MetaFilter posts tagged with shortstories

Astounding Stories

Artw — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:13:39 -0800

StarShipSofa (previously) celebrates it's 100th issue as a podcast science fiction magazine with StarShipSofa Stories volume 1, an anthology of stories previously podcasted by StarShipSofa, available either as a POD book from Lulu or as a free e-book download, featuring the likes of Michael Moorcock, Peter Watts, Gene Wolfe, Joe R Lansdale, Alastair Reynolds, and Elizabeth Bear.

I'm from Driftwood.

piratebowling — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:09:42 -0800

Part short story forum, part attempt to reach out to isolated teens struggling with their sexuality. I'm from Driftwood; true stories by gay people all over.

Storyreading

ocherdraco — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:06:55 -0800

A guide to Storyreading. "For over ten years now, various friends and I have been getting together on occasion to read stories aloud to each other. This activity—graced with the unlovely but utilitarian name "story reading"—can be a great deal of fun, but can also be rife with pitfalls of various sorts. This guide is an attempt to help others to run story readings. Note that reading stories is different from—and, generally, much easier than—telling stories; while people do occasionally tell stories at these gatherings (and it usually goes over well), that's not the primary emphasis...The origins of our approach to story readings are lost in the mists of antiquity. The idea may have sprung fully-fledged from a conversation I had with DH about a Delany essay called "On Pure Storytelling"; or it may've been derived from MK's reading The Princess Bride aloud, which in turn may've been inspired by folks at Yale who were doing much the same thing. Whatever the history, it's clear that other groups—notably one in Boston—have been having similar sorts of readings for at least as long as we have." Storyreading is essentially a bunch of people getting together and reading 8-10 page pieces, usually short stories (but also essays, or chapters from novels or nonfiction books). Want to start a storyreading group? Here are some places to find things to read:

A list of books read at the Yale group and its satellites
Literary journals: Glimmer Train, One Story, Ploughshares, and Zoetrope All-Story
Anthologies: The O. Henry Prize Stories, the Best American series, the Pushcart Prize Anthology
Collections of short fiction that have won the Story Prize
And, of course, the wonderful treasures of short fiction found by your fellow mefites

An addition to the advice given in the guide: it's nice to keep a wiki or other online list of the things your group has read, so you can go back and find them later. For flavor, some things recently read at my group include:

"A Signal in the Sky Said: Marry Her," by Ben Karlin, in the March 9, 2008 issue of The New York Times. Full text online here.
"The American Male at Age 10" by Susan Orlean, from The New Kings of Nonfiction, edited by Ira Glass
from Liberation by Brian Slattery
“All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis. Full text online here.
"My Affliction" by Gabrielle Bell. Self-published mini-comic later reprinted in Lucky Volume 2 #1.
"The Dubbing of General Garbage" from City Boy by Herman Wouk
from James Brown: Live at the Apollo by Douglas Wolk. Accompanied by the album.
from Celine Dion: Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste by Carl Wilson. Accompanied by the song.
"Excellent" from Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan
"My Uncle in the Garden" from Just An Ordinary Day by Shirley Jackson
from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
from The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange by Mark Barrowcliffe
from Paper Towns by John Green

The Dollar Dreadful Family Library

sarabeth — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:15:41 -0800

The Dollar Dreadful Family Library offers gripping tales of scientific adventures in matrimony, mysterious Appalachian woodsmen, macabre travels in the ether, exotic travels in distant lands, itinerant prospectors, and cunning detectives who pose as genteel dressmakers. Assorted amusements are offered in the form of downloadable PDF booklets, perfect leisure literature for "the distinguished reader or the particularly wealthy dunder-head".

New Yorker short fiction 2008

stbalbach — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:38:17 -0800

New Yorker fiction 2008. Annotated list of short fiction from the past year. "As perhaps the most high-profile venue for short fiction in the world, taking stock of the New Yorker's year in fiction is a worthwhile exercise for writers and readers alike."

Clarkesworld science fiction magazine

Kattullus — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:49:00 -0800

Clarkesworld Magazine has been serving up new science fiction and fantasy short fiction monthly free of charge since October of 2006. The current issue has a story by Robert Reed. Among the authors who have been published in Clarkesworld Magazine are Mike Resnick, Elizabeth Bear, Jeff VanderMeer and Sarah Monette. Clarkesworld has a podcast of readings of selected stories from the magazine. The magazine also publishes non-fiction, separated into two categories, commentary and interviews. Among those interviewed are Gene Wolfe, Kage Baker and Steven Erikson. There is also a covers gallery and a discussion forum.

Internet premier of Princess of Nebraska on YouTube

skynxnex — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:07:31 -0800

The Princess of Nebraska premiered on YouTube this weekend (unrated by MPAA, but 18A+ rating, but on YouTube, so maybe mild NSFW). Often focusing on Chinese immigrants in America and culture gaps (NPR interview; text and audio) between both their new country and across generations, director Wayne Wang has returned to his roots after several more traditional Hollywood movies (Wayne Wang Is Missing). (Known for "Chan Is Missing" and "The Joy Luck Club", he has made movies such as "Maid in Manhattan" recently.) "Princess" is intended as a double feature with traditionally released "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers," "Princess" might "be the first feature feature film by a major director to premiere" only on the internet. Both are based on short stories by Yiyun Li.

Rosenbaum, The Plausible-Fabulist

ninebelow — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 07:13:41 -0800

Like others before him Benjamin Rosenbaum is making his debut short story collection, The Ant King And Other Stories, available from his publishers, Small Beer, as a free download. More than this though, he is holding a competition to find the best derivative work inspired by it. These include "translations, plays, movies, radio plays, audiobooks, flashmob happenings, horticultural installations, visual artworks, slash fanfic epics, robot operas, sequels, webcomics, ASCII art, text adventure games, roleplaying campaigns, knitting projects, handmade shoes, or anything else you feel like." Benjamin Rosenbaum is not a character from The Scarlett Pimpernel, a poet or a writer of children's books as 'Biographical Notes to 'A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-Planes', by Benjamin Rosenbaum' makes clear.

Be afraid

owhydididoit — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:14:41 -0800

Selected Stories of H.P. Lovecraft.

Write Me Stories

goodnewsfortheinsane — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:39:55 -0800

Paulo in London asks musicians to write him a story on an index card. For example, the Polyphonic Spree's Michael Musick and Bryan Wakeland, Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry, Jens Lekman, Sufjan Stevens, and the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne.

essays and short stories in the New Yorker and "Best American" series

stbalbach — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:40:15 -0800

Here are the essays and short stories originally published in The New Yorker that were later collected in Houghton Mifflin’s annual “Best American” anthology series (1915-present). Some of the later ones are freely available online, all are in the Complete New Yorker collection (it's a sort of best-of guide to the archive).

Over 2000 classic short stories

Kattullus — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 09:32:36 -0800

Over 2000 classic short stories from American Literature as well as an option to sign up for a short story of the day rss feed. Among the authors on offer are Kate Chopin, Saki, O. Henry, Louisa May Alcott, Ambrose Bierce, H. P. Lovecraft, Jack London, James Joyce, Willa Cather, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Dickens, Herman Hesse, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Franz Kafka, Honoré de Balzac, Edith Warton, P. G. Wodehouse, Virginia Woolf, Langston Hughes, Leo Tolstoy, Aldous Huxley, Roald Dahl, Henry James, Katherine Mansfield and I could keep going for a while. The point is, there's over 2000 short stories in there.

Short Stories by Roberto Bolaño

Kattullus — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:47:21 -0800

7 short stories by Roberto Bolaño Gómez Palacio, The Insufferable Gaucho, Álvaro Rousselot’s Journey, Phone Calls, Dance Card. From Nazi Literature in the Americas: Edelmira Thompson de Mendiluce, Luz Mendiluce Thompson & Ernesto Pérez Masón and The Fabulous Schiaffino Boys. If you know the fiction of Roberto Bolaño you know what you're in for. If you don't, any of these stories is a good place to start, though the first three are perhaps the most natural starting points. One more story in audio form: A Literary Adventure [Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast] Poems: Self Portrait at Twenty Years and My Life in the Tubes of Survival. Interviews with his two main English language translators Chris Andrews and Natasha Wimmer. Biographical Essay on Bolaño by Wimmer. [pdf] Carmen Boullosa, a friend and contemporary of Bolaño's, describes the literary scene the young Bolaño participated in during the 70's. Paul Berman explains how Bolaño's novel The Savage Detectives fits into the literary history of Latin America. [Bolaño previously on MetaFilter]

Earth gone rogue.

Eideteker — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:30:36 -0800

Would you like to read classic science fiction short story A Pail of Air? Or would you prefer to listen? More short stories. More X Minus 1. More about rogue planets at Wikipedia. More about the superfluid Helium mentioned in the story. The sustained electrical discharges? Superconductivity.

A&P

vronsky — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:42:22 -0800

John Updike (yt) discusses A&P.

201 Stories by Anton Chekhov

Kattullus — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 00:39:56 -0800

201 Stories by Anton Chekhov translated by Constance Garnett presented in order of Russian publication.

Invisible and Redoubtable Beings

Iridic — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:26:12 -0800

"The Great God Pan," by Arthur Machen. "The Beckoning Fair One," by Oliver Onions. "Green Tea," by J. Sheridan LeFanu. "The Boarded Window," by Ambrose Bierce. "The Horla," by Guy de Maupassant.

“Please do the necessary things to stop production of the book.”

sock it to me monkey — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 08:51:18 -0800

"“If the book were to be published as it is in its present edited form, I may never write another story, that’s how closely, God Forbid, some of those stories are to my sense of regaining my health and mental well-being.” The New York Times reported today that Raymond Carver's widow, Tess Gallagher, is pushing to republish the stories in Carver's acclaimed 1981 breakout collection, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," in their original, unedited form. Carver's editor at the time, Gordon Lish, is acknowledged to have aggressively edited many stories this collection almost to the point of "a wholesale rewrite." The two examples provided of endings before and after the Lish edits [pdf; see pgs 5-7] raise unsettling questions.

"He said he'd come like a lion, with wings on..."

Iridic — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 21:03:44 -0800

Here are four classic short stories by John Collier in four different forms: the original text of his famous "Thus I Refute Beelzy"; a 1947 radio script for "Evening Primrose"; a radio version of "Back for Christmas", starring Peter Lorre; and Patton Oswalt's interpretation of "The Chaser."

Story time

dersins — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 08:44:13 -0800

You should read these three stories by Amy Hempel. (Oh, and maybe listen to her read, here.) While you're at it, read some of these idiosyncratic but beautifully-written stories by grammarian Gary Lutz.

Classic Short Stories

Kattullus — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 17:10:58 -0800

Classic Short Stories — "Fewer and fewer people these days read short stories. This is unfortunate—so few will ever experience the joy that reading such fine work can give. The goal of this site is to give a nice cross section of short stories in the hope that these short stories will excite these people into rediscovering this excellent source of entertainment." Authors represented include Saki, Edith Wharton, O. Henry, Guy de Maupassant, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, Gabriel García Marquez, H. G. Wells, Roald Dahl, Anton Chekhov, Charles Dickens, William Carlos Williams and Katherine Mansfield.

fiction fix

otio — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 10:09:35 -0800

Five Chapters. Weekly, serialized short fiction edited by David Daley, the man behind McSweeney's 20-Minute Stories Contest. Some contributors so far: Vendela Vida, Arthur Phillips, Sam Lipsyte, Anthony Swofford, Jess Walter, Stewart O'Nan.

I read until my eyes exploded

Sparx — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 20:45:11 -0800

SF writers only use six words. A collection of six word epics from the cream of contemporary SF writers. Can Mefi do better? I reckon!

... And a bathing suit because you never know.

anjamu — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 22:56:13 -0800

"Excuse me," Schwartzman said to the Home Depot man, "can you tell me where to find tar?" "Tar?" asked the Home Depot man. "What're you using tar for?" "I'm building an ark," said Schwartzman. If there was anything that two years of completing God's preposterous homework assignments had taught Schwartzman it was that there was absolutely nothing you could tell Home Depot Man you were building that would surprise him, that would get any reaction from him at all, for that matter, aside from the usual skepticism about your choice of building materials.

Shalom Auslander recasts Jewish history in short story form. Start with the aforementioned "Prophet's Dilemma," and work your way backwards to "Plagued." [more inside]

Dig short stories? Digg for short stories.

Hartster — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 07:53:42 -0800

ShortStoryFilter. Submit, link and vote for short stories. A lot of it may be a bit sub-McSweeney's at the moment, but with a bit of luck, The Lit List might scratch a readerly itch or two.