I’ve been meaning to take a look at the revamped One Story website for a while now, and their “Save the Short Story” campaign finally lured me in. (At my other blog, Beatrice, I get to more fully indulge my enthusiasm for short stories by running a lot of guest essays from writers with new collections.) “Every year, celebrity biographies, political back stabbers, and sweet books by and about dogs have no trouble finding a home on bookshelves,” they write, “while short story collections languish in piles on the desks of uninterested publishers and editors… WE REFUSE TO LET THIS STAND.” So they’re encouraging readers to subscribe to magazines that publish short stories (and not just their own, either), as well as buy more collections and get in touch with authors who do great work (“better yet, contact their publisher”).
Then there’s the magazine’s other big project, the Sirenland Writing Conference. One Story founder Hannah Tinti put the conference together with Dani Shapiro and Antonio Sersale, the owner of the Le Sirenuse hotel in Positano, Italy, where the week-long conference will be held next March, with writing workshops conducted by Shapiro and John Burnham Schwartz in the morning and readings at night. Applications are still being taken for the program until October 31.