Is the short story really worthwhile, is the novel really dead? by Ali Bacon
Ali Bacon My feelings about short stories have always been mixed. Until I began writing I’d read very few unless you count my Mum's Woman’s Own on a rainy day circa 1967. Then in my quest to Become A Writer I signed up to an evening class without noticing the topic was short stories. I enjoyed it but was over the moon when I found out that the excellent teacher was starting another course the following autumn on writing a novel. Since then I only ever really considered short stories as a kind of career stepping-stone, a ‘look at me’ moment in the greater plan of trying to sell a novel to an agent or publisher. Even when I began having some modest success in competitions I was still a reluctant consumer of short stories, literary or otherwise, and if I’m honest, viewed all those claims about the short story having at last come into its own with some scepticism. Don’t get me wrong I’m still not completely won over (of the several anthologies I own, I don’...