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 ]
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Are you tired of getting your short stories rejected by literary magazines with weird names like Ploughshares, The Paris Review, and, lol, The New Yorker? Do you, a writer of a searing, minimalist narratives of longing and loss amid the ruins of late capitalism, need to eat? Sure you do! Well,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-03-17 16:16:55 UTC ]
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As a literary genre, fantasy is one of the oldest and most recent. Although modern fantasy only began to be recognised as a distinct genre in the late twentieth century, thanks largely to the popularity of J. R. R. Tolkien and his imitators, its roots can be traced back millennia. […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2022-02-23 15:00:28 UTC ]
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A nonbinary teenager on their way home from an eating -disorder treatment center who tries to convince a stranger she is not a vampire, an aspiring fashion designer/dry-cleaning worker who develops an obsession with a customer, a community of people with Hansen’s disease that welcome and attempt... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-01-27 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Independent press Scratch Books, "dedicated to the art of the short story", is to launch in London in March, kicking off with an event featuring authors including Irenosen Okojie and Sarah Hall. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-24 22:49:58 UTC ]
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Death is a common theme in literature, and many of the finest writers of short fiction have explored the fear, event, and aftermath of death using the short-story form. Below, we select and introduce ten of the very best classic short stories which have death as their theme, ranging from […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2022-01-19 15:00:39 UTC ]
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Oneworld editor and former Guardian journalist Richard Lea is heading a new web-based short fiction journal, Fictionable, which is aiming to raise £15,000 in the next month on Kickstarter. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-09 17:09:42 UTC ]
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Exploring the diversity of The Atlantic’s original fiction: Your weekly guide to the best in books Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2021-12-31 15:24:18 UTC ]
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The stories of the US short-story writer O. Henry, real name William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), are characterised by their irony and by their surprise endings, which became something of a signature of a good O. Henry short story. However, another word that is often used to describe O. Henry’s... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-12-31 15:00:32 UTC ]
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Spanning dreamy teenagers to furious parents, violence to kindness, each of the ten short stories in Five Tuesdays in Winter is rendered with Lily King’s signature longing and wit. We are all learning to carry our grief, this collection argues, yet still hoping to scrape together a few more... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-21 12:00:00 UTC ]
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The best stories by the American writer Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) are written in spare, clear prose, using short sentences and plain dialogue. This is a trademark feature of Hemingway’s style in his short stories and novels. But what are Hemingway’s very best stories? He wrote dozens of short... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-12-15 15:00:48 UTC ]
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Leeor Ohayon has won the £1,000 V S Pritchett Short Story Prize for his "tender, moving" tale "Gahnun on Shabbat". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-15 00:36:37 UTC ]
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In 2021, Fly on the Wall Press set out to celebrate the short story form. We published three short story collections and seven limited-edition short story pamphlets, marketed and sold both separately and as part of a political season subscription with cohesive and colourful cover art. We also... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-14 08:56:39 UTC ]
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Novelists and short-story writers have created some classic narratives about man’s best friend, the dog. But what are the very best stories and novels about dogs? Where should we begin in assessing the classic, canonical literature that features dogs? From Homer’s Odyssey onwards – where the... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-12-03 15:00:29 UTC ]
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Inspired by another Rioter's bookish rituals, I'm trying my own. I wake up earlier than usual to enjoy a slow morning reading short stories. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-11-18 11:36:00 UTC ]
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These free short stories by your favorite authors will entice and enchant you with bookkeeping aliens, ant writing, and sentient drones. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-11-10 11:34:00 UTC ]
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Lucy Caldwell has won the BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University, a prize she has been nominated for three times. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-10-20 02:07:31 UTC ]
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I think a lot of us believe in ghosts. In fact, many of us are likely haunted by them. I’m talking about emotional ghosts, of course. My debut short story collection, Those Fantastic Lives: And Other Strange Stories, has a particular fascination with ghosts. In my stories, there are certainly... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-10-14 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, a schoolteacher-turned-author, talks about her short story collection, 'My Monticello,' race, Charlottesville and Jan. 6. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-10-05 14:00:36 UTC ]
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One very short story – often attributed to Ernest Hemingway but actually the work of another writer – is just six words long: ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’. And some of the greatest fiction-writers of the last two centuries have written memorable short stories which stretch to little more […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-09-25 14:00:49 UTC ]
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R Z Baschir has won this year’s £2,500 White Review Short Story Prize, for her modern fable "The Chicken". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-23 04:15:19 UTC ]
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