“A gathering of possibilities”: anthologisation and contemporary short fiction

ABSTRACT

This essay engages with the practice of anthologisation in contemporary Irish short fiction. It takes as its starting point Sinéad Gleeson’s remark in The Art of the Glimpse (2020) that the anthology is a potentially generous art form since it constitutes “a gift” or “a gathering of possibilities” for the unsuspecting reader. The essay extends out from Gleeson’s suggestive analogy to examine some of the ways that the anthological form allows established and emerging writers to be placed in generative company. There are complications, of course, as every instance of anthologisation is also an exercise in gatekeeping, which presupposes acts of negotiation, selection, ratification, and compromise. Anthologies play a critical role in the process of canon formation and in the delineation of literary heritage; they help to shape expectations of genre and form; and they reorient the textual environment in which stories are received and interpreted. This essay investigates these and related issues by looking at a selection of contemporary anthologies of Irish short fiction, focusing especially on the Faber series of New Irish Short Stories which began with the late David Marcus in 2005, and which most recently includes Lucy Caldwell’s Being Various (2019).

KEYWORDS:

• Anthologies
• contemporary short fiction
• gatekeeping
• canon formation
• inclusion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Oates, “Introduction,” 4.

2. Gleeson, “Introduction,” xii.

3. Price, Anthology and Rise of Novel, 3.

4. Gilmartin, “Old tunes.”

5. Burke, “Editor’s Introduction,” 5.

6. Bateman, “The Gaining of Wisdom,” 37.

7. Connolly, “No Blacks,” 44.

8. Connolly, “Introduction,” 3.

9. Giakaniki and Showers, “Introduction,” xxiv.

10. Chamberlain-King, “Introduction,” xxii.

11. Caldwell, “Introduction,” 4.

12. Ibid., 6; and MacNeice, “Snow,” 24.

13. D’hoker, “Short Story Anthology,” 119.

14. Marcus, “Introduction,” viii.

15. Marcus, Oughtobiography, 171.

16. Lezard, “New Irish Short Stories.”

17. O’Connor, “Introduction,” ix.

18. Madden, “Introduction,” xiii-xiv.

19. McGuinness, “The Widow’s Ferret,” 207.

20. O’Connor, “Introduction,” x.

21. “Review: New Irish Short Stories.”

22. Ford, “Leaving for Kenosha,” 119.

23. See note 20 above.

24. Ibid., xi.

25. Ford, “Introduction,” xxiv.

26. O’Connor, “Introduction,” x-xi.

27. Ibid., xi.

28. Ge, “How I Fell,” 17.

29. Caldwell, “Favourite Short Story.”

30. Kajermo, “Alienation,” 310.

31. Okorie, “BrownLady12345,” 137.

32. Okorie, “Shackles,” 144.

33. Okorie, “This Hostel Life,” 3.

34. Lentin, “Asylum seekers,” 23.

35. Caldwell, “Introduction,” 4–5.

36. Foster, The Irish Story, 100.

37. Barry, “An Introduction,” ix; and Bowen, “Introduction,” 7.

38. Barry, “An Introduction,” xii.

39. Cardin, “Introduction,” 8. Cardin’s comments are a direct but unattributed quotation from Barthes, S/Z, 4.

40. Kenneally, “Interview with Barry,” 31.

41. Prescott, “Short Story Anthology,” 564.

42. Caldwell, “Introduction,” 5.

43. Gleeson, “Editor’s Introduction,” 2, 3.

44. McVeigh, interview, unpublished.

45. McVeigh, “Introduction,” 15.

46. Lindsay, “Working Class is Authenticity,” 13.

47. McVeigh, The 32, 299.

48. McVeigh, “Foreword,” 8.

49. Gleeson, “Editor’s Introduction,” 1; and Gleeson, ”Introduction,” xii