Sean Carman, our Washington, D.C. correspondent, sends this report. Last Friday the PEN/Faulkner Foundation gave the Bernard Malamud Award for the short story to Tobias Wolff and Adam Haslett. The event, arranged as a polite ceremony to honor the art of the short story, turned into pure literary smackdown, with two masters reading from unpublished manuscripts on the empty . . .
The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the event’s date in . . .