Stories We Love: “The Summer People,” by Shirley Jackson
by Jacob M. Appel
“Soon matters take an even darker turn.” Jacob M. Appel on Shirley Jackson’s most unsettling short story.
“Soon matters take an even darker turn.” Jacob M. Appel on Shirley Jackson’s most unsettling short story.
“Sam Lipsyte drops us right into a room of lack and fear occupied by Tovah Gold”: Mo Daviau on Sam Lipsyte’s “The Climber Room.”
“And yet, it works. Not only does it work, it’s essential to the story. The form is the story.” Kent Kosack takes a look at Bernard Malamud’s puzzling POV-shifter, “My Son the Murderer.”
Join us for our eleventh-annual celebration of the short story, as we dedicate the month of May to short fiction.
“How can I describe my feelings upon reaching this conclusion?”: Jamie Yourdon on Aurelie Sheehan’s “The Nursing Home,” from her new collection, Once into the Night, out from the University of Alabama Press.
“How the writer views the world, their unique angle of vision, is what can draw us in by inviting us to briefly leave behind our familiar vantage point.” Kent Kosack on the power of observation in Dorthe Nors’s “The Heron.”
Steve Wingate makes his first trip to the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute to learn how books make their way into the hands of booksellers, and thereby into the hands of readers.
“Imagine two thousand people reading your interactive novel and each having completely unique story experiences. To me it sounded like the future—and I, as a writer who believes in exploring new storytelling tools, wanted a piece of it.” Returning to his “Quotes & Notes” series, Steven Wingate explores the pleasures and pitfalls of writing interactive fiction.
“And a bobcat may somehow be involved. How can we not read on?”: Christina Ward-Niven takes a close look at the control of tension in Rebecca Lee’s “Bobcat.”
“I love this story because it’s haunting, and hauntingly well-wrought”: Ellen Prentiss Campbell celebrates Josephine Jacobsen and her story “The Edge of the Sea.”
“But there is a catch, a move du Maurier makes that transforms the story from a claustrophobic exploration of gender confinement and powerlessness to something stranger and more sinister”: In this Stories We Love essay, Michael Shou-Yung Shum takes on Daphne du Maurier’s “Blue Lenses.”
