Electric Literature presents Jim Shepard’s “Your Fate Hurtles Down at You” (trailer) from Editors Electric Literature on Vimeo. Now even short stories are getting their own trailers. The folks at Electric Literature have created this animated video trailer from Jim Shepard’s “Your Fate Hurdles Down At You,” which was published in the first issue of […]
I’m on the road, typing this from an internet cafe that charges me 20 Colones per minute, so forgive me if this is short. I’ve been considering — since I’ve been away from my routine, about the public/private divide. I used to value them equally I thought — writing in my (private) journal had equal […]
Hey Loyal Readers, Posts will be slow in the next week because I'm backpacking through Costa Rica and working on an organic farm. I'll try to twitter some updates. Book in my backpack: Vonnegut's Bluebeard.
Ever since Roy won the Booker for "The God of Small Things," fans have been wanting more fiction. She´s been heading resoluting in another direction, though, one of nonfiction and political activism. (Although she admits to working on another novel). She now has four books of essays out. In a Guardian interview, she explains her […]
One of the best articles about organizing a story collection comes from David Jauss, in an article he wrote for Writer’s Chronicle, “Stacking Stones: Building a Unified Short Story Collection.” In it, he writes, “The placement of a story in a collection can alter both its meaning and its affect.” A bad order can ruin […]
Ted Striphas will challenge every entrenched notion you have about the publishing industry. You think Big-box retailers like Borders and B&N have put independents out of business? Striphas argues that other factors often contributed to the indie’s close, that the big-box retailers rectify the social/financial inequalities present around indie’s, and that big-boxers have a history […]
In a high school English class unit called Love/Gender/Family Unit, Kathleen Reilly taught short stories by David Sedaris, Laura Lippman, Stephen King and Ernest Hemingway. But not anymore. She recently resigned, after parents demanded she remove the stories from the curriculum. Parent Sue Ann Johnson was one of the more vocal objectors to the stories, […]
The shortlist for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story prize is out, and they did much better at creating a shortlist than last year, when the Jhumpa Lahiri coup took down the prize. An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe) Singularity by Charlotte Grimshaw (New Zealand) Ripples and other Stories by Shih-Li Kow (Malaysia) […]
Brilliant and lengthy article at Fast Company on the changing landscape of books, publishers and e-books. The book industry is especially vulnerable because it is a “hits” business, with a small number of breakaway titles (Harry Potter, The Tipping Point, Twilight) subsidizing all the rest. Take away publishers’ best-sellers and you’re left with stacks of […]
The stories in “Fugue State” will haunt you. Brian Evenson has a remarkable ability to come up with creepy tales that won’t be extracted from your head. For example, take “Invisible Box.” Imagine a girl sleeping with a mime, a mime that’s still dressed up with the gloves and the face paint. During the completely […]
