Tunneling to the Center of the Earth has been nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award in the category of single-author collection. The Shirley Jackson Awards, given in memory of writer Shirley Jackson (author of the short story, “The Lottery”, and the novels The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle), “have been established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.”
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth received an Alex Award, given each year to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults. Previous winners include Hannah Tinti’s The Good Thief, Ann Patchett’s Truth and Beauty, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.
My story, “No Joke, This is Going To Be Painful,” which originally appeared in Tin House, has been selected for inclusion in the anthology New Stories From the South 2009, edited by Madison Smartt Bell.
A story from Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, “The Museum of Whatnot,” is currently available at Fifty-Two Stories, a website run by Cal Morgan and Harper Perennial which publishes a new story each week.
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth was selected as one of fifteen “Favorite Reads of the Summer” by the editors of Publishers Weekly.
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth received very kind reviews from The New York Times, Time Out New York, Time Out Chicago, and The Advocate.
Flavorwire and The Advocate conducted interviews.
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth was selected as an April pick for the Indie Next List. Christopher Chadwick at ASUN Bookstore in Reno, Nevada, said “In this fantastic debut collection of stories, Kevin Wilson infuses the everyday, mundane world with a touch of magic, reexamining the familiar through a slightly warped lens. Each of Wilson’s characters possesses a touch of melancholy, but each one manages to reconcile this sadness. Definitely a must-have for fans of the short story.”
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth was also selected as one of three books, along with Paul Yoon’s Once the Shore and Tracy Winn’s Mrs. Somebody Somebody for Andrew’s Book Club.
My essay, “Winter in Tennessee,” appeared in the February 22nd edition of The New York Times Magazine. You can read it here.
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews on February 15, saying, “A Southern writer with a bent sense of humor offers a fine debut collection of stories, some unlike anything you’ve read before. Wilson displays a marvelous sense of narrative ingenuity…Weird and wonderful stories from a writer who has that most elusive of gifts: new ideas.”
My story, “No Joke This is Going To Be Painful,” is in the current issue of Tin House. It is the featured story on their website, so you can read the entire story here.