New Yorker publishes story by faculty member

Caitlin Horrocks may live in Michigan, by way of Ohio, Arizona, England, Finland and the Czech Republic, but it is her “Sun City” story that is included in the October 24 issue of the New Yorker.

Horrocks, assistant professor of writing, is no stranger to publishing success. Her stories and essays appear in The Best American Short Stories 2011, The Pen/O. Henry Prize Stories 2009, The Pushcart Prize XXXV, The Paris Review and elsewhere. Her work has won awards including the Plimpton Prize and scholarships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences and the Norman Mailer Writers Colony.

“It seems Caitlin has just arrived and she already has a lifetime achievement under her belt,” said Writing Department Chair Dan Royer. “These publications and awards are great - they bring a lot of recognition to our program and the university, which is fantastic. But Caitlin also finds ways to bring all of this talent to the classroom and to her students as well, and that’s really important to her. She’s not just a talented writer, but a talented teacher as well.”

The story is set in a real town in Arizona. “It involves a young woman who is going through her recently deceased grandmother’s things,” said Horrocks. “She finds letters that lead her to wonder about her grandmother’s relationship with another woman.”

Horrocks said that writing is very solitary work so it is exciting to be read and to have the chance to reach the wide audience that a magazine like the New Yorker has. Her recent book of short stories, This is Not Your City, is available in the University Bookstore. She is currently working on an historical novel inspired by the eccentric French composer and pianist Erik Satie, who was a notable figure in the early 20th-century Parisian avant-garde.