work on the magazine in exchange for a tuition waiver and a stipend, Koch said. "Most of them stay on as readers for us after they get their degrees. They're allowed to stay on for two more years as lecturers if they choose to do that," he said.

For more information, submission guidelines or subscriptions, visit http://www.arts.cornell.edu/english/publications/epoch/.

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