Short Story Month 2012

Hooray, it's Short Story Month! As you may already know, we (um, that's the royal "we," meaning... me) love short stories here at Books, Personally. I would even venture to say that short stories have come to make up at least half of my reading since SSM2011. But it sounds like we short fiction fans are in the minority. Dan Wickett over at the Emerging Writers Network considers why Short Story Month is important, even necessary, in a world that idolizes the novel and rock-star novel writers, but perhaps undervalues and under-recognizes the incredible talent of writers of short fiction.

Why read short fiction? It's efficient, it's more tightly crafted, it's often more exciting, and more daring. It offers a more intense, but far briefer emotional involvement - probably inspiring thrill-seeking behavior in readers, changing their reading habits, and maybe their attention spans. The novel (or, at least some novels) begins to feel too long, too self-indulged (I remember reading Jeffery Eugenides' The Marriage Plot last fall and thinking, "all right, let's just move this along now, shall we?") In a humorous-but-so-true essay over at Atticus Books, Kevin Catalano, compares flash (i.e., very short) fiction to a ... flasher: "His unfortunate victim is made vulnerable to a quick, frantic peek, and is then left disoriented, forced to make sense of what she just saw. It’s the speed of the event that makes it so intense, and memorable." This rings true in many ways also for short fiction of longer lengths - though usually less with the disorientation. Short fiction can pack a lot of power. I am forever spoiled.

If you are looking for great short stories, I've reviewed many here, as well as at LitStack - among recent favorites, I highly recommend Megan Mayhew Bergman's Birds of a Lesser Paradise, Lysley Tenorio's Monstress, and Shann Ray's American Masculine. My colleagues over at LitStack also had some fantastic recommendations this week. Author and blogging colleague David Abrams has been featuring short stories recently on his blog, The Quivering Pen, including today's marvelous recommendations from author Bonnie Jo Campbell. Also check out the Story Sundays meme at NovelNiche (most recently, a smashing review of Sherman Alexie's "What You Pawn I Will Redeem") and Fat Books Thin Women. And many, many more.

Happy reading!

Update: One more must-read source of great short story recommendations - Fiction Writers Review. (Thank you to author of wonderful short stories Erika Dreifus for bringing this glaring omission to my attention.)

Never Look Down - LitStack Flash Fiction Challenge #8

Never look down.  Best advice I ever got. I did once - but only once. You never known panic like you do from ten stories up. Look down, or let go, and it’s all over, my friend. That cold, steel cable that’s blistering up your hands right now? That’s your lifeline, pal. That, and trust. Trust it, trust God, trust your partner. Trust the guy down on the controls didn’t drink too much before he came on shift. Step on, hold tight, and have faith. It's the only thing that keeps you up.

Never Look Down is my entry for LitStack's Flash Fiction Challenge #8.

Going South

It's been a month of journeys of many different kinds, our most recent taking the form of a road trip to the enchanting, historic city of Savannah, Georgia, where we were introduced to The Book Lady Bookstore. With its shelves densely packed with an intriguing selection of new and used books in every subject area - fiction and mysteries, philosophy, African-American interest, music, local history and Southern writers, literary magazines, local historical pamphlets, children's books, cooking, and more, The Book Lady is the kind of place a reader could spend hours browsing. Our finds included Erskine Caldwell's Deep South, Memories and Observations for my husband, and a signed, used copy of Virginia Spencer Carr's The Lonely Hunter, A Biography of Carson McCullers for me. It is interesting to note that, in their time, both Caldwell and McCullers inspired some strong reactions from fellow Southerners, who felt these authors didn't portray the people and places of the South in a very flattering light.

McCullers is perhaps one of my all-time favorite writers, and I'd been hoping to find a copy of the biography, recommended recently by Echolocation author Myfanwy Collins. If you are also a McCullers fan (and if you aren't, you should be), Collins and Michelle Bailat-Jones (writer and review editor at Necessary Fiction) invite you to join the Dead Writers Book Group's day-long twitter discussion of McCullers's Reflections in a Golden Eye on June 4th (hashtag #ddwritersbkgp). Reflections is one I haven't read, and am hoping to get to in time to join in the conversation. The biography, by the way, is riveting so far, and has bumped all my other reading aside for now.

Share your best used book finds in the comments, and happy reading!

A Bookish Buongiorno

Colin Meloy's Wildwood in a bookstore window 

Buongiorno, book friends! It's been a while since my last post, our family has been busy with many things, not the least of which was a lovely vacation to Rome, Italy. I won't bore you with all the touristy details, but must say that I was blown away by the size of the monuments, the antiquity of the ruins, the charm of the old city, the stunning beauty of the arts, the suffocation of the crowds, and the richness of the gelato - of which we ate quite a bit.

One of the great perks of vacation is having extra time for reading - Patti Smith's Just Kids and Shann Ray's American Masculine were wonderful companions on this trip. I devoured most of Just Kids (Ecco, 2010) on the airplane - relished this fascinating and unvarnished glimpse into the lives of the artists, writers, and musicians of New York's Chelsea hotel scene in the late 1960's/early 1970's and especially Patti Smith's remarkable and unconventional relationship with the artist and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. While her life was hard in the material and physical sense, it was extremely rich in inspiration. The reader catches glimpses of such iconic characters as Andy Warhol, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Allen Ginsberg and many others, all of whom influenced and encouraged Smith's own creative journey. Smith's memoir often challenged me: I found myself sometimes questioning her choices, and tired a bit of her obsession with Rimbaud (chalking that one up to my own lack of familiarity with his charms), but I must say it captured my attention from start to finish, and gave me a lot to ponder with regard to creativity, and how we find our voices as artists, writers, musicians, etc.

American Masculine (Graywolf Press, 2011) is an intimate and moving short story collection by debut author Shann Ray, and winner of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Bakeless Prize. Set in the Western United States, Ray's stories deeply explore love and loss through the eyes of characters that are alienated from family or society, out of sync, or emotionally lost. Whether they are Native Americans in a predominantly white culture, struggling spouses, children of flawed parents, or flawed parents themselves, Ray lays bare their fears and faults and vulnerabilites with lovely, tender and heartbreaking prose. According to his bio, Ray spent part of his childhood on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation and, in addition to being a writer, holds a PhD in psychology. These influences combine poetically in Ray's writing, and if you are the kind of reader who finds beauty in sad stories, I cannot recommend this collection highly enough.

In case you are in need of a little creative inspiration of your own, I bring to you a lovely muse from the Vatican Museum. I believe she is Erato, the muse of epic poetry:

What creative endeavors are you pursuing these days? Share in the comments!

Happy reading, writing, and creating!