This year’s Short Story Month is over. I’ve read and responded to 31 stories, and I’m honestly kind of glad to give it a break. What have I learned? That short stories can do more in 20 pages than a novel can do in 300. That short stories are frequently more imaginative than novels, because there’s no pressure to explain why some creepy old dude will pay you $5 for your dreams, or how a corrupt bookseller didn’t think that one day he’d sell a false invoice to a blind man (long story) (I mean, short story). You can just say, “Blam, here it is! These are the rules for this story, and you’re going to deal with it long enough for me to get to the denouement, but not so long that you start poking holes in my setup!” Short stories are magic. Short stories are excellent for people with 35 minute commutes and even shorter attention spans. Short stories are perfect for that amount of time between getting off the internet and falling asleep. Short stories, short stories, short stories!
Goodbye. (Until next year.)
