More in this series
“The most innocent thing you can do is want to create”: Robert J. Dau Prize Winner Isaac Hughes Green
Learn about Isaac Hughes Green’s short story “The First Time I Said It,” which was selected for ‘Best Debut Short Stories 2021.’
Best Debut Short Stories 2021: The PEN America Dau Prize
The Georgia ReviewThe Masters Review
The Georgia Review.
Where did you find the idea for this story?
What was your writing process like for this story?
The Georgia Reviewhe first time I said ithe next time I said it
The story has a cinematic quality to it, in that only a beat passes in real time from the opening scene to the end, and yet over the course of “The First Time I Said It,” we time travel back to crucial moments throughout the narrator’s life. How did you decide on this structure, and in what ways does your background in screenwriting and cinematography play into your fiction?
What is significant about the narrator wanting and studying to be an artist in the scheme of the story?
How has the Robert J. Dau Prize affected you?
What’s the best or worst writing advice you’ve ever received and why?
Finally, where do you discover new writing?
I discover new writing on social media, through the literary magazines I’m subscribed to, and through people I meet who recommend books to me.
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More by this author
A Roundtable With the PEN America Best Debut Short Stories Judges: Sabrina Orah Mark, Emily Nemens, and Deesha Philyaw
Many of the stories felt written on the edge of an edge of an edge of a world.
On “getting creatively lost”: Robert J. Dau Prize Winner Mathapelo Mofokeng
Learn about Mathapelo Mofokeng’s short story “The Strong-Strong Winds,” which was selected for ‘Best Debut Short Stories 2021.’
“The writing process was a bit chaotic”: Robert J. Dau Prize Winner Amy Haejung
Learn about Amy Haejung’s short story “Maria,” which was selected for ‘Best Debut Short Stories 2021.’