Save the Short Story

I came across this interview with a Nepali author named Ramesh Vikal. It’s cute because he starts the interview by talking about this book he’s translating from the English language, an interesting science fiction novel written by a 19-year-old girl named Mary Shelley. At no time during the interview does it come up that this girl wrote this book 200 years ago!  But I guess it will be new to the Nepali, once it’s translated, of course.

It’s interesting to think that a novel that is required reading for every American high school sophomore, with all of its film adaptations, is getting a fresh reading somewhere in Nepal.

When asked about the current environment for the short story, he said:

Well the environment for writing stories is in progress. But it is too little I should say. The number of dedicated short story writers is very few.

And when asked if he’s working on any stories:

I haven’t been able to write any stories at the moment. It is in crisis.

I’m not sure what he thought was in crisis, his writing or the short story.  Perhaps both?

Popularity: 23% [?]

I remember the first time I read the Tobias Wolff short story, “The Liar.” The story is told in first person, but there is one scene where the main character describes his mother going to church. I always use this story in creative writing classes to show how a first person narrator can effectively describe a scene he does not take part in. And the beauty is that the reader doesn’t even realize it.

Here is an article from the LA Times Book Review by Marianne Wiggins about the book. In it, she writes:

“…the short story. When it’s done well, the economy, the rigor, the precision that the form demands are hardly noticed by its consumer. But it is more difficult to write, in its line-to-line execution, than any other narrative conceit. And Tobias Wolff is a genius at it.”

Popularity: 27% [?]

Glen Pourciau is the winner of the 2008 Iowa Short Fiction Award for his collection Invite. Molly McNett’s One Dog Happy is the winner of the 2008 John Simmons Short Fiction Award. They were selected by the final judge Charles D’Ambrosio, author of The Dead Fish Museum and Orphans.

The Iowa Short Fiction Award is given to a first collection of fiction written in English and are administered through the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been given since 1969. The John Simmons Short Fiction Award was created in 1988 to complement the existing Iowa Short Fiction Award.

Popularity: 47% [?]

Cantaraville is a literary magazine that has an interesting publishing format. All of their issues are delivered as a printable PDF download, which is great because you can store them on your computer and it doesn’t take up any space. I’m always giving away journals I like ( in other words, building the One Story literary magazine library) because I need the space in my apartment.

You can download Cantaraville’s 60-page sampler of their first issue here and they accept short story submissions of 1,500-5,000 words.

Popularity: 34% [?]

Toward International Peace through the Arts is hosting “Short-Short Stories from Around the World” on March 28 at St. Peter’s Church in midtown Manhattan. Stories by Hemingway, Chekhov, and other short story masters will be read by Jim Dale (reader of the Harry Potter audiobooks) and actors Brian F. O’Byrne, Tammy Grimes, and Frances Sternhagen.

This event is free and open to the public.

Popularity: 59% [?]

Any day that a writer wins $20,000 for writing short stories is a good day. Jim Shepard won for his short story collection, Like You’d Understand Anyway. Not only did he take home the prize money, he also got a silver bowl with his name on it. And we all know that silver is the best type of bowl.

Each of the authors read from their books and talked a bit afterwards with Larry Dark, the prize director. During the Tessa Hadley interview, she was asked what it was that turned a loving couple in one of her stories into two people who didn’t care anymore. Her answer was, “Children have something to do with it.” You could hear about a hundred people sucking in their breaths.

And when asked about the short story in particular, she said that for a person who is starting to write, it’s difficult to work on a long piece, like a novel, because of “finding out halfway through its died.” And she writes short stories because, “I love them.”

Vincent Lam, who is also a medical doctor, shared how he managed to write and pursue his medical license at the same time. Basically, he said he didn’t have kids yet at the time. (Why does everyone blame the kids?) But also, that emergency medicine is shift work, so he would work on stories when he was off his shift — and his wife was in her residency at the time, so she wasn’t able to spend time with him. When pressed further, he said, “It was important to me, ultimately.”

Jim Shepard discussed how he came up with his story, “The Zero Meter Driving Team,” by taking big piles of oral histories about Chernobyl from the library just because he was interested in it. “It shouldn’t be called Research, ” he said. “It should be called Jim Should Get a Life.”

During his interview with Larry Dark, Jim Shepard was very jokey, so it was a surprise when he got very emotional as he accepted the prize. He turned to his fellow nominees and praised them to the audience. “They compel our interest in lives other than our own.”

Popularity: 27% [?]