With soaring sales, viral hits like Cat Person and a cameo by Tom Hanks, the form seems to be staging a comeback. But did it ever go away?In 2017, almost 50% more short story collections were sold than in the previous year. It was the best year for short stories since 2010. Booksellers are reporting a surge in popularity for the form, commentators note publishers are buying more collections and issuing them with greater care and enthusiasm; in December the newcomer Kristen Roupenian cut five- and seven-figure deals in the UK and US after her New Yorker story “Cat Person” went viral. On top of all that, collections are being reviewed more than ever before, the Sunday Times EFG short story award (worth £30,000) has received its highest ever number of entries and the BBC national short story award continues to grow in popularity. We are experiencing the renaissance of the short story form, right?Wrong; which isn’t to say 2017 wasn’t a good year for the short story – it was, but the “renaissance of the short story” story is an old one that is rolled out year after year. Does that matter? I think it does. By getting caught up in this recurring phantom narrative, and dwelling on press release froth rather than the work being produced, we spurn the opportunity to talk about short stories in a way that might actually deepen how they are understood and engaged with by readers.How can the short story ever have time to wither, given the frequency of its rebirth?In the cases of Tom... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2018-03-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
Interviews Matthew Davis Ugandan novelist and short-story writer Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s first novel, Kintu, won the Kwani Manuscript Project in 2013 and was longlisted for the Etisalat Prize in 2014. She was awarded the 2014 Commonwealth... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2019-08-06 13:42:31 UTC ]
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Featuring a foreword by Roxane Gay, the comic anthology is a powerful and instructive collection of short stories by 60 female artists. The post Panel Mania: ‘Drawing Power: Women’s Stories of Sexual Violence, Harassment, and Survival’ appeared first on The Millions. Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2019-08-02 10:00:17 UTC ]
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Long before funny cat content flooded every single corner of the internet, John Steinbeck, legendary dog person, was writing it for Le Figaro, proving once again that France gets all the good stuff before we do. Steinbeck wrote “The Amiable Fleas,” or “Les puces sympathiques,” in 1954 for Le... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-07-31 15:44:48 UTC ]
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The best Christmas stories This is a somewhat unseasonal post for us, appearing in July as it is. But we’ve recently turned our thoughts towards Christmas literature for a whole host of reasons, so thought we’d offer ten of the greatest short stories about Christmas. These are stories set around […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2019-07-27 14:00:59 UTC ]
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Peg Alford Pursell’s second book, A Girl Goes Into the Forest, contains a collection of 67 short stories exploring moments in the lives of women. Pursell’s first book, Show Her a Flower, a Bird, a Shadow, was recognized as a 2017 Indies finalist and a finalist and honorable mention in fiction... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-25 11:00:57 UTC ]
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A new collection of Bette Howland's short stories restores a powerful voice to the canon. The post Their Daughters Were Having Cats Instead of Children appeared first on Guernica. Continue reading at Guernica
[ Guernica | 2019-07-22 11:00:20 UTC ]
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TRANSLATED BY KEN LIU, Broken Stars is a welcome second collection of 16 Chinese speculative fiction short stories and three short essays recounting the genre’s recent cultural and academic prominence. The volume gives voice to an eclectic group, serving as a who’s who of SF authors, critics,... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-07-20 19:00:31 UTC ]
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Book Reviews Amy Lantrip Photo by Ethan Chiang / Flickr Contemporary Taiwanese Women Writers: An Anthology (Cambria Press, 2018) is a collection of short stories in translation featuring contemporary Taiwanese authors.[i] This compilation is diverse... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2019-07-18 14:13:08 UTC ]
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As publishers vie to persuade us to pack their titles for the holidays, we chart the evolution of the ’beach read’Summer reads, beach reads, holiday reads … at this time of year, the publishing world works itself into a sweat trying to force its novels into our carry-on luggage, or over the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-07-14 07:00:23 UTC ]
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Audible is launching a fiction podcast featuring original short stories from writers including Daisy Johnson, Eimear McBride and Liv Little. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-07-10 17:17:09 UTC ]
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SAMANTA SCHWEBLIN’S COLLECTION of short stories Mouthful of Birds opens bleakly: When she reaches the road, Felicity understands her fate. He has not waited for her, and, as if the past were a tangible thing, she thinks she can still see the weak reddish glow of the car’s taillights fading on... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-07-10 17:00:00 UTC ]
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Interviews Shelly Bhoil Tenzin Dickie is a Tibetan writer and translator and editor of The Treasury of Lives, a biographical encyclopedia of Tibet, Inner Asia, and the Himalayan region. Her edited anthology, Old Demons, New Deities: 21 Short Stories from... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2019-06-25 14:25:59 UTC ]
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Jojo Moyes, Kate Mosse, Ken Follett and Lee Child have joined forces to go on tour in Europe, this November, with the four authors pledging their commitment to their European readers in light of Brexit. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-25 04:06:29 UTC ]
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Universal Pictures has reportedly optioned the film rights to author Jojo Moyes' forthcoming novel The Giver of Stars (Michael Joseph), with director Ol Parker of the "Mamma Mia!" sequel. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-24 14:37:21 UTC ]
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Apple warns of fire safety risks in some 15-inch MacBooks sold from September 2015 to February 2017. If you bought a 15-inch MacBook Pro a few years ago, it could be a fire hazard. Apple has issued a recall for “a limited number” of laptops sold between September 2015 and February 2017 due to... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2019-06-21 13:00:57 UTC ]
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Read a brand-new story from the award-winning author of Karen Memory, Ancestral Night, and The Red-Stained Wings. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2019-05-25 11:00:08 UTC ]
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Picador has acquired a collection of short stories from "really exciting talent" Dima Alzayat. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-05-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The hunt is on for up-and-coming writers who could scoop this year’s £1,000 Guardian/Fourth Estate prize A Chinese villager with no arms becomes a Paralympian swimming champion; a dapper elderly Jamaican spends New Year’s Eve in a south London police cell under suspicion of domestic abuse; a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-05-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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As a recipient of the Arts Connects Us Grant I travelled to Ghana and Sierra Leone to meet with writers and publishing professionals working in the field of books for young readers to foster creative and collaborative exchanges between those contacts and publishing professionals and readers in... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2019-03-19 11:10:28 UTC ]
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You started writing early in your high school days, what were you writing about most back then?I think it is exaggerating to say I started writing at high school. I was already writing, but it was mainly journaling, which was not for public consumption. There was a poem (about a tree in the... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2019-03-15 11:15:36 UTC ]
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