You've Told Me This Joke Before

George Singleton has published ten collections of stories, two novels, a book of writing advice, and a collection of essays. Over 250 of his stories have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Esquire, Story, One Story, Playboy, and elsewhere. Non-fiction in Garden and Gun, Oxford American, Best Food Writing, and elsewhere. He’s received a Pushcart Prize, and a Guggenheim fellowship. His collection The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs was named a Top 100 Book of 2023 by Kirkus Reviews. A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, he lives in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

PRAISE FOR THE CURIOUS LIVES OF NONPROFIT MARTYRS“Legendary South Carolina absurdist Singleton weighs in with another rollicking collection. … A Southern original adds to his gallery of Southern originals.” —Kirkus starred review“Singleton delivers an offbeat collection filled with Southern eccentrics. … Singleton lights up the colorful and odd situations with wit and verve. Southern fiction fans will have a blast.” —Publishers Weekly“A delightful, occasionally disturbing and unapologetically honest exploration of Southern life … There’s a beautiful brokenness driving these characters toward their distinctive causes that’s born from the most basic of compulsions — the human need to belong.” —Atlanta Journal-Constitution“Please know that it is against my nature to fling the word ‘genius’ around like a sandlot football. I’ve used it maybe five times, and in all of those instances I applied it to composers, partly because I don’t understand how they do what they do. Being a fiction writer, I understand all too well how we do what we do. But George Singleton is a genius, because he repeatedly manages to make me laugh, often uproariously, when my first impulse is to cry. How he accomplishes this feat is as mysterious to me as the twelve-tone music of, say, Arnold Schoenberg. But I know this: contemporary American literature—and I daresay the country itself—would be more vibrant if we had more writers like him. George Singleton is something perhaps even rarer than a genius. He’s a treasure.” —Steve Yarbrough, author of Stay Gone Days