Publish or perish

"At 24, Debra Spark is a writer whose work sets her apart from the glitzy minimalism for which more famous members of her generation are known," contributing writer Laura Stempel Mumford observes in her Section 2 cover story. An artist-in-residence at the UW's creative writing institute, Spark is gaining recognition as editor of 20 Under 30: Best Stories by America's New Writers: Scribners is about to publish a fifth edition, and the title enjoyed an appearance on the Village Voice best-seller list. "Everyone wants to get published," Spark says, "and I don't think there's always a sense that they want to write well. Rather than saying, ‘How am I going to learn to use language better?' it's more, ‘How am I going to get an editor to notice me?' ...People aspire to a sort of star quality instead of to producing really wonderful fiction." Now living in Maine with her husband and son, Spark is a Pushcart Prize-winning author of two novels (Coconuts for the Saint and The Ghost of Bridgetown) and Curious Attractions: Essays on Fiction Writing, and she has also been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post and a number of magazines and journals. She teaches at Colby College and in the Warren Wilson College's MFA Program for Writers.