The Art of the Short Story

Short stories and advice from 52 great authors of short fiction. Need I really say more? I love a good short story collection, and this most certainly is one. Over 900 pages, so you can enjoy it for a long time. Copyright 2006, meaning I was no longer passing myself off as a teacher when it was published. I could've used it then. But no matter. I still read for pleasure, and it certainly gave me much of that. Another keeper.

Excellent book for reading top notch literature and improving knowledge about contemporary authors. I really enjoyed the collection of work assembled in this book.

I bought this book to use in a course on short fiction at MIT. I expected the usual history of literature book, but what this contains is a treasure of not only excellent, popular fiction, but essays by each of the authors that are as interesting as the stories. I don't think you can find a better collection to study the art of the short story anywhere.

This book's title and subtitle are a good summary for a book I feel belongs every creative writing class and on the desk of every aspiring writer. And for only $18.95 USD for 926 pages, the book is a bargain. If you've recently purchased books for a college class, you will know what I mean, I've paid upwards of $100 for a book. The Art of the Short Story is an anthology of the best stories from the best short story writers. See if you recognize a few of these names: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Stephen Crane, Edgar Allen Poe, Sherwood Anderson, Herman Melville, Jack London, Gustave Flaubert, James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, Franz Kafka, Kate Chopin, D. H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, Anton Chekov, F. Scott Fitgerald, William Faulkner, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ernest Hemingway, Ursula K. Le Guin, John Updike, Raymond Carver, Ralph Ellison, Joyce Carol Oates, Shirley Jackson, Margaret Atwood, Alice Walker, Flannery O'Connor. What I like best about this book is that, in addition to the great short stories, the book also contains commentary from each author. The commentary varies. The author might discuss how or why the story was written, or public reaction to the story, or their view of literature, or give specific advice on an area of the writer's craft. For example: Earnest Hemingway's essay is on Crafting one True Line. Jorge Luis Borge's author perscpective is Literature as Experience. Shirley Jackson's essay is The Public Reception of "The Lottery." There are too many to list here but the masters discuss the entire spectrum of short story writing from why to write to elements such as character, plot, style, and suspense to authorial explanation and defense of stories.

This collection has a nice variety of authors and stories. There are unmistakable classics like Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," Ernest Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" and James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" but also stories by several authors I had never been introduced to before. The result is a fascinating range of styles and perspectives which make the book a compelling and inspiring read. In addition, many of the "Author's Perspective" pieces give great insights into the lives and views of the writers. For example, Baldwin writes about "Race and the African-American Writer," Faulkner writes about "The Human Heart in Conflict with Itself," and Kafka discusses "The Metamorphosis." These are writings that are not often seen, yet they go a very long way toward placing the story and author in context. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.