Writers on Writing: The Art of the Short Story (Contributions to the Study of World Literature)

Short stories have enjoyed a long and popular history, with many famous writers attempting the craft at some point or another. Here, Lee assembles a variety of writers who comment on the form itself and its many meanings and manifestations. Concentrating on the features and challenges of the short story, contributors from Amiri Baraka to Richard Ford and Jayne Anne Phillips to Janette Turner Hospital discuss their own writing, the writing of others, the short story form, gender, politics, and other issues concerning the writing of short fiction. Readers will come away with a fuller understanding and appreciation of the craft of the short story writer. Taking a populist approach to the subject, Writers on Writing focuses on relaying to readers the truth about short story writing. Writers from around the globe reveal the secrets of the form and their own approaches to it, as well as criticism of other writers and their output. Challenging some of the traditional views of past and current critics about short fiction, they present a new outlook on the short story that speaks to both the short story writer and the short story reader. Contents 8 Acknowledgments 12 Preface 14 Introduction 18 Part 1: The Short Story: Definition 24 Short Story and Poetry 26 The Joys of the Brief Encounter 30 Let Me Tell You a Story 32 Carving the Fruit Stones 37 Part 2: Relationship of Writer to Short Story 44 The Short Story and Me 46 Writing Home 50 A Short History of a Short Story: A Writers Beginnings 55 Guided Tours of Time and Death 57 Part 3: Storytelling: The Short Story and Pedagogy 62 The Story as Su-Su, the Writer as Gossip 64 Wholeness and the Short Story 74 Not Taking the Bait: A Brief for Uselessness in Short Fiction 77 Part 4: Culture and the Short-Story Form 86 Making the Invisible Visible 88 My Sister—The Short Story 97 Giacometti's Foot and Proust's Madeleine: The Short Story of Desire 100 Part 5: The Short Story and Politics 106 Writing Tough—Staying Honest: Challenges for a Writer in Singapore 108 Apartheid in Literary Criticism 114 The Long and the Short of the Story 122 Part 6: The Role of Gender in Short-Story Writing 130 Telling Stories about Falling Men 132 "Not about Me"—Autobiography and the Short Story 144 What Comes Next: Women Writing Women in Contemporary Short Fiction 151 Part 7: The Short Story: Process of Discovery 160 Tell Me a Story 162 A Story 174 The Short Story as Process—Not What It Means 176 Deaths 182 Part 8: The Short Story: Why We Write 190 Telling Stories in My Head 192 Glory Be 196 A Short Story 201 Part 9: The Short Story: Form 210 Harvesting Blackberries, Blackberries: A Black Woman's Publishing Tale 212 FETCH! "Solid Objects," A Dog of Flanders, and the Short Story 217 Mercury Blobs 225 Part 10: The Art of the Short Story 228 The Short Story—A Surviving Species 230 Migration and Stasis in the Art of Short Fiction (Or, Some Words as Experiment) 237 The Justice-Dealing Machine 244 About the Contributors 250 Index 262 A 262 B 262 C 263 D 264 E 264 F 264 G 264 H 265 I 265 J 265 K 265 L 266 M 266 N 267 O 267 P 267 Q 268 R 268 S 268 T 269 U 269 V 269 W 269 Y 270 Z 270