Pregnant Prize
Chicago native Melissa Fraterrigo's collection of short stories, "The Longest Pregnancy," was released on April 1 by Livingston Press as the winner of the debut Tartt First Fiction Award. According to Fraterrigo, Livingston's contest was devised to promote "offbeat fiction," which she says larger publishing houses are increasingly steering away from. "The stories are fantastic in nature," Fraterrigo says. "It's realistic fiction, but it's a shade off. The best way to describe it is that the protagonists are confronting modern-day problems through unusual means. For example, `The Longest Pregnancy' is about a woman who is pregnant for six years, and who has trouble committing to a relationship. A lot of the protagonists are female, and a lot of their conflict is presented in a physical dimension. It's about different ways of handling conflict." The stories are set in the Midwest, and "have a Midwest flavor." Eight of the fourteen stories were previously published in various literary magazines and anthologies, but the collection is Fraterrigo's first book.