Shannon Cain Explained

Shannon Cain (born June 3, 1964) is an American writer, editor, teacher, visual artist, and activist living in France. She is the founder of La Maison Baldwin, an organization that celebrates the life of James Baldwin in Saint-Paul de Vence. Cain authored the short story collection The Necessity of Certain Behaviors, winner of the 2011 Drue Heinz Literature Prize.

Cain lived in Tucson, Arizona from 1979 to 2013, with a time in New York City from 1988 to 1995. In 2014 the Republic of France awarded her a "skills and talents" visa in the arts,[1] then renewed her permanent resident status in 2019 as a "person of international renown".[2]

Education and teaching

Cain holds a B.A. in French language and literature from the University of Arizona[3] and an MFA in creative writing from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.[4] She has taught creative writing at the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and in the Bennington College MFA program.[5] In 2011 she was the Picador Guest Professor in Literature at the University of Leipzig[6] in Germany.[7] At the University of Leipzig, Cain taught two classes during the summer term of 2011: "Reading Like a Writer: The Close Reading of Contemporary American Short Stories Through the Lens of the Writer of Literary Fiction" and "Creative Writing and Literary Publishing".[8] In 2014, Cain was a participant for an Association of Writers and Writing Programs panel titled "Designed Instability: Open Endings in Short Fiction."[9]

Activism

Cain began her activist life as a child in the 1970's, demonstrating against the war in Vietnam and in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. After college she became involved in street activism in New York City as a member of WHAM! (Women's Health Action and Mobilization) and of the ACT UP New York affinity group, Action Tours. She served on the board of directors of the Women's Foundation of Southern Arizona. In addition to being a board member, she worked on the grants committee. Since 1991, this foundation has granted over $4 million to more than 100 organizations.[10] She also served on the board of directors for Wingspan—Tucson's LGBTQ Community Center,[11] and Changemakers—a social change, community-based philanthropy. In 2012 she was active in the Occupy movement. Supported by a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, she performed a series of readings as a part of a project titled Tucson, the Novel: An Experiment in Literature and Civil Discourse.[12] [13] [14] Cain explains that she spent three minutes each week reading aloud from her work-in-progress during the Tucson City Council Meetings.[15] For ten days in June 2016, she squatted in the former villa of James Baldwin, which had been slated for demolition.[16] After this ultimately unsuccessful attempt at preserving the Baldwin villa, she founded La Maison Baldwin—a cultural organization in Saint-Paul den Vence that celebrates the life of literary icon James Baldwin. Cain was the co-founder with her daughter Brennan Cain-Nuccio of Paris Against Trump, an ad-hoc group that mobilized 5,000 people into the streets of Paris six days after the 2016 election.[17]

Cain has served as Executive Director for four nonprofit organizations including The Women's Health Education Project, which provided self-care workshops for women living in New York City shelters; the Amazon Foundation—a private philanthropy in southern Arizona; and Kore Press, a feminist literary publisher based in Tucson.[18] [19]

Writing and editing

Books

Books edited by Cain have been recognized with The Next Generation Indie Book Award in Short Fiction (For Sale by Owner by Kelcey Parker, Kore Press 2009), The Iowa Short Fiction Prize (November Storm by Robert Oldshue, University of Iowa Press 2016), the Elixir Press Fiction Award (The Wolf Tone by Christy Stilwell, Elixir Press 2016), and the Goodreads Choice Award Nominee 2019 (Prognosis: A Memoir of My Brain by Sarah Vallance, Little A 2019).[20]

Powder was adapted for the stage under the title Coming in Hot by Cain and co-editor Lisa Bowden to be performed by Jeanmarie Simpson.[21]

The Necessity of Certain Behaviors, winner of the 2011 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, is perhaps Cain's most notable work. This collection of short stories explores the themes of sexuality, happiness, and self-fulfillment.[22] [23] The title of this collection received attention from several reviewers. Editors of Bloom dissected the title; hypothesizing that it could mean “The awkward pressure of domestic arrangements.” “The revelatory power of embarrassing situations.”.[24] Cain notes influences of James Baldwin, Kurt Vonnegut, Sandra Cisneros, and Nadine Gordimer. The book was a Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award[25] and the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction[26]

Anthologies

Short stories

"The Nigerian Princes" was listed among the short stories highly commended by contest judges for the 2010 Sean O'Faolain short story contest.[28]

Articles

Visual art

Cain is also a visual artist who creates large-scale origami sculptures.[29] One project is entitled "Les nouveaux oiseaux." For an event in July 2019 she produced over 1,000 paper cranes in order to raise awareness for the protection of swallows.[30] Her work is represented by the design boutique Projets Intérieurs in Saint-Paul de Vence.[31]

Honors and awards

Cain was awarded a creative writing fellowship in prose from the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts in 2006,[32] the O. Henry Prize[33] in 2008 and the Drue Heinz Literature Prize[34] in 2009. She also received the Pushcart Prize in 2009 and again in 2013.

She has been a writer-in-residence at the MacDowell Colony, the Ragdale Foundation, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Jentel Foundation, and for the City of Tucson's Ward One Council Office.[35]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 2014-08-26. Encore! - France's Ongoing Literary Love Affair. 2020-09-20. France 24. en.
  2. Web site: Passeport talent : carte de séjour pluriannuelle d'un étranger en France service-public.fr. 2020-09-20. www.service-public.fr.
  3. Web site: 2018-12-14. Shannon Cain. 2020-09-20. French Studies Department of French and Italian Studies University of Arizona. en.
  4. Web site: the short review: Shannon Cain. 2020-09-20. www.theshortreview.com.
  5. Web site: Shannon Cain - Artist. 2020-09-23. MacDowell. en.
  6. Web site: Shannon Cain American Studies Leipzig. 2020-09-20. americanstudies.uni-leipzig.de.
  7. News: Super User. 2017-02-16. Shannon Cain. en-GB. Picador Guest Professorship for Literature. 2020-09-23.
  8. Web site: 2020-05-29. Shannon Cain current Picador Guest Professor for Literature. 2020-09-23. www.myscience.de. en.
  9. Web site: AWP: Conference Schedule. 2020-09-23. www.awpwriter.org.
  10. Web site: Home. 2020-09-20. Women's Foundation of Southern Arizona. en-US.
  11. Web site: Herreras. Mari. A message from the Boards of SAAF and Wingspan. 2020-09-20. Tucson Weekly. en.
  12. Web site: 26 April 2011. Minutes of MAYOR AND COUNCIL Meeting. 19 November 2020.
  13. Web site: 20 April 2011. Minutes of MAYOR AND COUNCIL Meeting. 19 November 2020.
  14. Web site: 2011-03-25. 5 Arizona Artists Awarded Arts Commission Project Grants to Create New Works. 2020-11-19. Arizona Commission on the Arts. en-US.
  15. Web site: the short review: Shannon Cain. 2020-09-23. www.theshortreview.com.
  16. Web site: 2016-08-06. €10m fight to save James Baldwin's Provençal home. 2020-09-20. the Guardian. en.
  17. Web site: How American Ex-Pats Are Protesting Donald Trump Abroad. 2020-09-20. www.vice.com. en.
  18. Web site: 27-2 CONTRIBUTORS. 2020-09-23. community.middlebury.edu.
  19. Web site: September 6, 2006. 2020-09-20. www.odysseystorytelling.com.
  20. Web site: Prognosis. 2020-11-19. www.goodreads.com.
  21. Web site: Media. Arizona Public. Coming In Hot. 2020-11-19. www.azpm.org. en.
  22. Web site: University of Pittsburg Press. Shannon Cain. 2020-09-23. upittpress.org.
  23. Web site: Street-Side, Bedside, Broadside: An Interview With Shannon Cain HTMLGIANT. 2020-09-23. htmlgiant.com.
  24. Web site: 2012-12-10. What's in a Title: Shannon Cain's The Necessity of Certain Behaviors. 2020-11-19. Bloom. en.
  25. Web site: 2012-07-04. 'The Necessity of Certain Behaviors' by Shannon Cain. 2020-11-19. Lambda Literary. en.
  26. Web site: The Ferro–Grumley Awards. 2020-11-19. The Publishing Triangle. en-US.
  27. Web site: Colorado Review – Spring 2011 Center for Literary Publishing. 2020-09-23. coloradoreview.colostate.edu.
  28. Web site: SOF Previous Winners. 2020-11-19. www.munsterlit.ie.
  29. Web site: 2020-09-11. Exposition "Les nouveaux oiseaux". 2020-09-23. Saint-Paul de Vence. en-GB.
  30. Web site: prealpesazur. August 31, 2019. Les hirondelles à l'honneur au Pique-nique Blanc de Saint Paul de Vence. September 23, 2020.
  31. Web site: Projects. 2020-11-19. Projets Intérieurs. fr-FR.
  32. Web site: 2018-05-30. Shannon Cain. 2020-09-23. NEA. en.
  33. Web site: The O. Henry Prize Stories. 2020-09-23. www.randomhouse.com.
  34. Web site: Arizona writer Shannon Cain wins $15,000 Drue Heinz prize. 2020-09-23. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. en.
  35. Web site: O. Henry. 2020-09-23. Jentel Artist Residency. en.