It is well known that the short story was invented by the Man in the Moon for two important reasons worth reminding ourselves of no matter where we live or what we’re made of: the first is that the Man in the Moon always found it difficult to finish a novel because of the instability [...]
Kevin Catalano: Flash Fiction is Like a Flasher
Jayne Anne Phillips, a former writing instructor of mine at Rutgers-Newark, and a fantastic writer of the short form, referred to the “flash” piece as “one-page fiction.” (She made these pieces famous in her impossibly good Black Tickets.) I don’t think she liked the term flash, and I know many others who despise it. I, on [...]
David S. Atkinson: Short Stories Present a Divine Singularity
When Atticus Books first invited me to submit thoughts on the short story, I immediately formed grand plans. I was going to write such an impassioned and persuasive essay that the masses were going to remember. For a brief moment, I was going to personally lead the renaissance of the short story. However, I then [...]
Chuck Richardson: Short Stories Are Like a One Night Stand
I wonder why short fiction isn’t as popular as the novel. Maybe because it’s more like a one night stand than the slower, longer term and, dare I say, more respectable relationships we have with certain novels. But I like the idea that within the span of a single night, in just an hour perhaps, [...]
Mickey Laurence Cohen: Flash Fiction Is Only for the Moment
I hate short stories. Hate to read them, not a big fan of writing them. I like novels, I like the feeling I’m entering an entirely new world, or creating one. The best novels can build their own vocabulary, even a new language altogether. Short stories are windows. Windows are nice, especially with curtains, and [...]
Mike Maggio: Stories Are Rooted In the Oral Tradition
The short story is the crystalline form of the novel; that is, it takes the essence of what makes a novel (character, plot, dramatic development) and condenses it into a form that is whole and pleasing. What the novelist accomplishes in two or three hundred pages, the short storiest, if I can coin that term, [...]
Eric D. Goodman: Short Stories Take Skill and Work
ERIC D. GOODMAN ON THE SHORT STORY When I began fiction writing, I used to think the smart thing to do was to tackle the novel straight away. I knew (although I wasn’t exactly right) that a novel could get a power agent and a big-time publisher and transform a writer into a career novelist [...]
May Is National Short Story Month
National Short Story Month makes us want to crack open a bottle of champagne and guzzle the bubbly for thirty-one straight days. The brainchild of Dan Wickett at the Emerging Writer’s Network, National Short Story Month is the first-cousin to April’s National Poetry Month: a month-long celebration of the short story, from craft to [...]
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Simon Kearns: Flash Fiction Is Worth a Thousand Words The novel is a painting. The short story, a sketch. Flash fiction is a photograph, ... -
Christopher Bundy: Short Stories Are a Cure For the past couple of years, I’ve been working on the long form and haven’t ... -
Randall DeVallance: Short Stories Are Catnip for Amateurs I remember reading somewhere, about five years ago, that more than half of all Americans ... -
Rebecca Kanner: Short Stories Dwell In Possibility What I love most about the short story is that you can do things that ...
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Lady My friend’s mother gropes a metal grocery cart, yells at sidewalks, flails her broad arms ... -
Publisher Throws Cracked Reading Glasses in the Ring Bleary-Eyed Book Monger Joins Club and Breaks Rules, All Before Reading I’ve decided to do ... -
(Life Is a) Book Review Blog Carnival Welcome to the 60th edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival, and the first of ... -
Atticus Review: Six Degrees Left of Literature KENSINGTON, MD — Atticus Books publisher Dan Cafaro has organized a small team of conspirators ...
