Essay Archive:

The short story is an endangered species. True? False? What's it like to be a practitioner of a form that seems highly under appreciated?

Well, poet and novelist Jonathan Bennett has just published his first book of short stories with Raincoast and he had this to say at the Raincoast Fall Launch Party in Vancouver, BC on November, 19, 2003.

A Short Defence of the Short Story

Of the 165 fiction titles submitted to this year’s Governor General’s Award, by my rough count, 17 were collections of short stories, and only four were from what you might call large presses. Naturally, numbers would fluctuate year over year and my review of the list is a long way from scientifically sound, but in doing the count, I wasn’t surprised at the findings and it is my general impression that they reflect the trend over the past several years.

The current publishing environment is hostile towards the short story. Writer after writer will tell you that publisher after publisher have taken to rejecting short story collections outright because of the form. “We just can’t sell short story collections” has become the ubiquitous line in every rejection letter. Indeed, if an author does not also have an attractive novel to sell alongside their collection of stories or, to put it another way, if an author wished to be solely a practitioner of short stories, then I should think only the smallest of presses might be interested in their career. When short stories do, on occasion, make it on to literary award shortlists, they are viewed as the surprise finalist, the curiosity, the long shot.

This in the country of Alice Munro. Of Mavis Gallant. Of Alistair McLeod. I could go on as Canada has a rich and proud history of short story writers. But lately it seems we have lost our way. Why is this?

I teach short story writing at a community college in Toronto in the continuing education department. Each term I stand in front of a new group of eager students and ask the same question: “What was the last book of short stories you read?” While one or two think to mention Munro, most cannot remember the last book of stories they read. Many, incredibly, admit to never having read one. “How then,” I have to ask these students, “do you expect to be able to write stories if you don’t read them?” So I promptly hand them a reading list sending them off to discover the wonders of the world’s beset short story writers such as William Trevor, David Malouf, and Carol Shields to name just a few.

But is it all their fault? Of the 17 submitted titles I mentioned, I myself, a short story writer, had only heard of about half of them. Short stories receive very few reviews, and almost no other media interest. It was not all that long ago that magazines such as Macleans, Saturday Night, even women’s magazines the likes of Chatelaine published short stories in every issue: but no longer. Outside of niche literary journals, in Canada only Toronto Life still publishes short stories, and then only in one special issue each July. I was happy to see a short story in the new issue of The Walrus—let’s hope they last and stay committed. But, in all, with so few collections being published, and those that are scarcely reviewed, is it really the fault of my students if they, or for that matter any of us, don’t read short stories?

I am not a book marketer. I don’t know why they no longer sell. But I am a reader, and I love short stories. And you know what; I don’t think I am alone. Having now published a collection of short stories, I have begun to run into people who share my passion.

The short story is a form unto itself. Economical, inventive by their very nature, as a writer you have so much latitude within the form. In my own book, Verandah People, which is by no means experimental, there are stories in the third, first and second person. Odd, unexpected, and under-explained events occur. I climb into the heads of characters I never would in a novel because I have the freedom to make whole worlds exist in a matter of just a few pages. Simply put, there is less at stake if you were to fail, and this affords a short story writer a kind of liberty to take imaginative risks that would be jarring, or just plain foolhardy, were he in the middle of a novel.

Tonight, I would like to thank my publisher, Raincoast Books, for staying committed to the short story. I sincerely hope they will continue to make room for a story collection or two each year on their list. In fact, I would like to call on us all to once again take those imaginative risks and get back into the short story business. I call on media to once again publish short stories, and to devote more review space to story collections. But most of all, I call on you, Canadian readers, to seek out short story collections. Show publishers that if they publish them, you will buy them. And, with this in mind, I can think of no better place for this new commitment to begin than with you here tonight—and my book.

Want to comment on this essay? (discuss)

JonathanBennett.com
Raincoast Books
Verandah People at Amazon.ca
After Battersea Park at Amazon.ca

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