Thursday, November 18, 2010

Introduction

I'm an inspiring fiction writer and poet learning about building a career as a published author.  I want to promote short stories because I agree with Steve Almond when he said, "I believe the short story is the purest form of what we commonly refer to as storytelling, by which I mean the most intuitive, satisfying, and elegant of our narrative possibilities.  I love novels, but we tell short stories to each other.  We tell short stories about our day, our joys and sorrows.

Andre Dubus said, I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live.  They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice.  We can sit all night with our friends while he talks about the end of his marriage, and what we finally get is a collection of stories about passion, tenderness, misunderstanding, sorrow, money; those hours and days and moments when he was absolutely married, whether he and his wife were screaming at each other, or sulking around the house, or making love.  While his marriage was dying, he was also working, spending evenings with friends, rearing children; but those are other stories, which is why days after hearing a painful story by a friend, we see him one day and say: How are you: We know that by now he may have another story to tell, or he may be in the middle of one, and we hope it is joyful.

Read and enjoy