Nadelson, Scott

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Nadelson, Scott

PERSONAL:

Education: Attended Oregon State University.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Portland, OR. Office—English Department, Willamette University, 900 State St., Salem, OR 97301. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER:

Writer and educator. Willamette University, Salem, OR, visiting assistant professor in the English department; also taught at the Art Institute of Portland, OR.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Oregon Book Award for Short Fiction, 2004, and Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, both for Saving Stanley.

WRITINGS:

Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories (short stories), Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts (Portland, OR), 2004.

The Cantor's Daughter: Stories, Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts (Portland, OR), 2006.

Contributor to anthologies, including The Best of Carve, Volume 3; contributor of short stories to periodicals, including American Literary Review and Carve Magazine.

SIDELIGHTS:

Scott Nadelson is a short-story writer whose first book, Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories, focuses on the Jewish Brickman family. The collection's eight stories ponder such diverse topics as a mother's reaction to a favorite sick cat, the problems associated with being handicapped, old age, and the vagaries of love. Paul Haist, writing in the Jewish Review, noted that the author "brings to his stories a profound sensitivity, as well as unabashed respect and affection for his characters."

In his second collection of short tales, The Cantor's Daughter: Stories, the author writes about people's flawed relationships and the various miscalculations and mistakes that they make with one another. For example, in "Headhunter," a long relationship ends because of deceit, while in "Rehearsal" two estranged brothers attempt to reconcile when they get together for one of the brother's marriage. In "Half a Day in Halifax," Nadelson writes of two homely people on a cruise ship who embark on an affair that is destined to fail. "Nadelson is a gifted storyteller," wrote Scott Nadelson in the Austin Chronicle, who went on to call the stories in The Cantor's Daughter "beautifully crafted." A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote: "Nadelson bears unflinching witness to his characters' darkness."