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Who Taught Me to Swim: New and Selected Stories
These are stories that Hemingway himself would envy. They
plumb the very heart of America’s Midwest, ranging from 19th century
frontier outposts to contemporary exurbia. James McKinley delivers the best
kind of fiction—tales of hardship—in a voice as sweeping and distinctive as
a prairie wind.
—Cary C. Holladay, The Quick-Change Artist
Jim McKinley’s stories are honest and seductively
uncomplicated, yet laced with a quiet eloquence.
—Speer Morgan, The Freshour Cylinders (American Book Award Winner)
"Nourishment, progeny, waste," writes James C. McKinley,
echoing one of his story titles, "Men Lust, Women Conceive, Nothing
Matters." In Who Taught Me to Swim, we travelers through McKinley’s
world are reminded of how often our own journeys are interrupted,
sidetracked, unfulfilled.
Yet these capacious stories, filled with so many voices,
set in so many places, laced with equal regret and insight, are written with
such conscious artistry, and are so unconsciously stirring, that we find
ourselves thoroughly nourished in our journey with them.
—Thomas Fox Averill, Ordinary Genius
James McKinley is the author of two previous story
collections, a novel, and a nonfiction work. His stories, articles, and essays
have appeared in Esquire, Playboy,
StoryQuarterly, and elsewhere. For over fifteen years, he edited
New Letters magazine at the
University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he also taught and directed the
Professional Writing Program and co-founded two annual writing conferences. His
honors include two MacDowell Colony fellowships and senior Fulbright
lectureships to Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Spain, and he is a past board president
of the Associated Writing Programs. He lives in Kansas City and in Oracle,
Arizona.
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