About
FRED McGAVRAN is a graduate of Kenyon College and Harvard Law School, and served as an officer in the US Navy in Vietnam. After retiring from law in June 2010, he was ordained a deacon in the Diocese of Southern Ohio, where he serves as Assistant Chaplain with Episcopal Retirement Services. The Ohio Arts Council awarded him an Individual Achievement Award for The Reincarnation of Horlach Spenser, a story that appeared in Harvard Review. Black Lawrence Press published The Butterfly Collector, his award winning collection of short stories, and Glass Lyre Press published Recycled Glass and Other Stories, his second collection, in April 2017.
Featured Books & Stories
Recycled Glass and other Stories
“A collection of finely crafted, deeply imagined shorts from a prize-winning master, Fred McGavran’s latest is his best yet. Drawing on a life of experience as a top lawyer, his calling as an Episcopal deacon, and his service as a Vietnam War vet, these compelling narratives veer from fable to genre-bending country-club-horror-comedy. McGavran surveys the human condition—whether a financial advisor atop an office tower in Middle America or a tennis player nose-to-nose with water buffalo on the Ganges—with an eye for the absurd and an ear for the arresting phrase.”
Reviews
Hear Roberta Schultz’s review of Recycled Glass and Other Stories on WVXU Cincinnati on November 26, 2017. Hear the review here.
Englewood Review of Books review of Recycled Glass and Other Stories
“McGavran’s are stories of obsession and experience. They are the stories of characters who are nearing death and who are thinking about what they will leave behind. They are deeply human, and entirely serious, with a touch of humor and a little bit of magic to light the way. Because even as each of McGavran’s characters struggle to leave behind a possession or an experience or a burden, they look forward to the freedom and the new life they are certain lies ahead.” Anna Kasik, Englewood Review. Read the review here.
Neon Books Review of Recycled Glass and Other Stories
“Recycled Glass isn’t a bad title for Fred McGavran’s second short story collection. The eleven tales contained within are brightly-coloured and angular, and come in a variety of different shapes and sizes. Some are smooth to the touch and translucent… while others are more opaque or sharp around the edges. Generally speaking, though, each little nugget of glass represents a witty, slightly strange, sometimes melancholy voyage into the unknown and the unpredictable.” Read the review here.
World Literature Today review of The Butterfly Collector
“The humor is understated and often wicked. There is not a single story without it, and McGavran’s fiction is infused with a sort of subdued laughter that bubbles up, no matter how outlandish or implausible the plot.” William Pratt, Professor of English Emeritus, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
The Short Review review of The Butterfly Collector
“McGavran’s debut collection proves him to be an accomplished storyteller. I will go so far as to say he is a master “getter-inside-of-characters’ psyches”; whether this comes from his innate sense of story, his training in creative writing, or his legal practice, I could not say, but most of the stories have a natural ease about them, and an insightful understanding of what makes people tick. James Murray-White
Bonzer! review of The Butterfly Collector
The Butterfly Collector is a collection of fifteen short stories, ranging from wacky to pedestrian to weird, clustered behind a scintillating cover of butterflies, all colors, sizes and shapes. What’s inside? A writing style both lyrical and bloody shocking. An imagination which flutters from kinky to surreal to mundane. A wry, unsettling view of how much evil even the most benign of characters can stir up. Gloria MacKay.
Interviews
The Short Review Interview
Each monthly issue of the short review brings you original reviews of new, not-quite-so-new and classic collections and anthologies, written by reviewers many of whom are also short story writers themselves and who love short fiction. To ensure some measure of objectivity, we ask that none of our reviewers review the work of an author or publisher that they have any connection to (at least at the time of writing the review). Read Here
Award-Winning Author Fred McGavran