SansPoint

The Literature of Tomorrow: Whither the Short Story?

Think about the numbers: 350 fiction programs. 3,000 new graduates per year. Each taking let’s say four workshops, each of which requires three submissions. That’s 36,000 short stories for each graduating class of writers, who have worked to convince each other that the top 1% of short stories - those that come closest to generating workshop consensus - may be published in a literary magazine. A literary magazine whose readership may largely comprise writers looking for a place to publish their short stories. “Guarded self-consciousness” starts to look like a mathematical inevitability. Perversely, then, the greatest danger to the short story may be the very institution that’s sustaining it.

Via The Millions

I’ve only tried in a limited extent to publish my work—though I have made $5 publishing a short story in a defunct online magazine—,and this post fills me with both a little dread and a little hope for getting my words out there on paper, and a check in my pocket.

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