short story bubble?
By Anne Stameshkin
On the Virginia Quarterly Review blog, Michael Lukas worries that AWP’s heightened emphasis on the short story is a contributing factor to what he calls the “Short Story Bubble”–and its eventual burst. I’m not sure I entirely buy his argument, but hey, it’s worth discussing…
All around the country, thousands of young fiction writers are scribbling furiously, focusing their creative and psychological energies on producing and publishing short stories, not necessarily because the short story is their favorite form. But, rather, because it’s the form best suited to the workshop, because they think it’s the easiest way to get published, because it’s what everyone else is doing. All the while, the literary magazines these young fiction writers hope to publish their stories in are supported largely by their own tuition, subscription, and contest entry dollars. It doesn’t take John Maynard Keynes to see that this is not a sustainable market. As long as MFA programs continue to grow, as long as short story writers are willing to pay $25 to submit to a contest, this closed feedback loop will continue growing. But, as a lover of the short story, I fear for the day when the bubble bursts. The global economy may not collapse, but I won’t be surprised if a few literary magazines do.
Because the short story is not a popular form with readers (ask any publisher if they are willing to publish a collection of stories, ask Atlantic why they stopped publishing short stories, check the sales of short story collections), I am glad that young fiction writers around the country are focusing their energy on writing and publishing short stories.
As any writer of fiction will confirm, writing a short story is much more demanding than writing a novel, because the short story is a more controlled and artistic form. Because the short story is more artistic than the novel, it seems bound to join poetry as a form read only by a few.
Many young writers are working hard to develop their skills in the creation of complex narratives. And if they succeed, their stories will find an audience, perhaps not a large audience, but an audience that will appreciate their abilities and learn from their labors.