Rebecca Rosenblum and the Future of the Short Story

Steven Beattie, over at That Shakespeherian Rag, has a short post on Rebecca Rosenblum. Seems he's become enchanted this past weekend with the pretty fantastic world which is Rosenblum's ONCE, her first collection of short fiction, set for an early September launch. He attended her Luminato reading on Friday, and it seems he was also at BookExpo and got his hands on one of those cerloxed monstrosities posing as an Uncorrected Galleys I spent much of last week producing when it became apparent the printer would not get them done on time (one of the reasons I needed to rush back from the Jailbreaks launch Wednesday evening, which forced me to postpone finishing my CNQ grant, which meant I spent much of Father's Day working on my computer. I know, I know ... cry me a river.) and that he likes, very much, what he has thus far read.

Steven, in part, writes:

At a Luminato reading on Friday, I had the immense pleasure of meeting Rebecca Rosenblum, a Toronto-based short-story writer whose debut collection, Once, which is set for release in September, is already receiving astounding word of mouth. No less a stalwart figure than John Metcalf has commented that Rosenblum “is among the most talented of the writers I’ve worked with in forty years” — quite a compliment considering that this list includes Michael Winter, Caroline Adderson, Terry Griggs, Sharon English, and Russell Smith, among others.

I picked up an ARC of Once at Book Expo Canada over the weekend, which I’ve been dipping into. From my experience there, and having heard the author read her story “Route 99″ on Friday, I expect that this is a collection you’ll be hearing much more about round these parts in the run-up to September.

Smart guy, that Beattie.

He also pointed me over to Rebecca's own blog, where she has a wonderful post on the short story and its/her imminent demise. You can find that here:

rebecca-rosenblum.blogspot.com/2008/06/rumours-of-my-demise-have-been-greatly.html

You'll also be hearing a lot about Rebecca in the lead up to her September launch 'round these parts, so get used to it...