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Stuart Dybek was born to Polish immigrants in Chicago, the setting for most of his work, which includes several poetry collections. Dybek is a progenitor of the short-short form, and his fiction includes Childhood and Other Neighborhoods; I Sailed with Magellan; a New York Times Notable Book; and the collections Ecstatic Cahoots and Paper Lantern, published simultaneously by FSG in 2014. He has won a PEN/Malamud, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and numerous O. Henry Prizes. In 2007 he received a MacArthur Fellowship Genius Award and the Rea Award for the Short Story. Dybek teaches at Northwestern and in the renowned Prague Summer Program.

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Excerpt from a Manuscript in Progress

by Stuart Dybek
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Let’s meet in the Loop.

Come in on the train that only approximates time, with a woman’s magazine you’ll leave behind on the seat you had all to your own. Instead of reading, you’ll say you rode to a song in your mind. (“Night and Day” or maybe “My Funny Valentine.”)

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  • It reads as if you're languishing somewhere with a pencil and...

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