What is a Short Story?
For Short Story Month, we asked: What, exactly, is a short story? How is different from the novel? How can a definition help you to construct a piece, help you to decide whether your fiction is short or long? We’ve…
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Book Review: CREDO
Credo: An Anthology of Manifestos & Sourcebook for Creative Writing Editors: Rita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szokolyai Reviewed by Katharine Coldiron Often, writing reference books labor under a single focus, but Credo, a collection of essays assembled by members of…
Punctuation as Art
By Ariel Lewis I. For a long time I was under the belief that punctuation was of secondary interest to the writer, a micro-concern only for the truly fanatical snob or the lowly copywriter. I held this belief, as a…
William Trevor
William Trevor’s final story collection, appropriately entitled Last Stories, is published today by Viking. A number of these stories appeared originally in The New Yorker, and it’s nice to see them collected here, along with other, new stories. It’s a…
The Rabbi’s Wife by Robin Black
How many funerals over the years? She couldn’t say. The rabbi’s wife loses count. People have no idea how constant death is. They think it’s an event. It’s not. It’s life. The rabbi’s wife knows—because she is the one whose…
Best Intentions
What is an intention? We know it, mostly, as an aim or a plan. When you begin to write a short story or a novel, you have a general sense of something that’s guiding you forward. It might be a…
A Closer Look: “Meet Behind Mars,” Renee Simms
“Meet Behind Mars” is the title story in Renee Simms’ debut short story collection, published by Wayne State University Press this month. The story, which you can read here in a slightly altered version, is in the form of a…
New books: week of April 30
Here’s a quick look at some of the great books out this week. Happy pub day to all! Jamel Brinkley, A Lucky Man Graywolf Press From Kirkus Reviews: “An assured debut collection of stories about men and women, young and…
The Whites by Dustin M. Hoffman
We wear only white. Sneaker to cap. It’s the housepainter way. Except for the day Simon’s ass was splotched brown. From mid-thigh to lower-back, he was coated in eggshell-sheen Mocha Morning, looking like he shat himself, like he suffered…
Interview: Jamel Brinkley
CRAFT: Your debut short story collection, A Lucky Man, lives and breathes New York, with most of the stories located in one, or more, of the boroughs. And while I believe you grew up and went to school here, you’ve…