George Singleton holds an endowed chair at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and has taught writing for years at the South Carolina Governor’s School in Greenville. He is a popular writing workshop leader and has achieved numerous literary awards including membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers. This is his seventh short story collection to go with two novels and a non-fiction book of writing advice. “George Singleton is the quintessential Southern writer of today. He writes the way we live―reckless, fearless, and wild, ready to love and laugh with abandon. I read everything he writes. Everybody should.”―Chris Offutt. “George Singleton’s talent as a humorist is on full display in Staff Picks but don’t let your laughter distract you from the fact that he is also a sly, insightful witness to life in the American South and one of the most dexterous short story writers anywhere. He knows our hurts and fears, our desires and disappointments. He understands better than just about anybody that life can be sublime and heartbreaking and absurd all at once and he holds nothing back in his best collection yet.”―Michael Knight. “What a pleasure these stories are! Singleton’s kooky, endearing characters are grotesquely original and at the same time next-door familiar. They are forever attempting to connect with the people around them, but somehow, too often, keep missing. If there’s redemption here, it lies in the fact that they keep trying. And always, beneath the humor and the word play and the fun-house distortion, these stories simmer with frustration at the South’s most absurd paradoxes and entrenched injustices.”―Julia Franks.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2019. 201 pages. Trade paperback.