Save the Short Story

I first read “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” in Best American Short Stories and Karen Russell had one of the best new voices I had read in a long time. 

Today I came across an article about her and she said: 

“I really didn’t think people would read the stories. I wrote totally for pleasure without any idea about sales and critics,” said Russell, 27. “Now, I feel grateful and lucky.”

I’ve always felt it was a beautiful thing that people write short stories for love. There’s no fortune to be made and it’s not like the old days when a good short story writer could support a family simply by publishing in magazines. Today, most literary magazines pay only in copies of their issues. Even the most established journal may pay only $100 to $250 for each story. So it’s great to see when authors get their short story collections published and find success. 

You can read the rest of the interview here.  

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