Plattner, Andy

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PLATTNER, Andy

PERSONAL: Born in KY; son of Ken Plattner (a horse racing executive); married; wife's name, Diana. Education: Graduate of Center for Writers at University of Southern Mississippi.

ADDRESSES: Home—Athens, GA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, University of Georgia Press, 330 Research Drive, Athens, GA 30602-4901.

CAREER: Journalist and writer. Former writer for Wire-to-Wire Daily Florida Racing Journal.

AWARDS, HONORS: Flannery O'Connor Award for short fiction, for Winter Money; Transatlantic Review Award for fiction, 1995.

WRITINGS:

Winter Money (short stories), University of Georgia Press (Athens, GA), 1997.

Plattner's short stories have appeared in such periodicals as Paris Review, Sewanee Review, and Epoch.

SIDELIGHTS: Author Andy Plattner has a long association with the sport of horse racing. Born and raised in Kentucky, the son of the general manager for Latonia and Tampa Bay Downs and the grandson of the former Kentucky Racing Commission chairman, Plattner has written a number of articles on horse racing, and the sport also serves as a common theme in his short fiction.

Winter Money, a collection of ten short stories, earned Plattner the Flannery O'Connor Award for short fiction. His tales are set in Kentucky and West Virginia and recount the lives of breeders, horse grooms, and other participants in racetrack life. The title story follows a down-on-his-luck jockey agent as he attempts to get some "winter money" in the hopes of making a fresh start in Florida. The characters in the other stories face similar difficulties, living in motels and struggling against financial ruin. In a review for the Memphis Flyer, James Busbee noted that "the people in these stories run the same circles as their horses, only the odds against them winning are far longer. Everyone is hoping for a big score, the end-of-season payoff." Reviewing the book in the Boston Review, Randall Curb remarked that "Plattner is master of his subject."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Boston Review, summer, 1998, Randall Curb, review of Winter Money, p. 62.

Memphis Flyer, January 29, 1998, James Busbee, "Tracking the Races: McPherson Ponders an Ethnically Divided America; Plattner Watches the Horses Run."