by JOHN CUSTODIO

Neil Smith started writing fiction five years ago, “as a lark.” He had no formal training in literature, and he’d never taken a class in creative writing. “I was bored with my job,” Smith explains—he’s a freelance translator. “I needed a creative outlet.”

So he enrolled in a workshop. The instructor liked his first story so much she encouraged him to submit it to a literary journal, which he did. Not only was it published, it was then nominated for the prestigious Journey Prize.

Buoyed, Smith kept writing stories. Journals kept publishing them. His second story also garnered a Journey Prize nomination, as did his fourth. (He’s one of the few writers to have earned multiple nominations.)

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before editors and literary agents came a-calling, industry big shots with clients like Amy Tan and John Irving. They all wanted to know the same thing: was there more? Did he have a complete manuscript he could send them? Was he working on a novel?

So Smith got to work. He made up for his lack of literary training—“the last English class I took was in high school,” he admits—by reading dozens upon dozens of short story collections, but not the canonized authors you’d expect. No Joyce, Chekhov or Maupassant for him, let alone Munro or Gallant.

“When my agent found out I’d never read any Alice Munro, he was appalled, but my main goal was to see what publishers were interested enough in to take a gamble on, so I read mostly first-time authors.”

Smart move, big payoff: When his agent shopped Smith’s manuscript around, a bidding war ensued. Porcupine Quill, Thomas Allen, McClelland & Stewart, Penguin—everyone, it seemed, wanted to buy it. Eventually, Random House won. Smith’s book, Bang Crunch, will be published next spring under their New Face of Fiction banner. That’s an auspicious debut: Yann Martel and Ann-Marie MacDonald had their first books published there too.

“It’s all a bit nerve-wracking,” says Smith. “I feel like way too much is riding on this book. I sometimes think I might have been better off publishing with a small press, without so much fanfare.”