Simpsonistas Vol. 4

Simpsonistas: Vol. 4 begins at the onset of creation. Conversations and references dot the pages of authors acclaimed and emerging—with many of the stories weaving together sensation and interpretation. We are told that “There is creative power in a pause,” and following the “plague year” of Simpsonistas Vol. 3, Vol. 4 is a rebirth. In it, Lorne M. Buchman quotes Joseph Di Prisco, Alex Ullman reflects on a fellowship at McKinley High School, and students have their poems juxtaposed with those of their teachers. The volume discusses the craft of creative writing through an analysis of entry points, and then does what the best books always proclaim to do—show, not tell.

Other celebrated authors found in these pages include: Danielle Evans, Joyce Carol Oates, Lauren Groff, Daniel Mason, Anthony Marra, Lise Gaston, and Lorne M. Buchman. In addition, several New Literary Project luminaries shine within the book, such as Jessica Laser, Noah Warren, Ian S. Maloney, and Diane Del Signore. 

The New Literary Project promotes storytellers and storytelling across the generations, and across a tremendous spectrum: from incarcerated young men and women to high school-age students to creative writers teaching high school to distinguished mid-career authors. Simpson Fellows from UC Berkeley lead workshops for fledgling writers, Jack Hazard Fellows receive $5,000 in support of an ongoing writing project, and the annual Joyce Carol Oates Prize Recipient receives an award of $50,000 in support of a burgeoning career.

Joseph Di Prisco was born in Brooklyn and lives today in Northern California, with his wife, photographer Patti James. He's the author of the novels Sibella & Sibella, All for Now, The Alzhammer, The Confessions of Brother Eli, The Good Family Fitzgerald, and Sun City, prize-winning books of poems, and books about childhood and adolescence. His memoirs The Pope of Brooklyn and Subway to California came out from Rare Bird Books. He is the founding chair of the New Literary Project, formerly the Simpson Literary Project, which promotes literacy and literature, writers and writing across the generations. Joyce Carol Oates is the author of more than seventy books, including novels, short story collections, poetry volumes, plays, essays, and criticism, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. Among her many honors are the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the National Book Award. Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. Lauren Groff is the author of four novels: Matrix, forthcoming in September 2021, and the National Book Award Finalist and winner of the American Booksellers Association's Fiction prize, Fates and Furies; as well as Arcadia and The Monsters of Templeton. Her story collections include Florida, winner of The Story Prize and finalist for the National Book Award, and Delicate Edible Birds. She has been twice been a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, as well as for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the LA Times Book Prize, and the Orange Prize for New Writers. She was a Guggenheim fellow and was named one of Granta's 2017 Best Young American Novelists. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Harper's, in five Best American Short Stories anthologies, and her books have been published in over thirty languages. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband and sons. Daniel Mason is the author of the collection A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth, a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize and winner of the California Book Award, and three novels, including The Winter Soldier and The Piano Tuner. His work has been translated into twenty-eight languages, adapted as an opera, and awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, the Joyce Carol Oates Prize for Fiction, and a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he is an assistant professor in the Stanford University Department of Psychiatry.