Puchner, Eric

PERSONAL: Married Katharine Noel (a novelist). Education: Attended Middlebury College and University of Arizona, Tucson.

ADDRESSES: Home—San Francisco, CA. Agent—Dorian Karchmar, William Morris Agency, 1325 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019. E-mail—eric@ericpuchner.com.

CAREER: Writer and educator. San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, taught English; Stanford University, Stanford, CA, faculty member, former Wallace Stegner and John L'Heureux Fellow; runs nonprofit training program for immigrants.

AWARDS, HONORS: Pushcart Prize and the Joseph Henry Jackson Award, both for Music through the Floor.

WRITINGS:

Music through the Floor: Stories, Scribner (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor of stories to anthologies and periodicals, including the Chicago Tribune, Zoetrope: All Story, Missouri Review, Glimmer Train, and Best New American Voices 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Eric Puchner contributed numerous short stories to top literary journals before his first collection of short fiction, Music through the Floor: Stories, was published in 2005. The collection features nine stories written from numerous perspectives, including adults, children, immigrants, and tourists. For example, in "Essay #3: Leda and the Swan," a teenage girl uses a homework assignment to reveal the emotional turmoil that she is experiencing. "Neon Tetras" is about a young boy who recognizes that his dad is attracted to a pretty, young salesclerk at a pet store. In another story, "Children of God," a young social worker who is a loner identifies with the two mentally retarded men that he is caring for, recognizing that they are also outsiders and discovering that, in their own way, they are also very brave. "Don't miss this introduction to a genuinely talented find," wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor. Nicholas Fonseca, writing in Entertainment Weekly, called the collection a "wry, incisive book." In a review in Booklist, Donna Seaman was particularly impressed with the author's "insight into outsiders, fluency in pain and irony, and edgy humor." A Publishers Weekly contributor commented that "Puchner delivers emotional nuance with sure-handed prose."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 15, 2005, Donna Seaman, review of Music through the Floor: Stories, p. 28.

Entertainment Weekly, November 11, 2005, Nicholas Fonseca, review of Music through the Floor, p. 76.

Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2005, review of Music through the Floor, p. 999.

Publishers Weekly, October 10, 2005, review of Music through the Floor, p. 37.

ONLINE

Eric Puchner Home Page, http://ericpuchner.com (January 19, 2006).