You may recall that when the National Book Award fiction nominees were named last year, Larry Dark of The Story Prize noted the lack of short story writers on the shortlist. (Full disclosure: I was a judge on Dark’s committee.) Well, the PEN/Faulkner people made up for that oversight, with four of this year’s five finalists were being recognized for story collections rather than novels. WaPo reporter Bob Thompson probes the significance of those four writers—Deobrah Eisenberg, Edward P. Jones, Amy Hempel, and Charles D’Ambrosio—losing out to Philip Roth and his novel Everyman, further evidence that “short stories get no respect.”
Thompson’s thoughtful article considers the reasons publishers don’t support collections more strongly (hint: Bookscan), the erosion of the market for serious fiction in magazines, and the perseverance with which these four writers (and unnamed others like them) continue working in this redheaded stepchild of a format. Of course, the high-end literary focus overlooks some of the really fascinating developments in shorter genre fiction, which is a little fresher in my mind this morning because I’ve just gotten back from science fiction’s Nebula awards but also because I’ve been studying up recently on great new collections from indie presses like Subterranean and Golden Gryphon. And Sarah could speak more to the developments going on in the crime/mystery field, where Akashic is having some luck with their city-themed Noir anthologies… Those quibbles aside, though, Thompson’s story is well worth your consideration.