Villanova (short story)

"Villanova"
Short story by John Hodgman
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Short story
Publication
Published in	One Story
Publication type	Periodical
Publisher	One Story, Inc.
Media type	Print (Magazine)
Publication date	April 1, 2002

"Villanova" (or "How I Became a Former Professional Literary Agent") is a short story by American humorist John Hodgman. It was first published in the first issue of One Story on April 1, 2002.[1][2]

Premise

While attending a 1998 romance and western fiction writers' conference in an Oklahoma City Embassy Suites, an unnamed literary agent stumbles across an elusive science fiction writer who has largely disappeared since the 1970s after publishing an incomplete trilogy.

The story is interspersed with excerpts from a fictional June 1979 Playboy magazine article called "Where Is Darling Egan?"

Publication

The original publication of Villanova was limited to a print run of 600 with an overall cost of $1,000.[3]

Villanova was republished as "How I Became a Former Professional Literary Agent" in the final chapter "The Beginning" for Hodgman's 2011 satirical almanac That Is All.

Reception

New York Journal of Books's Vinton Rafe McCabe reviewed the story (along with the penultimate That Is All chapter "The End") as "honestly, in and of themselves, worth the cost of all three books."[4]

References

1. ""Villanova or: How I Became a Former Professional Literary Agent" by John Hodgman". One Story. 1 April 2002. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
2. Travis Kurowski (1 May 2014). "Literary MagNet". Poets & Writers. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
3. Dinitia Smith (23 March 2004). "A Little Start-Up Entertains, One Story at a Time". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
4. Vinton Rafe McCabe (1 November 2011). "a book review by Vinton Rafe McCabe: That Is All". New York Journal of Books. Retrieved 28 August 2015.