Scott McClanahan (born June 24, 1978) is an American writer and filmmaker.He lives in Beckley, West Virginia and is the author of six books: Stories (2008), Stories II (2009), Stories V! (2011), The Collected Works of Scott McClanahan Vol. 1 (2012), Crapalachia (2013) and Hill William (2013). McClanahan is also a co-founder of Holler Presents, a West Virginia-based production and small press company.
In 2010, McClanahan made Dzanc Books' list of "20 Writers Worth Watching," which was a response to the New Yorker's earlier "20 Under 40" list. He is burly and built like a "smallish linebacker."
Pittsburgh City Paper's Bill O'Driscoll wrote McClanahan's stories read "like a modern Gogol gone small-town U.S.A."
In the summer of 2012, Lazy Fascist Press published The Collected Works of Scott McClanahan, reissuing the first two Stories collections.
Two more books, Crapalachia and Hill William, were published by Two Dollar Radio and Tyrant Books, respectively, in 2013.
A two volume compilation of McClanahan's interviews entitled SM: The Collected Interviews Volumes 1 and 2 is forthcoming.
McClanahan won Philadelphia's third Literary Death Match on May 23, 2012.
Critical Response[]
McClanahan's work has garnered generally favorable reviews. In his review of Stories V! for The Huffington Post, Declan Tan wrote, "it doesn't have any of the staid and academically 'meta' tropes that often go with it; you can tell McClanahan feels something when he writes and when he lives. He wants you to feel something too. And he wants you to see the possibilities of the writer-reader interaction."
In their review of Crapalachia, The Paris Review said, "his voice is wholly unaffected, and his account manages to be both comic and unpretentiously sentimental," while Paste magazine called his writing "stark, beautiful" and that it "cannot be confined by genre."
Alison Glock of The New York Times said of Crapalachia, "McClanahan's prose is miasmic, dizzying, repetitive. A rushing river of words that reflects the chaos and humanity of the place from which he hails. He writes in an elliptical fever dream so contagious that slowing down is not an option. It would be like putting a doorstop in front of a speeding train. This is not a book you savor. It is one you inhale."[13] Steve Donoghue, writing for The Washington Post, called Crapalachia "the genuine article: intelligent, atmospheric, raucously funny and utterly wrenching."
Bibliography[]
Stories (2008, Six Gallery Press)
Stories II (2009, Six Gallery Press)
Stories V! (2011, Holler Presents)
The Collected Works of Scott McClanahan Vol. 1 (2012, Lazy Fascist Press)
Crapalachia (2013, Two Dollar Radio)
Hill William (2013, Tyrant Books)
SM: The Collected Interviews Volumes 1 and 2 (coming soon)
The Sarah Book (coming soon)