Stephen Burn
In his debut novel, The Art of Fielding, n+1 cofounder Chad Harbach explores baseball as an art that communicates “something true or even crucial about The Human Condition.” Following the career of Henry Skrimshander, a preternaturally gifted college shortstop who falls victim to Steve Sax syndrome (a sudden inability to make relatively simple throws), Harbach unfolds a sequence of stories surrounding the team. We meet Mike Schwartz, the burly captain facing the prospect of life beyond college; Guert Affenlight, the charismatic college president who questions his sexuality as his fascination with Henry’s team- and roommate, Owen Dunne, deepens; and Guert’s 
In a career that has never quite stood still, Paula Fox has been a journalist, a teacher, a model, a machinist, and, most notably, the author of novels, memoirs, and more than twenty children’s books. Her profile has risen over the past fifteen years, with writers such as Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace, and Jonathan Lethem advocating on behalf of her novel Desperate Characters (1970). As she now approaches ninety, her latest book, News from the World, reprises her prolific career through the lens of her short work.