Kevin Wilson wonders what happened to a writer named Cynthia Schad. In 1988, Wilson read a short story of hers (“Close to Autumn”) in Ploughshares. Schad was 21 at the time. Wilson’s post has been passed around (I found it via Maud Newton), but to this point there are no responses shedding light on the mystery. Here’s Wilson:

Having spent a good portion of my life feeling like I am a failure if I don’t write, that if I don’t produce stories then I’m just this lazy guy who reads comic books and argues about different kinds of barbecue, I feel a strange joy at the idea of someone, twenty-one years old, writing a nearly perfect story and moving on, doing something else. If there will never be any other stories by Cynthia Schad, there is “Close to Autumn,” and I am happy for that.

If I learn from one of you that Cynthia Schad got married, took her husband’s last name, and subsequently published dozens of books, I am going to feel very happy that I have the chance to read more of her work and, also, very stupid that I wrote this entry.