How you can help
How you can help:
Subscribe to a literary magazine that publishes short stories, like One Story (or any one of the story publications listed at the right)! These magazines are on the front lines of the battle for short fiction, and they need your support.
Buy a short story collection. Every year hundreds of short story collections are published, and they all need a good home.
Give short fiction to friends. A great short story will remind them why they love to read.
Show the love—if you like a story, let the author know. Visit their website, write an online review at amazon, b&n or powells, or better yet, contact their publisher. It only takes a few moments to write an email, and the benefits are endless.
Listen to short stories. Go to a reading. Applaud wildly. Tune in to NPR’s Selected Shorts, or Stories on Stage. Visit online audio magazines like Verb and Unbound. Download short stories for your ipod!
Adopt a short story writer. They are badly in need of paper, ink, and acceptance. Short story writers are easy to find—keep an eye out for someone with glasses and a hungry look hovering over a computer or spiral notebook at your local coffee shop, library, MFA program, or bookstore.
This list of how to help is far from complete. If you have ideas on how to save the short story, let us know.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Establish a regional version of “Selected Shorts” on your local public-access radio station–such as “Story Time,” on WBCR-LP, Great Barrington, MA, 97.7 FM. This program airs every other week, and is hosted by architect, visual artist and short-story writer Steve Dietemann, and upstreet editor/publisher Vivian Dorsel.
Comment by Vivian Dorsel — September 14, 2007 @ 1:36 pm
Celebrate short story month every May - I understand somebody declared that to be short story month earlier this year.
Also, try to point out a short story each day, either from a collection, or a journal, especially if you are blogging.
Comment by Dan Wickett — September 17, 2007 @ 8:16 pm
Maybe we need to produce and sell one of those sexy calendars with a short story writer for every month.
Comment by Gail Louise Siegel — September 28, 2007 @ 11:30 am
I hate to say this, but another way to help is to buy my book of short story collections. Although my book is selling pretty well, it could be selling much better than it is. I myself support all authors who have books of short story collections published and will continue to support them by buying their books or reading their published short stories. My book, by the way, is titled “Mirrored Images.” And it can be purchased on Lulu Press’ website (www.lulu.com/content/1094520) or my own author website (www.rosannecatalano.net). Thanks in advance if you do purchase “Mirrored Images” thereby supporting the SHORT STORY format even more!
Comment by Rosanne Catalano — September 28, 2007 @ 1:12 pm
Post reviews of short story collections you like on any site that posts them, so other readers can find them too. Be an advocate for the short-story writers you prize.
Comment by Warren Keith Wright — September 28, 2007 @ 2:30 pm
Publishers: Save the short story by showing some respect for the submittors! State if/what you pay in your guidelines, and try to be nice about the way you say it (versus only ‘we don’t,’ ‘we won’t,’ ‘we can’t'): we are all readers after all, and words are the important thing, yes?
Comment by Priscilla Kipp — September 29, 2007 @ 10:44 am
I teach at the Baltimore School for the Arts, a performing arts high school. Recently I assigned a series of short stories published in the past three years for my students to read. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Then, as I am attending the Hopkins Part-time fiction program, I assigned a fellow student’s work-in -progress. Again, my students were thrilled to take part in a raw, demystified, work of literary art.
My point is, if you really want to change the short story market, you have to address the high schools. That means, targeting teachers, who for the most part read almost nothing of contemporary literature (sad but true). Why don’t you give educators discounts?
Next, you have to address the scholastic publishers who put together the most inane content ever to be taught. I’ve written some of the gloss for teacher’s editions; textbooks are dumb, loveless, and all together too heavy! I wouldn’t teach from one if my life depended on it. That is, unless one-story created a textbook.
Jeez, the world of corporate publishing has known this for decades. I could sell this idea to chimps. It’s called building brand loyalty, baby!
Comment by Thomas Gabriel-Ventimiglia — September 30, 2007 @ 6:23 pm
Here’s a great way to save the short story, publish more short stories. So many writers, myself included, cannot get their short stories published, cannot even get comments about them. The reason we are given for this often rude treatment is simply that the editors are inundated with material, making it impossible to properly comment. Well, that doesn’t sound like a shortage of short stories to me. It sounds like the industry itself is unhelpful and unfortunately disrespectful. It turns a lot of writers to other genres — not for more money, but for more feedback.
Comment by Serena — October 1, 2007 @ 8:26 pm
Check out short stories in ebook format. They’re cheap, and there are many excellent writers who have made the format their own.
Comment by Heather S. Ingemar — December 13, 2007 @ 10:41 am
Two years ago I tried www.Virtualtales.com to e-book a collection of my short stories (35). They seemed to do well and so this March 2008 virtualtales are publishing a hardback of the stories. Now I must say these are modern IRISH short stories published in America so have I a chance to win a prize with the anthology? I hope so. Many of my stories have won prizes on their own, but to have a chance with my antholgy titled, First Communion it would be terrific. I am retired, live in Derry, Northern Ireland and write every day. Since the pre publication of First Communion I have written several more short stories and hopefully they will be published as well. Thank you
Promote the short story- Richard Ford does. His granta collection is brilliant.
Regards
Jack
Comment by jack scoltock — January 8, 2008 @ 8:05 am
Here are a couple of short story sites for you:
http://pantechnicon.net
http://www.hub-mag.co.uk
Both are Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. Hub is emailed weekly to all subscribers, and Pantechnicon is downloadable quarterly to all.
If you read them, tell the publishers what you think.
Comment by Trudi Topham — January 26, 2008 @ 1:51 am
I think you guys would really dig Bryan Young’s short stories… (http://shortstorycorner.blogspot.com)
He’s really good and I have no idea why he isn’t more well known in short stories… He publishes comics and produces films but no one pays attention to these…..
I’ve been all over the internet looking for places with good short stories and his, so far, are the best I’ve found. So I’ve taken it upon myself to try to guide more people to him….
Comment by max — February 19, 2008 @ 11:11 am
Writing short stories is merely the old art of storytelling.
With all due humility I would ask you to check out Think About
It!: 30 Short Stories by Ben King and see if the short story is
still alive. Writer’s digest calls it “a treat to read.”
Thank you for your time.
Comment by Ben King — February 24, 2008 @ 8:14 am
You can also, if you have reliable and sustainable funding,
start your own short story magazine and make it available
for free. Barring death or disabling catastrophe, we’re going
to be around for a long time.
We pay up to $140 for short stories and charge authors no
fees of any kind. We advertise on WritersMarket.com, Ralan.com,
and will be listed in the 2009 edition of Novel and Short Story
Writer’s Guide.
Take a look! www.OnThePremises.com
Comment by Tarl Kudrick — March 27, 2008 @ 9:18 am