FRED McGAVRAN
Welcome
Thank you for stopping by. This website is devoted to Fred McGavran's fiction. Books & Stories provides a taste of his work, while Reviews and Awards show the critical praise and awards his stories have earned. Fred's stories have appeared in Pearl Magazine, Rosebud, Gray's Sporting Journal, Storyglossia.com, Hayden's Ferry Review, Harvard Review, Winning Writers and other literary magazines and e-zines.
News
"Aversion Therapy"
Has appeared in Menacing Hedge including a reading by the author.
"Larson Bennett and the Flight into Egypt"
Will appear in Legal Studies Forum, a print magazine publishing fiction written by lawyers, in January/February. Contact Editor James Elkins at jelkins@labs.net for a copy.
"The Idea of a Virtual University"
Will appear in What the Fiction in late January/ February.
"The Many Skulls of Gañor Santos"
Will appear in Dark Rivers Magazine in March/April.
"A Count in the Afternoon"
Will appear in Workers Write! Tales of the Combat Zone in March/April 2012.
"Recycled Glass"
Will appear in Rougarou! in the Spring.
The Short Review Interview
Read an interview with the author about his work The Butterfly Collector at The Short Review. You can also find a review of his work here by James Murray-White. Read It Now.
"'The link between butterflies and dreams is poorly understood.' So begins the title story of this wry and witty collection, narrated by a henpecked husband who, it turns out, has Alzheimer's disease. So the reader has doubts, even as the story begins. It is not just unusual; it is bizarre for the narrator to be the victim of a mental condition he can't control. But his condition isn't pitiable; it is comical."
Bill Pratt, Miami University, World Literature Today
"Sometimes lawyers really can write...Few, however, transform themselves from writers of the arcane, unadorned language of the law into authors of fiction that both frightens and stirs as well as Fred McGavran's The Butterfly Collector."
JoAnn Baca, The Federal Lawyer, May 2011
"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, The Short Review
"Fred McGavran is a hard writer to categorize. Reviewers often focus on his fiction that revolves around law and justice, or the lack of it. He had been compared to John Grisham, with good reason, because McGavran is also a lawyer, like Grisham, and is similarly adept at convincingly relaying the details of the legal world. He is arguably better at characterization than Grisham, however, and I would gladly follow the character of Harris Scintilton into a novel, or several of them."
Debra Lechner, Hayden's Ferry Review