Wigleaf Top 50 2011!

- The annual Wigleaf Top 50 list has been released. Too many congratulations to list in full. Read the list, read the stories, check out the long list. This year's results are excellent. It just keeps getting better and better. The Wigleaf Top 50 (and Best of the Web) go such a long way in representing and singling out some of the surprising and wonderful work being published online. A generation of writers has come of age online and lists like this one (problematic in a way, like all lists, because it can't possibly recognize ALL of the great work being done) always make me so proud and excited to part of that. Seeing a year's worth of work gathered together like this is invigorating. I've enjoyed spending the weekend reading and re-reading stories I saw throughout the last year and reading for the first time stories I hadn't had a chance to see when they first went up. For that, huge thanks, as always, to Scott Garson, Ravi Mangla and the Wigleaf staff, plus this year's editor, the wonderful Lily Hoang!


- Big way to goes to a few Hobart stories that made the list: Craig Davis's "Chorale for the First Rental House on Your Block," Kristen Iskandrian's "It's Going To Be Okay, I Love You," Matthew Lansburgh's "The Turtle," and Curtis Smith's "The Movie"! 


- Congratulations to Hobart staff (current and former) who's work made the Top 50 and the long list this year: Aaron Burch, Elizabeth Ellen, Matt Bell, Aubrey Hirsch, Andrea Kneeland and Mary Miller!


- Congratulations to my UMass friends, Boomer Pinches, Christy Crutchfield, Gabe Durham and Mike Young! And congratulations to my buddy Brian Allen Carr, who had two stories "Running the Drain," and "And Finally It Has Come to This. And Finally It Has Come to these Things" make the list!


- My story "Wyoming" from JMWW was named to the Top 50 this year, which is a real honor. Thank you to Lily, Scott and Ravi and also to Jen Michalski and David Erlewine for first publishing the story!