Short Story Month

May was declared National Short Story Month in the US by Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network a few years ago, and, wonderfully, others have followed his lead. Doesn't matter whether you are US-based, here's a great excuse to celebrate the short story even more than we do already! A few links to get you started:

Emerging Writers Network - reviews and discussions of short stories

Fiction Writers Review - a giveaway in honour of SSM!

Canada's National Post's Short Story Month  - Q&As with writers

BookFox's Short Story Month posts - excellent short story discussions

NextRead - reviews of short story collections for Short Story Month


SeattlePI - article about SSM

Reading the Short Story - blog discussing short stories

Let me know if you've got another link for me to add...

And if that's not enough - just check out all the short story collections and author interviews we've amassed in 2 1/2 years over at The Short Review, of course!


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The Sept issue is here

This month's Short Review is up. What's in it, you ask??

We bring you false relations, damaged goods, repetition patterns, quick repair, stories like donut holes, stories named for rivers, things that are cold to the touch, people who always want something, the collected stories of the Armitage family, and our first review of an ebook which leaves the reader, Radiohead-style, to decide what they'd like to pay. And, as ever, author interviews with almost everyone we review.

Controversially, perhaps, we've added the Literary Fiction category to the Find Something to Read By Category page. Difficult one, this. Might cause trouble. Who is to say what is Lit Fic and what isn't? Hmm. What do you think?? Leave a comment.

Also: Surprise yourself! Check out our non-complete list of short story collections published in 2008 and so far this year (almost). More than you thought, eh?

Pop in and have a read.

Frank O'Connor Longlist 2009

Hot on the heels of last week's Edge Hill Short Story Prize shortlist comes the list of short story collections longlisted for the 2009 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award - now renamed the The Cork City – Frank O’Connor Short Story Award. With a prize of €35,000 for the winning book, this is theworld's most lucrative award for a short story collection.

However, this is not all about how large the winner's cheque is. This year, the longlist has 57 short story collections - up from 38 last year - which means that publishers are definitely catching on to the prestige and exposure that comes with this award, where all eligible titles are longlisted. As I mentioned last week, this is a wonderful move on the part of the organisers, giving much-needed publicity to many, many books not published by mainstream publishers but by small presses without teams of publicists (including my own collection, The White Road and Other Stories). What is also wonderful is that "big" names are alongside newer writers, showcasing that the short story is not just the province of those who have yet to "graduate" to novels!

“We could have had another twenty entries but for many publishers missing the deadline," said declares Award administrator Patrick Cotter of the Munster Literature Centre in Cork. "We couldn’t bend the rules to allow late entries, there were simply too many titles already on the judges’ table this year. Next year we will have to consider a preliminary weeding-out before the publication of a longlist. But it is gratifying to see an explosion in short story publishing: encouraging short story publishing is the main raison d’etre of the award."

Here is the longlist, ordered by country, with links to those we have already reviewed:


15 American Authors:

Eleanor Bluestein, Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales, BkMk Press (University of

Missouri-Kansas City) review coming soon

Bonnie Jo Cambell, American Salvage,Wayne State University Press

Dennis Cooper, Ugly Man: Stories, Harper Perennial

David Eagleman, Sum, Pantheon Books (Random House)

Mary Gaitskill, Don’t Cry, Pantheon Books (Random House)

Lauren Groff, Delicate Edible Bird, Hyperion

Daniel A. Hoyt, Then We Saw The Flames, University of Massachusetts Press

Ian MacMillan, Our People, BkMk Press (University of Missouri-Kansas City)

James Mathews, Last Known Position, University of North Texas Press

Christopher Meeks, Months and Season, White Whisker Books

Lydia Peelle, Reasons for and Advantage of Breathing, Harper Perennial

Andrew Porter, The Theory of Light and Matter, University of Georgia Press

Glen Pourciau, Invite, University of Iowa Press

Midge Raymond, Forgetting English, Eastern Washington University Press review coming soon

Wells Tower, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, Farrar, Straus and Giroux


18 British Authors:

Anthony Cropper, Nature’s Magician, Route

Jane Feaver, Love Me Tender, Harvill Secker (The Random House Group)

Paul Flynn, Crossing the Border, CC Publishing

Tania Hershman, The White Road and Other Stories, Salt Publishing

Sue Hubbard, Rothko’s Red, Salt Publishing

Kazuo Ishiguro, Nocturnes, Faber and Faber Limited review coming soon

Sushma Joshi, The End of the World, FinePrint Books

Alex Keegan, Ballistics, Salt Publishing

Charles Lambert, The Scent of Cinnamon, Salt Publishing

James Lasdun, It’s Beginning to Hurt, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Tom Lee, Greenfly, Harvill Secker (The Random House Group)

Frederick Lightfoot, Fetish and Other Stories, Superscript

André Mangeot, A Little Javanese, Salt Publishing

Sean O’Brien, The Silence Room, Comma Press

John Saul, As Rivers Flow, Salt Publishing

Ali Smith, The First Person and Other Stories, Penguin Group Canada

Mark Illis, Tender, Salt Publishing

Simon Van Booy, Love Begins in Winter, Harper Perennial review coming soon


5 Canadian Authors:


Tricia Dower, Silent Girl, Innana Publications and Education Inc.

Hannah Holborn, Fierce, McClelland & Stewart

Pamela Stewart, Elysium, Anvil Press

Deborah Willis, Vanishing and Other Stories, Penguin Group Canada

Kuzhali Manickavel, Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings, Blaft Publications


1 Dutch Author:

Arnon Grunberg, Amuse-Bouche, Comma Press

1 Estonian Author:

Kristiina Ehin, A Priceless Nest, Oleander Press

1 German Author:

Maike Wetzel (Trans. Lyn Marven), Long Days, Comma Press

1 Icelandic Author:

Gyrơir Elíasson (Trans. Victoria Cribb), Stone Tree, Comma Press

2 Indian Authors:

Jahnavi Barua, Next Door, Penguin Books ( India )

Jasmine Anita Yvette D’Costa, Curry is Thicker Than Water, BookLand Press


4 Irish Authors:

Michael J. Farrell, Life in the Universe, The Stinging Fly Press

Robert Graham, The Only Living Boy, Salt Publishing

Alan McMonagle, Liar, Liar, Words on the Street

Philip Ó Ceallaigh, The Pleasant Light of Day, Penguin Ireland


1 Macedonian Author:

Kiril Bozhinov, Eclipses: Stories of Disappearances and Reappearance, Beyond Art Productions

1 Malaysian Author:

Shih-Li-Kow, Ripples and Other Short Stories, Silverfish Books

2 New Zealand Authors:

Jeanette Galpin, Aroha and the River, Maungatiro Press of Marton

Charlotte Grimshaw Singularity, Vintage

2 Nigerian Authors:

Sefi Atta, Lawless, Farafina Books

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Thing Around Your Neck, Fourth Estate LTD

1 Spanish Author:

Empar Moliner (Trans. Peter Bush), I Love You When I’m Drunk, Comma Press

1 Ukrainian Author:

Sana Krasikov, One More Year, Portobello Books Ltd

1 Zimbabwean Author

Petina Gappah, An Elegy for Easterly, Faber and Faber

Congratulations to all these authors, and may this bring a much larger readership for short stories. The judges for the award are an American, an Irishman and a Pole: Lloren A. Foster, Milka Jankowska and Vincent McDonnell, who will be choosing a shortlist of 5 titles, to be announced in late June, and a winner in September.

For more on the award visit The Munster Literature Centre. Click here for last year's longlist.

A little love from Canongate

I am delighted that independent publishing house Canongate have chosen The Short Review as their Site of the Week on their new "Meet At the Gate" forum and "cultural hub"!

They say:

"Here are Canongate we’re big fans of the short story..... though [The Short Review] may only just be celebrating it’s first anniversary, [Tania's] love and passion for the short story have already brought The Short Review Internet acclaim....In short (pardon the pun), with interviews, reviews and features in abundance this is definitely the place to go if you want to keep your finger on the short story pulse."

Thank you, Canongate - publishers of story collections by Miranda July and Nam Le - so glad to meet fellow short story lovers.

Check out the full article and don't forget to vote, leave a comment and have a look around Meet At The Gate.

Criticism's vocabulary of cruelty

Thanks to Short Reviewer Mark for drawing my attention to this fascinating article by Molly Flatt on The Guardian's Book's Blog. Entitled "Criticism's Vocabulary of Cruelty", her premise is that reviewers seem to find it easier to write "funny negative" book reviews than, in the words of one critic she quotes, to "praise interestingly". She notes that online reviews tend to achieve more popularity if they tend towards the funny negative; generous and positive reviews do not get cited so often. But, she cautions reviewers, would you say everything you write in a review to the author's face? If not, perhaps you might want to rethink.

Despite our native savagery, surely there is nothing quite so pleasing as a balanced, sensitive and generous review that manages to capture the spirit of a beloved book? Maybe the problem is that the texts that really touch us engage our emotions and our passions, so that in describing them we must also reveal something of ourselves, whereas a clever slating distances us through self-consciously crafted irony and wit.

Food for thought for any reviewer. The full article is here.

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A Better Way of Buying Books

Following on from a previous post about how we're not in the new-book-selling business at The Short Review, here's the ideal solution: Better World Books.

We love literacy programs like Room to Read, Books for Africa , Worldfund, National Center for Family Literacy , and our 70 other literacy partners. They provide the building blocks for children and families to learn, grow, and share in the vast collection of human knowledge committed to paper. It just makes sense that a bookstore ought to generate funding for these programs. BetterWorld.com does that with every book we sell.

Better World Books has been called the "Eco Amazon": what they do is simple. They accept books from libraries and then they sell them online, shipping them anywhere in the world. " So far, we've kept over 5 million pounds of books out of landfills," says BWB. They also have a Carbon Neutral shopping cart: "We collect a few cents from every customer at checkout. The proceeds from this carbon offset are enough to purchase renewable energy credits and support reforestation. We not only offset our shipping, but also the shipping of our literacy partners. And since we sell a lot of books, that is enough to keep tons of carbon out of the atmosphere."

What more could you ask for? Their online shop is here.

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"Lumbering" stories

This is from a review in this month's BookSlut of Israeli writer Etgar Keret's most recent collection:

In early 21st century short fiction, originality is rare. The lumbering “short stories” published in The New Yorker or nominated for the Pushcart Prize or anthologized in various “Best Of” collections often seem familiar, like we’ve read them already. I find myself giving some leeway to these vaguely derivative little missives from mentees to their mentors. After all, we live in a world of billions of words, many of them tired out from overuse. If a story is true, and revelatory, and makes the reader feel something -- if it creates a world -- isn’t that original enough? But too often, those prize-winning stories don’t hold up to any test of quality at all. They don’t deserve to be written, and who knows why they’re so celebrated? Maybe it’s precisely because of their familiarity, because certain styles and themes have worn a groove into contemporary literature.

Finally someone has said it - "lumbering" seems to me the perfect way to describe these what I call "mini-novels" that are published by the New Yorker etc...I read the first paragraph of most stories and I definitely feel I've read it before, I know what kind of story lies in wait over the next few pages - parent-child tension, romantic problems, bla bla bla.

Keret is a shining example of a writer who employs the short form to work magic, to do something that cannot be done in a novel, with a stunning economy of words and with wit and compassion. This is what the short story should be all about. Read the Short Review's review of Keret's Gaza Blues (together with Samir el-Yousseff) here, and the rest of the Bookslut review here Bookslut | The Girl on the Fridge by Etgar Keret

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Addictions, balance and borrowing

Several people have used the word "addicted" to describe their feelings towards The Short Review. Short story collections - the new heroin? Will this necessitate government action, a Tsar to deal with the issue, support groups? Sadly, I think not.

Let's talk about reviewing. There has been a lot of discussion recently over "real" reviewers (ie those paid to review by newspapers, magazines etc...) and "amateur" reviewers (not my description), which refers to those who review on their blogs etc and who tend to only review books that they have enjoyed and thus the reviews tend towards the positive and even glowing. As part of this discussion, the nature of reviewing was examined. I want to state The Short Review's position: we are not a publicity vehicle for short stories. We are not in the business of praising a collection simply because it has been published. I believe that every book deserves a review, but this is very different from saying that every book deserves a good review. Reviewing is a strictly subjective discipline: a review should be the reviewer's honest opinion on the work, what she or he likes about it and dislikes about it, and, more importantly, why. A review that says "this is wonderful!" without qualifying it, is just as redundant as one that shreds a book without explanation.

I urge The Short Review's 30 or so reviewers to feel completely free in expressing their opinions. Many of our reviewers, myself included, are writers themselves, but there should be no concern when writing a review that the writer's feelings will be hurt by this. This is about the book, it is never - I hope - a personal attack upon a writer.

In our current reviews, I was delighted that the reviewers did not hold back. Comments included: "mixed bag", "The tone of the story is uneven", "the subject matter seemed overstretched", "without finding anything new to say", "not every story is a great read", "the sloppy writing and (apparently) non-existent editing made it difficult for me to enjoy the book as a whole", "In places, however, I found the cruelty too much for the balance of the story".

For the most part these are not simply "I didn't like this," but are more specific, explaining why. This, to my mind, is valid reviewing.

One of the authors featured in this Issue, Sylvia Petter, wrote to thank The Short Review and the reviewer of her book, Back Burning. She says:

I'm so glad that there was criticism. This bears out words in my interview - how different people are drawn to different things...I am truly grateful to your reviewer for her balanced and pertinent insights.

This is also why The Short Review provides links to other reviews of the particular book. The more opinions the better.

On a more positive note, several of the emails I have received recently from "the addicted" have mentioned that each issue of The Short Review sends them to Amazon or their local bookshop looking for books. I wanted to put in a good word for libraries - we at The Short Review are not in the book-selling business, we just want to get more people reading the astonishing and varied short story collections that are out there. Persuading you to buy the books isn't our goal - look for them in libraries, ask friends if they have a copy, pass 'em around. Just read them. That's all we're saying. Thank you.

Short story collections are like "a big box of chocolates"

When you've won yourself a prize like the Booker Prize, as Anne Enright (whose first published book was a short story collection) did with her novel, The Gathering, then you're "allowed" to do something as commercially dubious as publish another short story collection. And, when you're "Booker Prize winner Anne Enright" your collection gets noticed, and you appear on Simon Mayo's Bcc Five Live Book Panel and talk about your collection.

Listening to Anne talking about Taking Pictures was a treat, how she put them together, how long it took to write them. One of Simon Mayo's regular reviewers said

It's strange that people find short stories a turn-off a lot of the time because they're like pop songs or poems, there are plenty of equivalents where you can look at something again and again - you'll find something new in a song, or new in a poem every time you look at it. the joy of these is not having to read them in order. You can dip backwards and forwards. Sometimes you feel the weight on your right hand of how much of the book there is to go. You can skip to the last one and read that and then skip back. It's like a big box of chocolates, and it is just so rewarding.

When asked the by now expected question about short story collections not selling, Anne Enright said:

Everybody says they can't sell, publishers suck their teeth and say "pay us and maybe"....I like the fact that the short story is a very modest form. It suits the way people's lives are. I am fed up of people "larging" it in books. Small it!

Maybe that should be adopted as a slogan: Small It! Watch this space.
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