Criticism > Short Story Criticism > Dybek, Stuart - Don Lee (essay date spring 1998)

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Don Lee (essay date spring 1998)

SOURCE: Lee, Don. “About Stuart Dybek: A Profile by Don Lee.” Ploughshares 24, no. 1 (spring 1998): 192-98.

[In the following essay, Lee offers an overview of Dybek's career as a short story writer.]

Stuart Dybek works with a curious mix of spontaneity and retentiveness. He wrote most of the stories for his first collection, for instance, under a spell. He'd put on Eastern European classical music, and the words would simply pour out. To this day, Dybek relies on music for inspiration, listening to jazz, jotting in a notebook, improvising, not knowing or caring if the lines will beget a poem or a short-short or a novella. Yet he can be superstitious and fussy—a perfectionist. He is reluctant to analyze or even discuss his ongoing projects, fearing he might “talk away a story,” and he has not published another book since his second collection in 1990, although he has four full-length manuscripts...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Kirkus Reviews (review date 1 November 1979)
   2. Robert Ward (review date 1980)
   3. Bruce Cook (review date 13 January 1980)
   4. Phoebe Lou Adams (review date February 1980)
   5. Howard Kaplan (review date 23 May 1980)
   6. David Kubal (review date autumn 1980)
   7. Alice Bloom (review date summer 1987)
   8. Stuart Klawans (review date April 1990)
   9. Antioch Review (review date fall 1990)
   10. Kirkus Reviews (review date 15 February 1990)
   11. Don Lee (review date spring 1991)
   12. Terry Caesar (review date summer 1991)
   13. David Montrose (review date 26 July 1991)
   14. Thomas S. Gladsky (essay date 1992)
   15. Thomas S. Gladsky (essay date summer 1995)
   16. Jorge Febles (essay date fall 1996)
   17. Stuart Dybek with Mike Nickel and Adrian Smith (interview date winter 1997)
   18. Don Lee (essay date spring 1998)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright