Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Second that

The local takes a look at the denuded state of the short story.
It's a sad old song, but Kyl Chhatwal gets most of it right here. Short stories are where the craft is and there's a great whack of novels that are hurt or ruined by needless padding.
There's no room for that in short fiction, but because it isn't reviewed much it doesn't find nearly the audience that it should.
There's also the stubborn perception that a reader doesn't get the bang for the buck because (I guess) short stories don't carry the full narrative arc of a novel.
It's silly, but if I had a dime for every time someone turned away from the genre...well I could afford to publish short fiction.
Just saying, but George Saunders, Kevin Brockmeier, Lorrie Moore, Lisa Moore, a slew of fine anthologies... and one of my faves has new stuff coming in the fall.
Beats this every day of the week.

Although, picking up "under-circulated" books at a library sale isn't a barometer of public affection for any book. Norman Levine was under-circulated for years.

Posted by Dave

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