Fare Forward

David Markson earned his reputation as a master innovator of 20th and 21st-century fiction with his iconoclastic approach to plot, narrative, and character. His critically acclaimed novels include: Springer’s Progress (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977), Wittgenstein’s Mistress (Dalkey, 1988), Reader’s Block (Dalkey, 1996), This is Not a Novel (Counterpoint, 2001), and Vanishing Point (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004). Born in Albany, New York in 1927, Markson earned an M.A. from Columbia University and worked as a journalist, book editor, and sometime college professor. Although he considered himself “well known for being unknown,” Markson’s circle of readers and fans has continued to grow since his death in 2010.   Laura Sims is the author of three books of poetry, including My god is this a man (Fence Books, 2014). She has been the recipient of a Creative Arts Exchange Fellowship and the Fence Books Alberta Prize. Sims has written book reviews and essays for Rain Taxi, New England Review, Boston Review, and The Review of Contemporary Fiction. She teaches literature and creative writing at NYU and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son. Ann Beattie's most recent book is Mrs. Nixon (Scribner, 2011). The New Yorker Stories (Scribner, 2010) was named one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times. Her story "Janus" was included in John Updike's The Best American Short Stories of the Century. She lives with her husband in Maine.