People are divided as to whether short stories are dead or alive but at least we're talking about them

You know, I'd really like to own a bookstore so that I could put a table (maybe a small one) at the front of the shop and put short story collections on it so that readers could at least have the chance to get the book in their hands and have the page fall open on some choice and enticing phrase. There's all this talk about the convenience for short stories for people in this busy age but in my experience there is nothing convenient about bending down to the lower layers of a bookshelf at the back of the shop. While most people may find their reading matter on line, the physical bookshop is a unique way for readers to find authors in the first place, in the flesh/paper as it were.

There is nothing that a short story can't do that a novel does and when a short story does something well it beats a novel hands down. I say that as both a reader and a writer (of both the novel and short story) and despite the strange comments at the end of this article about the Costa's short story prize in which Jonathan Rupin at Foyles says

I think [the new award] is entirely admirable, and of course we will support it, but I can't see there ever being a substantial shift in the market for short stories in the UK … Perhaps short stories don't get the depth of character and complexity of plot which appeals to British readers. There are relatively few authors in the UK who sell strongly because of their writing style. Most bestselling authors are principally loved for their storytelling ability."

Is he trying to say that short stories don't have the ability to show depth of character or tell a story? I get that there may be one plot thread not several but this is where short stories are the magnifying glass and novels are the wider view. Both have their robust merits. Because of it's magnified quality a short story can linger longer, both in memory and in feeling. I certainly had that experience when reading a recent story by the widely regarded master of short stories, William Trevor. His An Idyll in Winter is extraordinary for it's delicacy of detail, it's tension, an extraordinary phrasing which reaches for things we feel at the heart of us but cannot quite say.

So is the short story alive or dead? In this article focussing mainly on the American market Stephen King believes that it is dying due to what he considers formulaic stories churned out by the MA in Creative Writing. He notes that the short story magazines are harder and harder to find in the store, (again on the bottom shelf) below the fashion and lifestyle. He thinks that Short Story Reviews are read only by other writers, that a connection to the ordinary business of life is not being made. He may have some valid points but I don't sign up to his overall pessimism.

On the other hand, this recent article in the Sunday Independent (which mentions new online Irish lit mag The South Circular, The Munster Literature Centre who publish stories and run the renowned Sean O' Faolain prize as well as lit mag the Stinging Fly) is a far more optimistic look at how the short story is doing. There is still a huge amount of interest in the short story and for many it is where their writing journey begins. There is a lot more talk about short stories these days. Now if I could just get me a bookshop and put short stories at the forefront where readers might sample their delights. This year has been designated Year of the Short Story so on Random Acts of Optimism, I'll be putting short stories at the forefront and talking to writers and readers of the form and letting you know of interesting developments and collections.