Grant Faulkner

Grant Faulkner is an American writer, the executive director of National Novel Writing Month, and the co-founder of the online literary journal 100 Word Story.

Biography

Grant Faulkner was born and raised in Oskaloosa, Iowa. He earned a B.A. in English from Grinnell College and an M.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.^[1] He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, the writer Heather Mackey, and their two children.^[2]

In 2011, Faulkner and Lynn Mundell co-founded 100 Word Story, an online literary journal that publishes stories that are exactly 100 words long.^[3] Stories published in 100 Word Story have been included on Wigleaf’s Top (Very) Short Fictions list^[4] and anthologized in Queen’s Ferry Press’s 2015 Best Small Fictions.^[5]

In 2012, he became Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), taking over from founder Chris Baty.^[6] With more than 400,000 writers signing up to take part in NaNoWriMo’s programs in 2014, it’s the largest writing event in the world.

NaNoWriMo emphasizes that everyone has a story to tell, and that everyone’s story matters. “Humans are naturally wired to tell stories because that’s how we make meaning of the world,” Faulkner said. “So everyone has a story—or many stories—to tell.”^[7]

In 2014, Faulkner co-founded the Flash Fiction Collective, a reading series in San Francisco, with writers Jane Ciabattari and Meg Pokrass.

In 2018, Faulkner launched the podcast "Write-minded: Weekly Inspiration for Writers" with co-host Brooke Warner of SheWrites.com.

Literary work

Faulkner’s stories and essays have appeared in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Writer’s Digest, The Southwest Review, Green Mountains Review, and Puerto del Sol.

In 2015, Faulkner released Fissures, a collection of one hundred 100-word stories, published by Press 53.

One reviewer wrote, “In Grant Faulkner’s collection of very short fiction, Fissures [One Hundred 100-Word Stories], Faulkner manages to elevate his language, presenting each word here with the rhetorical weight of a novel and with a poetic aptitude that is anything but self-indulgent. Faulkner has, instead, carefully crafted these stories, and each word comes at the reader as high currency.”^[8]

The 100-word story form is often likened to prose poetry,^[9] which is one thing that drew Faulkner to the form. “I’ve always liked forms that blur,” he said. “To say that a piece of writing is a prose poem versus a story is just a matter of an author’s intention, an author’s definition.”^[10]

Faulkner regularly presents at conferences, including the Frankfurt Book Fair, Book Expo America, the Bay Area Book Festival, the Oakland Book Festival, the Writer’s Digest Conference, and the San Francisco Writers Conference, among others.^[11]

List of works

References

External links

• Official website
• Grant Faulkner on Twitter
• National Novel Writing Month
• 100 Word Story
• Flash Fiction Collective
• Fissures